Being asked to take holiday allowance from next year's leave

indiegirl_2

I can't find an answer to this on the web, and whilst waiting on a callback from CAB thought I'd see if anyone here knew.


Company has just announced an enforced shutdown at the end of the year, and has advised staff that if they do not have enough leave allowance remaining to cover the three days, they will have to take them out of next year's allowance to cover them.


Is this legal? I can't find anything online to say that it is.


Grateful for any advice.

InsideInsurance

As per http://www.worksmart.org.uk/rights/can_my_employer_make_me_take_my your employer can make you take time off when they want you to as long as they give you the required notice.

If you dont have sufficient annual leave left then arguably you either have to have it as unpaid leave and just not get paid for those 3 days or alternatively use days from next years entitlement to ensure you receive full pay.

To be honest its fairly generous of them to allow you to use next years allocation. Most would be straight unpaid leave if you didnt have enough hols left

McKneff

Pretty fair of the company to be honest.


They could just as easily have said, 'if you don't have enough holidays left, you will not be paid'

indiegirl_2

Thanks both.


That makes sense - I don't personally think it's a bad thing, I just wondered around the legalities of it.


Like you say, the alternative is to take it unpaid, and they've now offered the chance to work up one day extra of the three, which is also fair and upfront of them.


Now to placate my staff who may complain!

Podge52

But your question as regards the legality has not been answered.

Could an employer force their employee's to take all of next years holiday entitlement this year ?

I think not, and if not how much would they be allowed to move to other years?

pelirocco

Podge52 wrote: »

But your question as regards the legality has not been answered.

Could an employer force their employee's to take all of next years holiday entitlement this year ?

I think not, and if not how much would they be allowed to move to other years?

they probably cant , but they are shutting down for the 3 days so i would suspect the alternative is they can make you take unpaid leave

getmore4less

As long as you still get statutory minimum next holiday year(5.6weeks) it will be legal. Although the 1.6 week carry over could be a carry back with agreement.

liney

But would she have to take it as unpaid? The company is obliged to provide X hours work per week (assuming she is not on a zero hour contract) so would enforcing a shut down after she has used her annual entitlement not breach this?

getmore4less

liney wrote: »

But would she have to take it as unpaid? The company is obliged to provide X hours work per week (assuming she is not on a zero hour contract) so would enforcing a shut down after she has used her annual entitlement not breach this?

Good point,

without the relevant variable hours in the contract it could be a layoff.

Another_not_new_user

getmore4less wrote: »

Good point,

without the relevant variable hours in the contract it could be a layoff.

Yes, a very good point. Another good point, of course, would be whether the alternative is redundancies, and where in the list of them the OP may be.


I think if we are simply talking about a few days I would be inclined to suggest that the OP goes with it, but keeps an eye on the big picture as to whether the company is going under, or even if it will simply cut back. A plan B and a plan C might be better than a plan A. Rights are only worth what you can make out of them, and assuming the OP can claim lay off pay, three days worth is probably of less value than the wage, and may not be worth a fight over it.

indiegirl_2

Just got back to this.

There are no redundancies in the offing, and nor is it a zero hours contract.

Having trawled through the contract there isn't anything to say that it is variable in this sense.

I'm actually not inconvenienced because I'd already booked the days off and have saved leave for the time. Only one of my staff members is having to borrow leave.

The co has offered the chance to use flexible working to make up one of the three days. We are not allowed to carry unused leave over which is why many people have used theirs up ahead of the end of the leave year (Dec).

The reasons for shutdown is genuine and not due to a lack of work, it's because we are a support company, and the sector we support is not working at that time of year either.

Indeed, all will get the statutory allowance for hols next year but I wasn't aware that you can carry forward/back as needs be.

Thanks for all replies.