Furloughed employees made to loose 50% of their annual leave!

jason2468_2

Help!? Today I was told that I have to loose 50% of my annual leave. Is this legal?
i work for a minibus company which is under financial pressure. As the government is actually paying for my Furlough 80% the company is saving on the wages costs. So how can they tell us that we have to now loose half our holiday. I am single parent who uses my holiday days to look after my son when required.
They say that they are being advised by Peninsula, who manage their HR

Diamandis

They need to allow the minimum amount of holiday days per year, however they can dictate when you take that providing they give you notice. If they wish you to use the last two weeks before returning to work normally as annual leave then they can do that if they pay you your normal holiday pay. 

yksi

It sounds like they are doing what most businesses are and asking you to take half your annual leave soon, before they resume normal business. They are allowed to ask this (and they have always had the right to tell you when your leave will be, we don't actually have a right to choose when we take our leave).

YorksClare

There are several issues here.  Yes, an employer can tell you that they want to close the workplace for a week, and you have to use your annual leave for that week (five days), but they must tell you at least twice as long in advance as the amount of time that they want you to take off.  So if they want to close for 5 days, they must say so at least 10 days beforehand.  However, you're talking about losing half your entitlement, which for a full time worker would be 5.6weeks, or 14 days.  Nobody knows yet when the full furlough will end, and it looks as though the lockdown will start to be removed next week sometime.  Maybe your employer is just trying to get in there as quickly as possible?

Second issue is - surely a minibus company is going to realise that things will not suddenly spring back to normal, but they will need to get back into service as much and as safely as possible and as soon as possible?  Therefore, it would probably make more sense to consult the staff and maybe return half to work, ask half to take some leave, and swap it around so that nobody is losing too much leave?  Or are they actually going bust and so this is a quick way of reducing their costs (wage bills for staff driving, when for now they can use the furlough to get them out of a hole)?

Thirdly, the government has extended the leave carry-over period to two years.  This means that staff who couldn't take their leave throughout the year due to lockdown, covering shifts, etc, can carry some leave over for longer, so that it has less of an impact on businesses overall.

I think the HR company has suggested this process because strictly speaking it is just about legal, but this is poor HR advice.  They really should be trying to manage staff morale better than this, and following the ACAS codes.  Well worth calling Citizens Advice Bureau for more help.

DD265

We were asked to take at least 50% of our annual leave before the end of August, our holiday year running Jan-Dec - normally we'd just be asked to book it by then, so that the business can plan. You may suggest something similar, and see if they'd be happy as long as it were booked?

When businesses can operate fully again, they won't be able to allow all staff to then take X weeks worth of holiday at once. And as explained above, they can tell you when you have to take the leave.

bradders1983

Lose. Sorry.

sharpe106

You are losing nothing, you are having you holiday, just not when you want it. Far better position then a lot of other people. You could always offer to take the days off in the future that you want unpaid.