Annualised hours help

Gergul

Hi. I'm on an annualised hours contract and get paid for 21 hours a week but during the summer months I work a lot more hours and just before Christmas last year I ended up getting a substantial amount in pay that was owed to me for the hours I'd done between March and November but not been paid for. The exact same is happening this year. I have worked out all my hours to the end of March and it works out that I will be owed around 120 hours AT LEAST as there will be more hours that I will be doing over the winter months for event days. I've informed my manager who has told me that my hours will even out over the winter months and that if I am owed any hours I will have to wait until the end of March to be paid for them. Is this the correct procedure and if it is I'm really confused as to why they paid me as soon as they realised last year and weren't happy that the hours had built up like that without being paid to me? Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I'm not getting through to my employers.

sangie595

Yes, it's correct-ish. You have an annual amount of hours that you are contracted to work at any time over the year. You do not get overtime unless and until you have worked all your annual hours. It is within reason that you work all your hours of by, say, Christmas, and don't work any more for three months! I can't understand why they have done it any other way.

That said, you also have some responsibility here. You do not get paid for overtime that you simply decide to do. You are paid only for your annual hours, and any time over that must be authorised in advance by the employer. If they aren't, then they did not have to pay you. So it is in your own interests if you and the employer have a conversation about what appears to be a slipshod system that isn't working well for either of you. If you just simply work and "hope " to be paid, then you are on dodgy ground. At the same time, if the employer is budgeting too few hours to do the job and isn't realising that there is a significant annual overspend every year, and has no control over this, then it's going to end in tears for everyone at some point.