Substitution of Public Holidays - Could it work in your business?
How can this benefit the business and our employees?
What do I need to consider?
If your organisation was to consider allowing employees to substitute their public holidays there are some important factors to consider from both a legal and an agreement perspective.
From a legal perspective some of things to consider include the following points:
From an agreement perspective it is important to recognise that an employer cannot push their values or opinions or preferences onto an employee. For example, if an employer determined that for their branding purposes, they did not want to recognise Australia Day (as has increasingly become more contentious), and to operate as business as usual, they could not force this decision onto their employees. This is because the public holiday continues to be a designated public holiday.
There can be a fine line between an employer advocating for a social change in connection with their preferences and culture, and respecting an employee’s right to make their own choice based on their preferences.
If an organisation does allow for substitution of public holidays, this should only be promoted as an option and a choice, and not a preference or a directive. It’s essential that employees do not face any judgement or discrimination at work based on making their own choices.
As mentioned above, there may be some benefits in allowing public holidays to be substituted. If an employer is interested in exploring this within their organisation, they would first need to check the legality of doing so. Following that, it could be a good idea to explore this option with your workforce to see what they think about the opportunity for substitution. This could be done for example by preparing a brief pulse survey to canvas opinions and capture feedback.
If your organisation does implement public holiday substitution, then it would be necessary to document this agreement with your employees on each occasion it may occur.
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Information in HR Advice Online guides and blog posts is meant purely for educational discussion of human resources issues. It contains only general information about human resources matters and due to factors, such as government legislation changes, may not be up to date at the time of reading. It is not legal advice and should not be treated as such.
