Charity employees are taking fewer annual leave days than other industries, despite their leave allowance rising, a new survey has found.

Analysis conducted by HR systems specialist Access PeopleHR found the number of annual leave days has dropped by 4% in the charity sector over the last three years.

This comes despite the average allowance in the sector rising by 11% - from 37.2 to 41.4 days, including bank holidays – and the sector reporting the highest allocation of annual leave days to staff.

The analysis looked at over 3,000 companies across industries, including financial and insurance, transportation and storage, agriculture, water supply, electricity and gas, wholesale and retail, social work and more.

The report has attributed the dip in leave to the increase in demand, which “may be leading to fewer people feeling like they have the time to take annual leave”.

“Whether it’s financial worries, busy work schedules or simply not having enough booked in your calen-dar to justify annual leave, there’s hundreds of complex reasons why some staff in the charity sector may not be utilising all of their annual leave,” Access PeopleHR managing director, Charles Butter-worth said.

“This report into the current status of annual leave across multiple industries in the UK highlights how important it is for employers and companies to have a stringent HR system in place that makes it easy for staff to book holidays, but also simple for managers to spot those that haven’t booked enough, and encourage them to set aside dates in the calendar for time off.

“The fact that holiday entitlement has grown so much in recent years is promising, however it will be-come pointless if they’re seen as job perks - but people are too busy to take them. Companies need to take action to identify the reasons for the lack of holiday requests, and ensure that they implement ways of working that rectify this.”

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