Closed beause of snow, pro rata holidays & firing someone
“We’ve had to close because of the snow. Do I still have to pay my staff?”
Whether you haven’t had enough custom or it’s too unsafe to work, closing because of the weather is a business decision.
That means you should pay staff in full for hours they would have worked had you stayed open. So if you completely close, open later or close earlier, you should pay your employees as normal.
But check the contracts of employment. If there’s a contractual right to place staff on unpaid lay off, use it so that your business isn’t paying staff when it isn’t making money.
“My employee only works during school term times. Does she get 28 days’ holiday?”
Term time holiday calculations are complex, so there isn’t a specific way to work them out. Staff on term-time contracts accrue annual leave on a pro-rata basis, so check the holiday entitlement in her contract of employment.
One way to work out her holiday leave is to divide the normal holiday entitlement of 28 days by 52 weeks and then multiply this by the number of weeks she’s contracted to work for you each year.
A warning: there are risks in getting the calculation wrong, so get advice before trying to work it out.
“One of my delivery drivers has lost his licence. Can I just let him go?”
Losing a licence can be a potentially fair dismissal under the ‘statutory illegality’ or ‘statutory ban’ ground because continuing to employ him as a driver will break the law.
But to achieve a fair dismissal, you need to look at alternatives. Is there another role available in the business they can do that doesn’t involve driving? If driving takes up a small part of the role, can he swap roles with another employee?
Where there are no alternatives and you follow a fair process, it’s likely to be a fair dismissal.