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Accruing holiday pay-paying staff early

  • 17-04-2021 6:46am
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭


    Hello all.

    We run a payroll of 60 hourly paid staff (non salaried) and they are entitled to 8% holiday pay of hours worked.

    Is it possible to pay this 8% weekly on top of their regular pay rate and then when it comes to their holidays they dont get paid I.e they have already been paid in advance for their holidays as they work their hours. It is up to them to manage their money then.

    Apart from some employees pushing back, is there anything in the legislation stopping this practice I wonder. I cannot seem to find anything on it.

    Thank you


«1

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,046 ✭✭✭✭L'prof


    brenno1 wrote: »
    Hello all.

    We run a payroll of 60 hourly paid staff (non salaried) and they are entitled to 8% holiday pay of hours worked.

    Is it possible to pay this 8% weekly on top of their regular pay rate and then when it comes to their holidays they dont get paid I.e they have already been paid in advance for their holidays as they work their hours. It is up to them to manage their money then.

    Apart from some employees pushing back, is there anything in the legislation stopping this practice I wonder. I cannot seem to find anything on it.

    Thank you

    Sounds like a nightmare to be honest. You’ll create an environment where nobody wants to take any holidays unless you planned on enforcing mandatory holidays

    Why would you go down this route anyway? Surely once your systems are setup it makes no difference on your side?


  • Posts: 6,192 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    People will just walk out on yous....as you will be essentially giving away half their holiday pay on tax,

    Surely be a breeding ground for resentment??


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,046 ✭✭✭✭L'prof


    People will just walk out on yous....as you will be essentially giving away half their holiday pay on tax,

    Surely be a breeding ground for resentment??

    Tax will work out the same over the year


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,519 ✭✭✭GalwayGrrrrrl


    The only job I’ve ever had that did that was when I worked casual hours in a second job -a few hours here and there. Although you say people can manage their money there will be some that can’t do that and will end up not being able to pay their rent/mortgage on the month they take 2 weeks leave.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    L'prof wrote: »
    Sounds like a nightmare to be honest. You’ll create an environment where nobody wants to take any holidays unless you planned on enforcing mandatory holidays

    Why would you go down this route anyway? Surely once your systems are setup it makes no difference on your side?

    You would.be surprised how complex it gets trying to accrue holidays when people work different days/shifts and these hours are subject to change last minute not to mention sick leave and other forms of leave on top of that...its a nightmare.

    I understand the tax if on a cumulative basis (which they are) shouldnt have much impact as they will be refunded any overpayment when they take their holidays so they are in a tax neutral position.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,216 ✭✭✭✭listermint


    brenno1 wrote: »
    You would.be surprised how complex it gets trying to accrue holidays when people work different days/shifts and these hours are subject to change last minute not to mention sick leave and other forms of leave on top of that...its a nightmare.

    I understand the tax if on a cumulative basis (which they are) shouldnt have much impact as they will be refunded any overpayment when they take their holidays so they are in a tax neutral position.

    An excel file will do this at a click of a button. This is basic stuff really basic stuff. A master file coupled with a mandatory request system for taking any leave . If someone is maintaining the master file weekly it will take approximately 5 minutes work.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    The only job I’ve ever had that did that was when I worked casual hours in a second job -a few hours here and there. Although you say people can manage their money there will be some that can’t do that and will end up not being able to pay their rent/mortgage on the month they take 2 weeks leave.

    I am not suggesting for one minute this will be forced upon anyone and of course would liase with staff to see if it is workable before we did anything. At the moment they are resentful because they get confused on their accruals which are treble checked with alot of manpower to make sure they are ok( we are small company and dont have the resource for a fancy HR system). We are just trashing out if there is an easier way.

    So back to my specific question, there is nothing legislatively preventing this if staff came on board. A couple of the staff actually asked for this.


  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 7,278 Mod ✭✭✭✭cdeb


    brenno1 wrote: »
    You would.be surprised how complex it gets trying to accrue holidays when people work different days/shifts and these hours are subject to change last minute not to mention sick leave and other forms of leave on top of that...its a nightmare.

    If you can work out what to pay them, surely you can work out what to accrue? It's the same figure after all.

    I have seen it done where a person was paid their holiday pay each week, so it is allowed, although not sure if you can force it on employees


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    listermint wrote: »
    An excel file will do this at a click of a button. This is basic stuff really basic stuff. A master file coupled with a mandatory request system for taking any leave . If someone is maintaining the master file weekly it will take approximately 5 minutes work.

    "5 mins work"..."really basic stuff".....do you really think this is helpful?

