Happy New Year!
We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year! We are excited to be back in the office and are looking forward to continuing to work with our clients in 2023.
King's Coronation - Extra Bank Holiday
Following his accession to the throne last September, King Charles III will be officially coronated in a ceremony being held on Saturday 6th May 2023. It is sure to be a historic event that many of your employees will be excited to see.
As a result of this, there will be an additional Bank Holiday in 2023, on Monday 8th May, to celebrate the coronation.
Whether your employees are entitled to an additional day off for the Bank Holiday will depend on the wording of their contract. If your contract lists the 8 standard Bank Holidays, then you do not have to give any extra entitlement for this day. However, if the contract does not state specifics with regards to Bank Holidays, they may be entitled to take the day, or receive a day off in lieu if they are required to work on the bank holiday.
Many employers will choose to close for this day regardless, but if you would like clarity on your employees entitlement to this extra Bank Holiday based on your contracts of employment, please get in touch.
National Minimum Wage Increases
At the end of 2022, it was announced that the National Minimum Wage will be increasing in April of this year.
Below is a breakdown of the current rate, the future rate, and the % increase:
Current Rate Rate From April 2023 % Increase
National Living Wage £9.50 £10.42 9.7%
21-22 Year Old Rate £9.18 £10.18 10.9%
18-20 Year Old Rate £6.83 £7.49 9.7%
16-17 Year Old Rate £4.81 £5.28 9.7%
Apprentice Rate £4.81 £5.28 4.6%
This increase will not only affect hourly minimum wage workers, it will affect other employees too.
When thinking about what the minimum wage increase means for your business, it is important to not only think about employees on an hourly rate, but also employees on a salary, as the increase means that the minimum salary for an individual aged 23 or over working 37.5 hours per week will be more than £20,300.
It is also important to keep in mind, that although this pay increase is great for minimum wage workers, it will also affect employees who are on above minimum wage. Think about those supervisors who might currently be on a substantial amount more than minimum wage workers, when the minimum wage increases, this may no longer be the case. Employees on multiple levels of the business will need to have their pay reviewed.
Employees could also be affected because of salary sacrifice schemes, such as pension contributions, which could bring their take-home pay below the minimum wage. Employers will need to have measures in place to ensure that this does not happen.
At The HR Consultancy we are aware that this is big news for our clients, combined with the rising energy bills and inflation, many small business will be worried about additional staff costs.
If you would like any advice or support on preparing for the upcoming National Living Wage increase please contact us.
If you have any HR queries please give a member of the team a call today, on 01926 853388, or email angela.roberts@arhrconsult.com. Visit www.arhrconsult.com for more information.