Hours owed at work

PH1986

Hi everyone, apologies for the lengthy explanation!
The company I work for operates a type of hours bank system - I am on salary based around a 40 hour work week, however due to the nature of the business there are very busy times where I work a great deal more that 40 hours and very quiet times where I work less. The idea is that the busy times balance out the quiet times and I receive the same wage year-round. It is a stupid system which has repeatedly caused problems but has never directly affected me until now: I handed my notice in at the start of this week and I apparently owe 40 hours to the company. My employer wants to add this to my notice period to keep me at the company for longer, however I have another job to go to and am not keen to stay longer than I have to. A couple of points: I have holiday which will probably cover the hours owed, no other employee has worked off their hours prior to leaving.
So my 2 questions are:  1. Am I able to offset my holiday against hours owed or am I legally obligated to work them?  and
2. If there is a precedent in the company for writing off any hours owed at the termination of employment could I reasonably bring this up as a reason not to stay on longer than I have to?
Many thanks for any feedback! 

General_Grant

PH1986 said:

Hi everyone, apologies for the lengthy explanation!
The company I work for operates a type of hours bank system - I am on salary based around a 40 hour work week, however due to the nature of the business there are very busy times where I work a great deal more that 40 hours and very quiet times where I work less. The idea is that the busy times balance out the quiet times and I receive the same wage year-round. It is a stupid system which has repeatedly caused problems but has never directly affected me until now: I handed my notice in at the start of this week and I apparently owe 40 hours to the company. My employer wants to add this to my notice period to keep me at the company for longer, however I have another job to go to and am not keen to stay longer than I have to. A couple of points: I have holiday which will probably cover the hours owed, no other employee has worked off their hours prior to leaving.
So my 2 questions are:  1. Am I able to offset my holiday against hours owed or am I legally obligated to work them?  and
2. If there is a precedent in the company for writing off any hours owed at the termination of employment could I reasonably bring this up as a reason not to stay on longer than I have to?
Many thanks for any feedback! 

The system is known as "annualised hours".
As long as you have given the minimum notice which your contract requires then they cannot keep you working beyond that termination date simply because you may not have worked the full pro rata number of hours at the time your notice expires.

My answers to your questions:

1  You are not legally obligated to work beyond your termination date (ie after the expiry of your notice and the accrued but not taken holiday entitlement could be offset against the hours which you would have worked in the current holiday year if you had been working regular hours but which you have not worked because of the fall of the less busy times.

2  Is there such a precedent?  (Well that's not actually answering your question but ....)

TELLIT01

The solution suggested by the OP seems the obvious one - offsetting remaining leave entitlement against the hours owed.  Unfortunately not all employers see or use the blindingly obvious solution. 

As the OP has another job to go to I would suggest simply telling the employer that they will be leaving at the end of the x week notice period and the employer should adjust holiday pay entitlement accordingly.