Furloughed staff holidays. Mandatory carry over to next year?

sharpe106

Some people are never happy. Just tell them you can't have everybody saving holidays for next year, you could let them transfer a few days over to next year.

Redundancyissues

I’ve been furloughed since March, our annual leave restarts in November and apart from a week off I had booked for September that I would still like off I’m expecting/happy to lose the rest of my annual leave. She’s taking the !!!!!!.

spiro

Redundancyissues said:

I’ve been furloughed since March, our annual leave restarts in November and apart from a week off I had booked for September that I would still like off I’m expecting/happy to lose the rest of my annual leave. She’s taking the !!!!!!.

Technically you must take your 4 weeks plus 8 bank holidays unless your employer allows carry over under the emergency regulations. 

spiro

In terms of your employee expecting to be able to carry over leave how much annual leave do they get and how much have they taken so far given we are over half way through the year? You don't want all staff trying to take December off.
My employer monitors our holiday plans to ensure there are no bottlenecks at the end of the year.
If they have taken no leave and are saying they don't want to take any leave this year, then I would suggest to them that unless they change their plans you will give them notice of when they will be required to use their leave which is perfectly legal as long as you give twice as much notice as the holiday is long. So to make them take 2 weeks you need to tell them 4 weeks in advance.

yksi

You know that you could, right now, give them notice that they will be required to use two weeks of their holidays starting in four weeks' time? (Or one week starting in two weeks, you get the gist.) This is actually what many employers are doing, requiring everyone to take half their current entitlement while on furlough, because every man and his dog says "no thanks, I'll save my holidays for later" and it becomes both a cashflow and logistical nightmare to try to fulfill them all later on. Think about how on earth you'd cover your business if half your employees all want to go on holidays next July, or how annoyed Beryl from Accounts will be at YOU when you tell her that all weeks are already booked by someone else, and she can only have November? If it were me, I'd politely tell the employee that postponing their holiday entitlement past the end of the financial year will not be possible for the business. 

alonehiker

You are within your right to pay holiday pay even when your staff are furloughed.  For instance, if paid 4-weekly, 3 weeks furlough pay, 1 week holiday, which should be paid at 100% and not the furloughed 80%.  I know many companies that have done this and used up to 2 weeks annual leave.

adamp87

Retired_Minky said:

Thanks for the replies.
In terms of Xmas we're closed on Xmas day, Boxing day and New Years but are open other wise. This particular member of staff normally works through Christmas.
I might be wrong as they haven't said this  but I "think" they might see the furlough time off as enough of a respite from work and not wanting to take any other time off and carry it over to next year.

Minky with anything HR related I’d probably make sure you went to someone who can advise legally professionally to cover your own bases if you haven’t already. 

While the advice given is correct to this specific problem, it doesn’t hurt to have something written up for staff in case & also just prevent you lifting something from a forum that isn’t worded the best or gets you into trouble. I know with a business account I had with NatWest a few years ago we had a HR company feature who we could contact for all employment law and was a godsend you may have something similar. Or ACAS is also open to employers.

I don’t mean to be rude but just want to ensure you do everything to cover yourself.

prowla

Many companies allow 5 days carry-over, to be taken by the end of March, with any other untaken leave being lost.

I have to say that being on furlough for this extended period on full pay does seem generous.

I would guess that the staff member is asking, rather than demanding.

I'm just taking 2 weeks leave and I'm not going abroad.

Retired_Minky

Thanks for all the advice.
I've decided to approach the individual staff member and ask them to take their holiday before the end of the calendar year as it does look as they have a misunderstanding regarding changes in the law. 
Hopefully they'll understand.
I'm also going to ask all other staff to book any remaining holiday they have off before the end of the year. 

sharpe106

If they understand or not is irrelevant, you have to do what is best for your business.