Employer putting staff on Furlough if they take holiday

TempUsername0307

My employer is asking staff to take all of their holiday over December so that, while staff are on holiday, they can class them as ‘furloughed’ and claim government money. Is this allowed and acceptable?

bradders1983

Yup. An employer can dictate when an employee takes holiday as long as sufficient notice is given.  

How the employer gets the funds to pay you is none of your concern  if it is legal, which this is.

Thrugelmir

TempUsername0307 said:

 Is this allowed and acceptable?

You'd like to keep your job wouldn't you? 

epm-84

Regarding the employer telling you when to take holiday it's allowed provided that they give you sufficient notice e.g. to take 2 weeks holiday they must give you 2 weeks notice.  If your holiday year is 1st Jan to 31st Dec then they are perfectly within their rights to tell you to take your remaining holiday in December.  If it's 1st April to 31st March then not so reasonable, especially if you've already got holidays approved for next year.

I don't think what they are proposing is against the scheme if they've been affected by COVID-19 but of course the idea of it is to prevent unpaid lay offs and redundancies, not to fund holiday pay. There is a change to the scheme from 1st December and HMRC will publish the names of all employers using the scheme, so that may deter some employers from exploiting the scheme.

Jeremy535897

The statutory instrument dealing with notice for holidays states that the length of notice from employer to employee should be twice the holiday taken, so 4 weeks notice for 2 weeks holiday (Regulation 15 Working Time Regulations 1998). That can however be overridden by the contract of employment.

superbigal

Basically all factories that may have been unnaffected by Coronavirus, and who regularly shutdown for Xmas Holidays can take advantage of the Furlough Scheme for that period.   Needs in theory agreement of employees.  Who in their right mind would object.   I really think the Chancellor should have plugged this obvious loophole but heyho.

Jeremy535897

superbigal said:

Basically all factories that may have been unnaffected by Coronavirus, and who regularly shutdown for Xmas Holidays can take advantage of the Furlough Scheme for that period.   Needs in theory agreement of employees.  Who in their right mind would object.   I really think the Chancellor should have plugged this obvious loophole but heyho.

That is incorrect. See https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-for-wage-costs-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme
"If you cannot maintain your workforce because your operations have been affected by coronavirus (COVID-19), you can furlough employees and apply for a grant to cover a portion of their usual monthly wage costs where you record them as being on furlough."

adamp87

Thrugelmir said:

TempUsername0307 said:

 Is this allowed and acceptable?

You'd like to keep your job wouldn't you? 

This is such a stupid comment which I’m rather sick of seeing.

Not every role on furlough is automatically going to end up gone, and not every employer is someone who would do that either. 

It also doesn’t mean people shouldn’t query policies or be afraid to say no or rights should go out the window.

Yes an employer can dictate holiday, but this isn’t really what the scheme is to be used for.

We’ve put holidays through for our staff to ensure we don’t have a huge build up. But we asked them and explained why. 

Some didn’t want to lose all their holiday so soon and those people weren’t sanctioned neither did it cause a huge issue. 

Thrugelmir

adamp87 said:

Thrugelmir said:

TempUsername0307 said:

 Is this allowed and acceptable?

You'd like to keep your job wouldn't you? 

This is such a stupid comment which I’m rather sick of seeing.

Furlough is a job protection scheme. Companies would much prefer to have their staff productively employed.  There's no benefit to having staff take furlough then subsequently take holiday. As generates no cash for the business, totally the reverse it's an outflow.  Without cash a business will fail. Majority of companies that fail are actually profitable.  It's a lack of cash that ultimately is their downfall. 

Human nature is such that self interest comes first unfortunately. Someone can get another job relatively quickly. Takes years to build a business from the ground up. 

sillyvixen

Surely if you are furloughed you get 80% of pay at the government's (tax payers) expense, if you are taking paid holiday during the time of furlough it is the company's responsibility to fund holiday pay at 100%! If your employers want you to use your holiday allowance as they have no work for you they have to fund it.

A_Lert

If your employer intends to reduce your holiday pay then I think at best they're on dubious grounds.

If your employer will pay you your full holiday pay, then their plans go against what the government says, which is that "Employees should not be placed on furlough for a period simply because they are on holiday for that period." However in a sense this is none of your business - it's between your employer and HMRC whether their Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is valid or not.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-for-wage-costs-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme#when-furlough