Being on "salary" holiday entitlements

Mic-12345

Iv started a new job 2 weeks ago, I was told i would be on a set 30k a year salary, no overtime paid.

However, im being told that im not entitled to pay over the Christmas holidays other than the two bank holidays and that I can use up holiday days due next year to cover these if I wanted to be paid.
Im told this is because I am only here a few weeks and not due holidays

That would sound fine if I was to be on a regular pay per hour, but surely if im on a salary this does not count. It would mean that my overall pay for my year (december 2016 to december 2017) would not actually be my "salary" of 30k?

L1011

Its pretty normal for employers to require you to take holidays for the 3 non-bank holidays between Christmas and New Year due to the business being closed - I've actually never seen an employer who doesn't require it for some staff.

You will still have more than 1 day leave entitlement generated in December by my reckoning.

Kimbot

Basically they run your entitlement from what appears to be 1st of January. What is your annual leave entitlement in your contract? If you have been there a number of weeks you may be due 1 or 2 days annual leave as per your contract.

Dixie Chick

This sounds right.

When you are salary paid, you technically accrue holidays entitlements for each month you work. Therefore by the time Christmas comes around this year, you have not yet accrued these holidays, or enough holidays, so you either do not get paid, or you borrow holidays from next year and get paid

Presuming you work a full year next year and have enough holidays left at christmas, you will get paid your regular salary over Christmas.

BetsyEllen

No it sounds right to me.

I'm on a salary; the only paid days I get for Christmas are the bank holidays.
Any extra days I'd like to take I have to deduct from my yearly annual leave.

If I had already used my 4 weeks and insisted on taking time off at Christmas I would have to take them days as unpaid or deduct them from next years allowance. Or possibly work up some time in lieu, but that is up to the company.
As you have worked up no holidays*, it would work the same way.

*You may have a day or 2 worked up though, 20 days a year holiday works out to be 1.66 days per month.

Mic-12345

I see, well that is unfortunate. Lesson learned, should have stayed in my previous job until after Christmas

GerardKeating

Mic-12345 wrote: »

Iv started a new job 2 weeks ago, I was told i would be on a set 30k a year salary, no overtime paid.

However, im being told that im not entitled to pay over the Christmas holidays other than the two bank holidays and that I can use up holiday days due next year to cover these if I wanted to be paid.
Im told this is because I am only here a few weeks and not due holidays

That would sound fine if I was to be on a regular pay per hour, but surely if im on a salary this does not count. It would mean that my overall pay for my year (december 2016 to december 2017) would not actually be my "salary" of 30k?

Slight over simplification, but you are entitled to 1.66 Day leave per working month, so once you have completed that month, you have 1.66 days leave, so if you started in the Job on 6th December, on 6th January, you have 1.66 days of leave you can take.

There is no obligation to allow on them to allow you to take leave before it is earned.

Mic-12345

I understand, i have the option of not being paid, but they have offered the option of using some of next years holidays if I wish to be paid.

Thank you all for the help

kirving

I got caught in a similar situation due to beginning work in September. I didn't have to "build" up the time or anything, but I was given allocated say 5 days to use by the end of the year. (1/4 year to go, 1/4 holidays given

Problem was we had to keep 4 for Christmas, which meant I could only take 1 from Sept. to Dec. Annoying, but I understand why they need to keep a standardized system for all employees regardless of when you start, and have been extremely good regarding holidays since.

Dixie Chick

I worked in a company before where they allowed staff members to carry forward holidays indefinitely and when a staff member would leave, they would get paid a huge chunk of salary. I can totally see why a company would put limits on annual leave timings etc.

GM228

GerardKeating wrote: »

you have 1.66 days leave, so if you started in the Job on 6th December, on 6th January, you have 1.66 days of leave you can take.

That depends on a number of things, many employers operate their leave year on a calender basis under collective agreements meaning the OP could have 0 days come January 1st as there is no requirement to grant leave and also no requirement to carry it into the next leave year. Although it's a catch 22 as you are entitled to it so the employer should allow it to be taken within 6 months of the end of the leave year by agreement.

Also the 1.66 days can be dependent on how many days the OP normally works. Based on the 5 day week and the 1.66 day entitlement the OP would have to work at least 117 hours before this entitlement, otherwise the OP would be entitled to 8% of whatever hours have been worked.

OP you need to first of all find out if your employer uses a calender leave year or the April to March leave year (you mentioned next years leave so I'm assuming they operate on the calender year basis), then work out how many hours you have worked so far and what your normal working week is. Assuming you work a 39 hour week by next week you will have built up 9 hrs and 36min of leave time which is just over a days leave.