Landmark ruling | Supreme Court decision on holiday pay will have huge implications for HR

A court has passed a landmark legal ruling declaring that employees who only work for part of the year, such as term-time workers, are entitled to the same holiday pay as colleagues working all year.

Following a seven-year legal battle, the Supreme Court announced its long-awaited decision in the landmark case of Harpur Trust v Brazel on Wednesday, July 20, 2022.

The case focussed on the issue of whether a worker’s right to paid annual leave is accumulated according to their working pattern, or if it should be pro-rated to reflect the fact that they don’t work for a full year.

Employment law experts have said the ruling has definitively answered how employers calculate holiday pay for permanent workers with no set hours such as ad-hoc, zero hours or term time workers, and is set to have huge implications for the HR function.