Employment Holiday

Nelson341

Hello

I just wanted to see if anyone could help with this. My holiday allowance for a year is 20 days plus the 8 bank holiday. I started work in May so I know this will then go down to around 13-13.5 days. In my contract it says: "for part years of services your entitlement will be calculated as 1/12th of the annual entitlement for each completed month of service during that holiday year".

My manager has said that I won't be paid in August for my week off as that means I earn 1.3 days per month & have already taken that. I tried to explain that it meant part months not employed meant I wouldn't get the full 20 days. He is adamant that it means I can only take the days off that I have actually earned through working and nothing in advance of that.
Is this right or should I be allowed to use my 13ish days as I please within the 8 months regardless of months worked?

Gas_Powered_Toothbrush

Your manager is right, you cannot take paid leave until you have accrued it.

Some employers may allow you to take the 13 days as you see fit (subject to the proviso that if your employment ends early then you'll have to pay it back), but they are under no obligation to do so.

anamenottaken

Nelson341 wrote: »

Hello

I just wanted to see if anyone could help with this. My holiday allowance for a year is 20 days plus the 8 bank holiday. I started work in May so I know this will then go down to around 13-13.5 days. In my contract it says: "for part years of services your entitlement will be calculated as 1/12th of the annual entitlement for each completed month of service during that holiday year".

My manager has said that I won't be paid in August for my week off as that means I earn 1.3 days per month & have already taken that. I tried to explain that it meant part months not employed meant I wouldn't get the full 20 days. He is adamant that it means I can only take the days off that I have actually earned through working and nothing in advance of that.
Is this right or should I be allowed to use my 13ish days as I please within the 8 months regardless of months worked?

As this is your first year of employment, the employer can say that you cannot have paid leave until you have accrued it. Not all employers operate in this way but it is legal for them to do so.

However they are not operating lawfully if they say you only accrue holiday for complete months of service. You actually accrue statutory paid holiday for every day you work your contracted hours.

What date was the beginning of your employment? What is the final day of the holiday year?

anamenottaken

To add:

As an example,

If you worked for half of May, all of June and July and half of August (up to the time your holiday finished, you would have "earned" one quarter of your annual entitlement, ie 7 days.

From those 7 days you would deduct the May bank holiday, leaving 6 days to be taken - enough for a one-week holiday.

Have you taken any other holiday?

anamenottaken

Gas_Powered_Toothbrush wrote: »

Your manager is right, you cannot take paid leave until you have accrued it.

Some employers may allow you to take the 13 days as you see fit (subject to the proviso that if your employment ends early then you'll have to pay it back), but they are under no obligation to do so.

There is no law which says paid leave cannot be taken until it is accrued.

(But if you know who the OP's employer is you would know what rules they have in place for the first year of servic and could confirm that the manager is interpreting them correctly.)

agrinnall

The law allows your employer to fully control when leave is taken if they want to. Certainly not allowing holiday to be taken before it is earned is quite common, it's useful for industries where people often work short term as it means there's no need to recover overpaid holidays when someone leaves. They can do this throughout your employment if they want, not just in the first year.

In this case what gaspoweredtoothbruch says about the way holiday is accrued is correct, because your employer is only allowing you the legal minimum so refusing to accrue holiday for every day worked could lead to you being given less than the minimum. If their holiday allowance was above the minimum then it may have been legal to operate a 'full month' policy (which is what my employer does).

Nelson341

Hello. Thanks for the fast replies.

See I have always had it where I had my holiday as I decided and if I left early it would then come out of a final salary. This is why I wasn't sure he was right, thanks for clearing this up. I m entitled to 20 days plus the bank holidays.

I started on the 1st May & have taken 5 days holiday during this time.

The holiday starts on the 1st Jan & ends 31st of December.

Thanks to you 3 for your replies!

AP007

Nelson341 wrote: »

Hello. Thanks for the fast replies.

See I have always had it where I had my holiday as I decided and if I left early it would then come out of a final salary. This is why I wasn't sure he was right, thanks for clearing this up. I m entitled to 20 days plus the bank holidays.

I started on the 1st May & have taken 5 days holiday during this time.

The holiday starts on the 1st Jan & ends 31st of December.

Thanks to you 3 for your replies!

They can not however stop you from taking the holiday by the time the holiday year ends

anamenottaken

Nelson341 wrote: »

Hello. Thanks for the fast replies.

See I have always had it where I had my holiday as I decided and if I left early it would then come out of a final salary. This is why I wasn't sure he was right, thanks for clearing this up. I m entitled to 20 days plus the bank holidays.

I started on the 1st May & have taken 5 days holiday during this time.

The holiday starts on the 1st Jan & ends 31st of December.

Thanks to you 3 for your replies!

So, if you began on 1 May and work to the end of the holiday year you will have been due 2/3 (8/12) of the 20 "ordinary" days and 2/3 of the 8 bank holidays. Two-thirds of 28 is 18.67 days (inclusive of the 5 bank holidays between 1 May and 31 December). Your entitlement cannot be rounded down - but could be rounded up to something more convenient than 0.67 of a day.

You mention having taken 5 days holiday so far. Is that inclusive of the two May bank holidays or in addition to those?

Only if you did not include the May bank holidays in your 5, will you not have accrued a small amount of paid leave entitlement by the time of your August break. The suggestion that you accrue only 1.3 days/month is clearly wrong. Even if you take out the bank holidays from the calculation, in a normal year you accrue 1.67 days/month.

You need to make sure they understand that they cannot simply apportion the 20 ordinary days and then that you get 5 bank holidays (May, August and December). That would not be apportioning the bank holidays and would be denying you some of your entitlement.

anamenottaken

agrinnall wrote: »

The law allows your employer to fully control when leave is taken if they want to. Certainly not allowing holiday to be taken before it is earned is quite common, it's useful for industries where people often work short term as it means there's no need to recover overpaid holidays when someone leaves. They can do this throughout your employment if they want, not just in the first year. (It is only the first year that they can insist holiday is accrued before it is paid. They can, of course, always say when holiday can be taken.)

In this case what gaspoweredtoothbruch says about the way holiday is accrued is correct, (what gaspoweredtoothbrush categorically stated - that holiday could not be taken until it had been accrued - was incorrect) because your employer is only allowing you the legal minimum so refusing to accrue holiday for every day worked could lead to you being given less than the minimum. If their holiday allowance was above the minimum then it may have been legal to operate a 'full month' policy (which is what my employer does).

The "full month" policy can apply only to the element which is above statutory.