Furloughed staff holidays. Mandatory carry over to next year?

Thrugelmir

Retired_Minky said:

normanna said:

Retired Minky
I hope you don't mind me saying as this is meant in the nicest possible way.  You come across as a good boss but could your staff see you as a bit of a pushover?  There's obviously a line between between being a good and considerate boss and your staff thinking you will change your mind if they huff and puff enough.  Remember you're the boss so you need to keep an arms length approach to the staff so they don't feel they can walk all over you.  I wouldn't wait until they all have to take hols in the last quarter if it affects your business.  I would start that process now for at least 1 or 2 weeks if they were my staff.

Good luck

My philosophy has always been to treat people as I'd like to be treated myself. 

Over time you can weed out those that don't respond or are unwilling to adopt the culture that you are attempting to create. 

[Deleted User]

Some people don't know they are born. Worked all the way through, can't believe I'll have been in a job over 7 months before taking a week's holiday, that isn't a bank holiday. Never gone so long without annual leave. (I'm not expecting to fit 4 weeks holiday into 3 months left of the year and of course it will be my problem or loss not being a 'key worker') And I have no doubt I'll dread returning to work after that week off. Not having holiday thus far was the only really good thing in proving something when accused of something I only considered. Some bosses are way to soft.

Jonesy1977

Retired_Minky said:

I own a business and have furloughed staff since March. Most are back at work on a part time basis and some are back full time.
I've paid staff at full salary rate rather than 80% whilst furloughed and absorbed the additional cost myself.
I appreciate that staff are still entitled to their full holiday while furloughed so I've kept track of the full allowance they'd be entitled to as if they'd worked full time over the entire period.
The holiday year for the company runs from Jan to Dec. One of my staff has said they do not wish to take any holiday this year as they'd not be able to go abroad as they normally would. I normally don't let staff carry over holiday unless exceptional circumstances (which obviously we're in). This member of staff has approached me. They are aware of the normal normal policy and have told me that I have to allow full carry over of holidays in to next year due to the Corona virus.
Can I check if that is the case? I'm happy to roll over some of the holiday due to the exceptional circumstances but if a lot of staff request carry over the full allowance it has a big impact on my budgets for next year.

A staff member can not insist on this.  Actually you can (giving the required notice) ask them to take holidays whist on Furlough, you will have to pay the 100% of their salary for this holiday time.  The required notice is twice the time you want them to take I>E 2 weeks for 1 weeks leave.  I would do that immediately and to everyone (I have had to do this, the impact of holidays on return and next year would be unsustainable and the outcome would likely be someone losing their job so I don't feel bad at all!)

getmore4less

On the notice for holidays being  twice the holiday length, that is the statutory notice required.
Contracts can override this so you can specify your own notice(including zero) for having employees use holiday.

Might be worth reviewing your holiday policies, another one to watch with statutory notice is that if an employee requests holiday you have to have a policy that overrides the statutory notice to not take holiday or remember to issue that notice on time if you don't want them to take holiday

This is usually done by "all holidays need to be approved" clause.

My message here is you have been generous paying 100% and not having employees take any of their holidays I would be looking carefully at how employees respect that and taking appropriate action. some would be general notice to give employees a clue you don't like them taking advantage of your generosity  and behind the scenes actions that address future business needs and who would stay employed.  
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IMO a balanced approach for all companies would have been,
Anyone on furlough could have been asked to take all the holiday they would have accrued on furlough(statutory accrues at around 1/2 day a week) with an adjustment for the BH if appropriate
This would have managed the liability without being erroneous on the employees(some companies used up all the holidays of their employees)

Once off furlough then if the business needs are down, use up more holiday to reduce the liabilities further and avoid carry over. This could be a general policy or targeted to specific needs that may mean some get more choice.

With a holiday year Jan-Dec there is plenty of time for holiday to be used up with minimal carry over unless a business is understaffed and  busy

MY old boss used to say the sooner you use the holiday the better,  if business is likely to pick up get some of that holiday out the way ASAP

Hindsight, you could have let them get paid 80% then have that 20% pot as a reserve to reward those that are supportive of the business.

prowla

Retired_Minky said:

Thanks for everyones advice. I'll get this done.
I do feel a bit miffed. I've tried to go above and beyond by paying 100% instead of 80% furlough but this didn't seem to have got me much goodwill. I feel like the villain at the moment.
On a separate note I asked a staff member to fill in a DBS form whilst they were on furlough as their DBS check ran out. I got a reply back saying it was illegal for me to ask them to fill in the form whilst on furlough as they're not meant to do anything work related. I had to bite my tongue. They were technically right but it would have taken less than 10 mins to fill in the form. Most of it was pre-filled and they only had to read and sign.
To be honest I did feel like saying it's the law I only pay you 80% and not 100% of your salary but I left it in the end and asked them to fill in the form when back at work as it was unreasonable for me to ask them to do this while on furlough.
I'll be glad when normal service resumes.

I think it was reasonable to ask for this to be done during furlough, as it wasn't company business per-se and the furlough wording was about doing income-generating work.

Also, you were the one taking the risk, as a transgression would have stopped you being able to reclaim the furlough money.

Semple

Some really good advice given here. Some of your employees will be so focused on their own wellbeing to not realise the impact on a business if every member of staff rolled over their full holiday entitlement to the following year. A lot of businesses if they're running on just enough staff will find it a squeeze during the best of times when usual annual leave is taken, so to consider the impact of every employee having double the amount of time off...

Does also seem that your employee needs a bit of a reality check, at a time when unemployment has shot up, and masses of people are applying for limited vacancies, they should be very grateful of the position they're in.

As another poster put it, and the company i work for do something similar, in around the midpoint of the year (even though we've passed it now) the employee must have either taken, or have booked the majority of their annual leave before the end of the year.