United Kingdom: Deloitte introduces flexible public holidays

On 26 January, consulting giant Deloitte announced a flexible public holiday policy for its 22,000 UK employees, meaning they can opt to work on public holidays such as Christmas Day or Good Friday if they wish, taking other days in the year off in exchange. “Our new approach means that our people can choose to take public holiday leave on the dates that are most meaningful to them,” Jackie Henry, Managing Partner for People & Purpose at Deloitte, explains. Staff at the firm “are still entitled to take public holidays on the days they fall, or they can take these days off at a different time of the year if they prefer”, she says, adding that the aim of the measure is to create “an inclusive environment — one where people feel like they belong and are better able to thrive, respecting different backgrounds and individual circumstances”. Deloitte is not the first to launch such a policy in the UK; at the start of the year accounting firm Grant Thornton made public holidays flexible for its staff in the country. “We want to support our people celebrating the holidays and observances that are central to their religion, ethnicity, cultural heritage or other parts of their identity,” says Perry Burton, Head of People and Culture at Grant Thornton UK. Spotify, the Swedish music streaming giant, introduced a similar policy in 2017.