Can my employer do this?
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Wildcat1990
Posts: 8 Forumite
Good morning all. Sorry but I have a few questions about my place of employment and hope one of you could give me an answer. I work part time three days a week. 18 hours total.
Firstly I was hired in February 2017 as an administrator for minimum wage. This became administration, recruitment and social media when my coworker left and my employer didn’t want to hire someone else. I was given the tasks but told there was no money to increase pay. I left for all of a week before employer raised my wage to £8 p/h in August. Currently things have changed again.
I’m now administrator
Auditor
Filing
Recruitment
Social media
Policy writer
Researcher
Content writer
Key worker
Occasional diy expert, cook, cleaner or gardener
None of this is ever agreed. It’s just assumed I will do it. I’ve said before this isn’t on and if they want me doing other roles too then I want the pay to match. For the most part it’s been ignored for months except once I was told that “we are a small company so everyone must chip in and do their bit” (by the office manager who’s in three hours a week and in that time only gets the staff meeting and task list done).
Can my employer keep adding to my job so she can avoid paying others?
My second issue regards holiday. I started in February as mentioned above and was always under the impression that my work year ran Feb to Feb. In fact in meetings with office manager she agreed it too.
I had booked the weeks of 23/7 and 30/7 as holiday which had been approved months ago. The week prior I was signed off by doctor due to mental health. Boss then said I can’t have holiday as I have to still claim sick pay (92 per week instead of 144). I’m still off right now and doctor is supportive.
I looked into legality and boss can’t force me to take it as sick.
I’ve texted her to let her know my “holiday pay wasn’t in last wages” as I’m trying not to accuse her of stiffing me but the response has left me livid.
Apparently she needs to check with HR if I’m not entitled to it based on days off so far and their company year running July to July. Funny that eh? Suddenly she wants to know my holiday cap and check with HR when previously it was approved. Also the July to July looks rather suspicious. I’ve never been told that before. Funny how that means my holiday would be the last two weeks of the company year.
Does anyone else find that suss? What can I do?
Firstly I was hired in February 2017 as an administrator for minimum wage. This became administration, recruitment and social media when my coworker left and my employer didn’t want to hire someone else. I was given the tasks but told there was no money to increase pay. I left for all of a week before employer raised my wage to £8 p/h in August. Currently things have changed again.
I’m now administrator
Auditor
Filing
Recruitment
Social media
Policy writer
Researcher
Content writer
Key worker
Occasional diy expert, cook, cleaner or gardener
None of this is ever agreed. It’s just assumed I will do it. I’ve said before this isn’t on and if they want me doing other roles too then I want the pay to match. For the most part it’s been ignored for months except once I was told that “we are a small company so everyone must chip in and do their bit” (by the office manager who’s in three hours a week and in that time only gets the staff meeting and task list done).
Can my employer keep adding to my job so she can avoid paying others?
My second issue regards holiday. I started in February as mentioned above and was always under the impression that my work year ran Feb to Feb. In fact in meetings with office manager she agreed it too.
I had booked the weeks of 23/7 and 30/7 as holiday which had been approved months ago. The week prior I was signed off by doctor due to mental health. Boss then said I can’t have holiday as I have to still claim sick pay (92 per week instead of 144). I’m still off right now and doctor is supportive.
I looked into legality and boss can’t force me to take it as sick.
I’ve texted her to let her know my “holiday pay wasn’t in last wages” as I’m trying not to accuse her of stiffing me but the response has left me livid.
Apparently she needs to check with HR if I’m not entitled to it based on days off so far and their company year running July to July. Funny that eh? Suddenly she wants to know my holiday cap and check with HR when previously it was approved. Also the July to July looks rather suspicious. I’ve never been told that before. Funny how that means my holiday would be the last two weeks of the company year.
Does anyone else find that suss? What can I do?
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Comments
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Provided that you are being paid the minimum wage, then you are being paid what the law dictates. The law has no concern with your job description, so yes, she can add any duties she wishes. Whether you like it or not, and what you do about it is (within the law) up to you.
Hmm, not sure what law you looked into, but you are kind of wrong. You were signed off by the doctor and I assume, from what you say, that you submitted a doctors fit note, or a self certification, saying that you were too ill to work? If you said that you were too ill to work then your employer certainly had grounds to say that you cannot be both at the same time. So she is well advised to check what she is doing. You could turn around and accuse her of breaking the law in several ways if she didn't, depending on the circumstances, so it's sensible for her to be clear on this.
