My holiday pay doesn't add up. Have i been 'shorted'?

BarrelScraper

Ok, at my work, my annual leave pay is calculated based on an average of the previous 12 weeks pay (all gross).

Add up the previous 12 weeks gross, divide by 12 to give you your weekly pay, divide by 5 to give you your daily. That is how it's been worked out (for me) for YEARS!

This applies to holiday that i take at any time in the year, and also bank holidays - Good Friday, Easter Monday, May Day Holiday, August bank hol, Christmas etc. The same system is used for the whole lot. The only difference is...

Let's say you take the final week of August off - a bank holiday Monday to most people (I'm aware some/all areas of Scotland don't get this). If you take this week, then your payslip will show 4 days "holiday" and 1 day "bank holiday" but it'll all be at the same pay rate - based on your 12 weeks average.



I recently had a holiday & picked up my slip. I took 5 days, so i was surprised when it only said 4 days. Underneath was a strange (lesser) amount that i couldn't figure out.
The short of it is.....

With the Royal Wedding this year, we were all told that we'd have to work, but we could use this holiday elsewhere in the year. GREAT.

What they've done, is said that i worked 8 hours that day, so they've used that days holiday for part of my 5 day holiday, and paid it at a rate of 8 hours * my rate of pay (as i worked 8 hours on the Royal Wedding). Reason being (apparently) some people only work 3 or 4 hours a day, so that's all they're being paid when they use that days holiday.


I left the office & started thinking more about it.

Hang on a minute - it's a bank holiday surely? No different therefore, to Easter Monday etc etc etc etc, so SURELY should get using the same method?

I then did number crunching....

If i'm paid 8 hours, then the pay i received for that day, divided by my hourly rate should therefore surely = 8 (hours). It doesn't. In fact, it doesn't = anything that i get paid by. It's marginally over 7.

We get paid in 1/4hour blocks. 7.25 hours at my rate of pay works out as too much, 7.00 hours works out at too little. So i don't know HOW they've worked it out. It's like they've plucked random figures.


QUESTION:

All i really need to know is CAN THEY DO THIS? A simple yes or no. If they can, then there's nothing i can do. If they can't, then i'll have to consider my options.

I've just about had all the fight taken out of me, but there's still a bit in me that can't take to someone walking all over me.



Not a negative on anyone else here, but i'm hoping SarEl can offer some help here. If so, i can pass you specific figures to help make this easier to understand, that i can't/wont post on an open forum.


I should also point out that while i get paid a 12 week average for my holidays, some people don't. I don't know whether this is employee or department specific. All i know is i've been paid by this method for years.

agrinnall

Why don't you feel you can post the figures? Nobody knows who you are or who you work for so they're just numbers. Without them it's pretty hard to work out what your issue is and what can be done about it.

BarrelScraper

Someone from my work may well read this thread, think hang on this sounds very much like Joe Bloggs. Then the figures come in & it all but confirms it.

But ok:

The amount i was paid for the day was £54.56 at a pay rate of £7.73 (my overtime rate).

As i've been told that this should be 8 hours pay .... £54.56 divided by £7.73 should = 8, correct? It doesn't. It equals [7.058214747736093].

So it's more than 7 (hours).

As i've already said, we get paid in 1/4 hour blocks. So let's try £7.73 [multiplied] by 7.25(hours). Maybe this will work out & they'll have paid me 7 & 1/4 hours?? No. This sum = £56.0425.

So they've paid me more than 7 hours, but not quite 7.25 hours ..... even though we get paid in 1/4 hour blocks.


My 12 week average (for the 4 other days) was £63.38 (per day).

So i THINK i've been shorted by £8.82. Not only this, but i've got holidays coming up soon .... so the 12 week average on those will be impacted by this. Ok the impact will be minimal, and pence, but it's not the point. The point here is .... can they do this, or can they not?

getmore4less

why is it the overtime rate?

How does it work out at normal rates

BarrelScraper

Normal rate (£6.82/hr up to 40.00 hours (but not 40.25 hours & beyond)) would obviously work out even less.

I don't know why overtime rate. I don't even know why it's not paid the same way every other holiday is (12 week average). I don't know why the £56 divided by the hourly rate DOESN'T equal a pay segment (i.e. 7 hours dead, 7.25 hours dead, 7.50 hours dead or 7.75 hours dead etc).

I don't have a clue why everything has been changed for this 1 day when it was still called a "national bank holiday" ... the same way the others are.



I SHOULD STRESS.....

I am NOT saying this happened back in April when the royal wedding was.

All staff got a notice to say they HAD to work the royal wedding, but the national holiday could be used elsewhere in the year at a date agreed by the company. <--- no problem with this.
So everyone worked.
Then in early November, i take a weeks holiday (that's 5 days). 1 of which was this "extra" day i gained from the royal wedding.
So this happened in NOVEMBER, not april, and for some reason the pay system got changed for this one day.

agrinnall

I don't think anybody on here is likely to be able to answer the question. Clearly the figures don't add up in a way that is meaningful based on the information you currently have, the only way you'll be able to resolve that is by asking your employer how they have calculated the pay for that day. If their explanation doesn't make sense then you could past that here too to see if anyone can figure it out.

PS Are you sure they haven't paid you based on the 12 weeks up to 29 April? I realise that would be a silly thing to do, and far more complicated for them to work out, but it could be the explanation.

getmore4less

you need to ask your employer

BarrelScraper

Progress & not today. To explain:

Two different people deal with the staff wages - as various people are paid 1 of 2 ways. Some are paid for the hours they work, others are salary. One person deals with the hourly paid (unfortunately the more offensive of the 2 - unfortunate as i fall in this category) and the other deals with salary paid peoples wages. This person is not offensive in the slightest, but that's drifting off topic.

So i spoke to the 'other' person today & raised my concerns. This person couldn't understand it either, but eventually got back to me while i was on my break, with the answer just as i was about to test it out actually.

The offensive person who processed my wage slip inputted the incorrect rate of pay on the slip. My OVERTIME rate of pay was inputted, yet the calculation had been done using my BASIC rate of pay.

£54.56 -divided by- £6.82 (my basic rate) ............. = 8 (hours - that i was told i'd been paid).

So the numbers tally, finally.

All that remains is ... CAN THEY DO THIS?


I questioned (the non offensive wage processor) why the system had been changed for this one day (the royal wedding) as it was a bank holiday, just like Easter Monday, just like Good Friday etc etc.

This person informed me that it wasn't actually a bank holiday .... it was a "public holiday".


What on earth is the difference i thought, but accepted it as i couldn't challenge it as i didn't know enough to do so.

So the question remains - can they do this?

If they can, then it really is penny pinching!! But there'll be nothing i can do & i'll accept it & move on.

getmore4less

What pay did you get the day you worked?
Thats the day any enhanced rate should have been paid.

This is TOIL at normal rate.

BarrelScraper

The day i worked? Do you mean the royal wedding day? The pay i got for that was basic (£6.82) as the Monday was also a bank holiday/public holiday (whichever it wants to be named), so i hadn't accrued 40 hours in time.

TOIL?

I'm getting confused now. All i'm looking for is whether things have been done correctly or not really. If they have then fair enough & that's obviously the end of it all. If something is incorrect, then it needs looking at.