issues with holiday entitlement

mira666

hey all

need a bit of advice, I have now been in my current role for 12 months (first 3.5 with an agency and remainder with company directly), they use an automated system for booking holidays which on the 1st Jan this year said I had 240 hours to use, i've been quite happily booking holidays all year with apx 24 hours left to use over xmas.

However much to my shock and distress the company has now worked out that I should have not had that many holidays and reduced it by 66 hours (now down to 174) meaning that I am 42 hours in the red, the company stance has either been one of "not our problem" or "tough s**t", no one has said whether I have to pay the hours back or can still take holidays that were previously booked.

I have dug out my contract which states 210 hours of holiday during the first 12 months of employment.

Just wondered if anyone had any advice.

Victoriajayne

A couple of questions...
What date did you switch from the agency to the company payroll ?
When you were with the agency, did you have to book your holiday directly with them ?
How many hours a week are you contracted to work ?
Does your contract only mention the 210 hours in the first year, or does it say anything else about future holiday entitlement ?
And does the company holiday year run 1st Jan to 31st Dec ?

System

am i reading the op right ? the 1st 3 1/2 months were via an agency ,if so then work may be right as you havent been with them a full year only 8 1/2 months so any holiday would be worked out on that basis.

SarEl

I agree that there isn't quite enough information to call this, but it does sound somewhere about correct. If the leave year is 1st January to 31st December and you have 20 hours leave per month (the 240 hours) then the employer would owe you about 65 or 66 (depending on exact dates) less than this because you didn't work for them for the first 3.5 months - you worked for the agency, who should have paid for your holiday during the first 3.5 months of the year. So that bit makes sense - but the 210 doesn't! In terms of what holiday you are entitled to, obviously the best thing to do would be to query the employer and check their calculations, and point out the decrepancies in the contract (it may be an old contract and somebody has forgotten to update it since the annual leave entitlement went up!).

But in terms of if you have overtaken holidays, this is between you and the employer. I think it unlikely that they would let you take further holiday since you will simply go further "into the red". Legally speaking, that which you have already taken is an overpayment which could be claimed back. If your leave is more than the statutory minimum, they may be prepared to allow you to take less holiday next year and pay it back this way - but obviously this depends on there being a more generous entitlement than the law allows, as they can't negotiate giving you less than the law says.

But the first port of call should be to get the exact entitlement and number of hours taken sorted out with your employer.

Victoriajayne

I read it like this ....
OP started working at company 12 months ago - start of November 2009. Worked through agency for first 3.5 months, so transferred to company payroll around mid Feb 2010. So for period mid Feb to end Dec 2010, holiday entitlement should be around 210 x 10.5/12 = approx 184 hours.

210 hours a year is 5.6 weeks statutory entitlement at 37.5 hrs/week.

BUT ... OP says they were on the holiday system on 1st January, before they were even transferred to the company payroll.
I would guess then that the OP was added onto the holiday system when they first started working at the company last year, and 30 hours have been carried over from the end of last year ????. And the system has now been updated to reflect the actual date the OP joined the payroll.

mira666

Ok, a lot of queries to answer here

holiday year runs from 1st Jan to 31st December
my contract for permanent employment was signed by the company on 19th Feb and myself on 22nd Feb
when I was with the agency the holiday was still requested through the company.
Holiday entitlement is supposed to then be 225 in 2nd year and 240 in subsequent years

SarEl

mira666 wrote: »

when I was with the agency the holiday was still requested through the company.

I think this is where the problem lies. You may have had to request the holiday through the company - but your holiday entitlement and your pay came from the agency and not the company. So you didn't have any holiday entitlement until your formally started working with the company (and the dates signed don't help - you would have to use the day that you actually started working for them and not the agency!).

mira666

ok, but in that case why have they taken holiday that I booked during the agency period into account when working out how many hours I have used.

anamenottaken

If you have a contract it will specify the date on which your continuous employment began. What does it say? Is there mention of employment with any previous employer not being part of your period of continuous employment?

As said above, the date of signing of an employment contract is not significant in relation to when the period of employment began. The written particulars of employment do not have to be signed by anyone but there is a requirement to provide, inter alia, the date of commencement of employment.

SarEl

mira666 wrote: »

ok, but in that case why have they taken holiday that I booked during the agency period into account when working out how many hours I have used.

I don't know - because you didn't mention that before! Maybe best to ask the employer to explain and then ask us if it's right? Because it's a bit hard to answer a query when we don't know the hours worked or the relevant dates.