I'm struggling to work out what your are suspicious about or think funny. I can't tell you what the holiday year is, and I don't have sufficient information to say which of you is correct. But it's very easy - if you couldn't take the holiday due to sickness, then you are, by law, allowed to carry holiday over. This only works if the sickness literally prevents taking the holiday reasonably within the year - but what you describe certainly qualifies.
What can you do? A good place to start would be to let her check with HR and get back to you.
What isn't clear here is whether she is your manager or your employer - with HR that would suggest a larger employer, and this is a manager. The size and type of the employer can sometimes affect the advice we might give.0 -
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You seem to treat these extra jobs as on top of your day job; whereas your employer is treating it as your day job.
No-one is forcing you into doing more hours work ( or atleast you don!!!8217;t mention they are ) she is just dictating what you do in that time.0 -
I'm not sure about the holiday side but as for the 'other jobs' as long as they are paying you for the hours that you are there, I don't see an issue.!!!8217;m now administrator
Auditor - Admin job
Filing - Admin job
Recruitment - Searching for employees / posting job adverts - Admin / hiring staff and interviews / management
Social media - Admin
Policy writer - Admin
Researcher - Admin
Content writer - Admin
Key worker - Not sure what this is
Occasional diy expert, cook, cleaner or gardener - Could have reason to complain depending what type of work is undertook here.People don't know what they want until you show them.0 -
Honestly most of what you describe is admin work that would attract minimum wage.0
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Wildcat1990 wrote: »I'm now administrator
Auditor
Filing
Recruitment
Social media
Policy writer
Researcher
Content writer
Key worker
Occasional diy expert, cook, cleaner or gardener
And that's bad because....?
It sounds like the role has given you some amazing development opportunities. You can put a great CV together with the above and should be really well placed to get a better job elsewhere.0 -
I suppose I should have been clearer. The role I had initially was to sort policies and do type ups etc. My issue is she wants all these extra jobs doing (key worker is being a support worker in charge of a person) in the same hours for the same pay and then isn’t happy if all the jobs aren’t completed.
I’d looked into ACAS regarding the holiday and sick thing. According to them if an employee has prebooked holiday you can’t force them to take it as sick, the same way you can’t force someone to take sick days out of their holiday allowance. You can ask, but you cannot force it.
The part I find suspicious is that I’ve been asking about holiday entitlement since joining 18 months ago and always been told they’ll look into it. Now that I’m off for a prolonged period it feels like this is only occurring due to trying to pay less.
I say that because there’s times I’ve booked holiday previously, had it accepted then at the last minute been told actually I’ll need to do another day to make up for it. When I was unable to work a non working day due to prior arrangements I was not paid holiday and told it was put down as a sick day so unpaid.0 -
Sangie595: it’s a small company. On the office side there is the boss, the office manager and myself.
There’s other reasons I don’t like the company but I fear if I say them here I could get in a bit of trouble and honestly I’m terrified of that. Let’s just say if I told the CQC then chances are the business would be closed.
Another question sorry. How does statutory sick pay work? Employer claimed she had to send off for it but should it still have been in my wages? This is for week of 16th July. I got paid 27th July. Had handed in the fit note from GP.0 -
You’re not helping yourself - you are happy for patients to be at risk for the sake of 18 hrs work.Wildcat1990 wrote: »Sangie595: it’s a small company. On the office side there is the boss, the office manager and myself.
There’s other reasons I don’t like the company but I fear if I say them here I could get in a bit of trouble and honestly I’m terrified of that. Let’s just say if I told the CQC then chances are the business would be closed.
Another question sorry. How does statutory sick pay work? Employer claimed she had to send off for it but should it still have been in my wages? This is for week of 16th July. I got paid 27th July. Had handed in the fit note from GP.0 -
Wildcat1990 wrote: »Does anyone else find that suss? What can I do?
I say, "If you're gonna play the game, boy
You gotta learn to play it right
You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done
Every administrator
Auditor
Filing
Recruitment
Social media
Policy writer
Researcher
Content writer
Key worker
Occasional diy expert, cook, cleaner or gardener knows
That the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away
And knowin' what to keep
'Cause every hand's a winner
And every hand's a loser
And the best that you can hope for is to die
in your sleep0
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