Small Business Finance News
Small Businesses Planning Paid Holiday Schedules For 2015
Written by Tim Morral
Published: 11/16/2014
As executive leaders begin to make budget and HR decisions for 2015, a new survey shows which paid holidays small businesses intend to offer next year--and which ones they won't.
Paid holidays are valuable employment benefits, but they have financial and operational consequences for small businesses. To satisfy both worker expectations and productivity goals, small business owners need to actively monitor the number of paid holidays they offer each year.
Small Business Survey Results: 2015 Paid Holidays
With planning for next year in full swing, small business owners are taking a closer look at their paid holiday schedules. According to a recent paid holiday survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), most businesses intend to offer several paid holidays during the 2015 calendar year, including:
- New Year's Day on Thursday, Jan. 1 (95 percent)
- Memorial Day on Monday, May 25 (94 percent)
- Day before Independence Day, Friday, July 3 (60 percent)
- Independence Day, Saturday, July 4 (76 percent)
- Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 7 (95 percent)
- Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 26 (97 percent)
- Day after Thanksgiving, Nov. 27 (76 percent)
- Christmas Day, Friday, Dec. 25 (97 percent)
Fewer businesses plan to offer paid time off for other holidays:
- Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, Monday, Jan. 19 (37 percent).
- Presidents Day, Monday, Feb. 16 (35 percent).
- Columbus Day, Monday, Oct. 12 (16 percent).
- Veterans Day, Wednesday, Nov. 11 (20 percent).
Best Practices in Paid Holidays for Small Businesses
Paid holidays and other Paid Time Off (PTO) policies can be useful tools for recruiting and for making current employees feel like valued members of the team. Additionally, paid holidays help workers achieve a proper work-life balance, which can play a significant role in employee retention.
However, paid holidays can also be an expensive employment benefit that increases employee compensation costs. As a result, small business employers should weigh the costs and benefits, and create a paid holiday schedule that makes the most sense for the business as well as their employees.
Like all PTO policies, paid holiday schedules need to be communicated in employee handbooks. Annual updates to paid holiday schedules should be distributed before year-end to avoid the possibility of misunderstandings, since paid holidays typically vary from one calendar year to the next.
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