    Won't argue with u on this. You have no idea the complexities of the contracts of employment our staff (individual to each staff member) are on, all different hours(that arent standard and change and rechange from day to day), sick leave,maternity, parental and other leaves and ...we are struggling a bit during the pandemic and dont have the money to invest in a HR system to capture all these movements seamlessly. This is where the complexity comes in.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    cdeb wrote: »
    If you can work out what to pay them, surely you can work out what to accrue? It's the same figure after all.

    I have seen it done where a person was paid their holiday pay each week, so it is allowed, although not sure if you can force it on employees[/quote)

    Its easy to work out 8% of hour paid in the weekly payroll and then forget about it as our obligations have been met. The staff understand this concept easily.

    The complexity is 3 months down the line and we have accrued and then staff are querying everything , their sick pay accrual, maternity accrual, overtime, working less hours some weeks, they get totally bogged down and never understand how we arrive at their holiday entitlement. Believe me it wastes so many man hours tryng to explain. And we are accruing it correctly.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,447 ✭✭✭davindub


    Does your payroll package not calculate the holiday hours?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,135 ✭✭✭Mundo7976


    brenno1 wrote: »
    Believe me it wastes so many man hours tryng to explain. And we are accruing it correctly.

    If it wastes that much time, and to save employee confusion/anger, why not just pay the holiday pay when they take holidays!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    Mundo7976 wrote: »
    If it wastes that much time, and to save employee confusion/anger, why not just pay the holiday pay when they take holidays!

    Thanks but have you even read the post? That is what we are doing!! But as they arent on standard contracts with hours varying each week they get totaly bogged down on their entitlements!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,284 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    OP get proper legal advice.

    I think Ireland has a law saying that you generally cannot do what you propose, but there are exceptions.

    But I don't know the name or details of the law or the exceptions.



    FWIW, I can easily see how your scenario is painful.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,216 ✭✭✭✭listermint


    brenno1 wrote: »
    "5 mins work"..."really basic stuff".....do you really think this is helpful?

    Won't argue with u on this. You have no idea the complexities of the contracts of employment our staff (individual to each staff member) are on, all different hours(that arent standard and change and rechange from day to day), sick leave,maternity, parental and other leaves and ...we are struggling a bit during the pandemic and dont have the money to invest in a HR system to capture all these movements seamlessly. This is where the complexity comes in.

    With all due respect. If you have 60 staff and your finding this difficult then your Training or IT systems are inadequate. You need to make an investment in both asap. Doing so will actually save you time and money rather than hack short term fixes like paying people up front which will carry the same headaches, questions and if someone leaves you'll find back and forth issues constantly.


    You know what you need to do.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,888 ✭✭✭✭ted1


    brenno1 wrote: »
    Hello all.

    We run a payroll of 60 hourly paid staff (non salaried) and they are entitled to 8% holiday pay of hours worked.

    Is it possible to pay this 8% weekly on top of their regular pay rate and then when it comes to their holidays they dont get paid I.e they have already been paid in advance for their holidays as they work their hours. It is up to them to manage their money then.

    Apart from some employees pushing back, is there anything in the legislation stopping this practice I wonder. I cannot seem to find anything on it.

    Thank you

    Don’t be miserable. Pay them like ever other employer does. Holiday pay is designed so as to maintain a continuous flow of money. Paying them up front removes that and undoubtfully they’ll struggle when they do take holidays.

    What will happen is that employees will forget it’s holiday pay as it’ll be considered regular pay . And you’ll be up in front of the labour court when they go looking for it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,504 ✭✭✭Deeec


    I think if you implement this you will just cause more confusion. Alot of employees dont understand or look at their payslip. They wont realise they are being paid for their accrued hols in every payroll and then will be pee'd off when they do take hols and realise they receive no pay for weeks they are not working. You then will have the hassle of trying to explain this concept to them - some people will find this hard to understand and will think your ripping them off. Best to continue with your current set up.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,501 ✭✭✭secman


    It is illegal under the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997 for an employer to pay an allowance in lieu of the minimum statutory holiday entitlement of an employee unless the employment relationship is terminated. In general, your annual leave is calculated on the basis of hours worked. Holiday time off and being paid whilst off is the premise of holiday pay !


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,930 ✭✭✭mrslancaster


    Afaik you have to pay employees in advance of when they take holidays & it has to be at their normal weekly rate or equivalent.

    Iirc employees with varying weekly amounts had hol pay calculated based on the average of the previous 13 weeks. Also most employment agencies with temp or casual staff used to pay the extra 8% weekly if the contracts were short term.

    There could be a problem if an employees rate of pay was higher at the time they were taking annual leave & they had already been paid 8% of a lower pay rate earlier in the year.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭dennyk


    This system could be interpreted as offering your employees extra pay in lieu of actually giving them their annual leave entitlement, which is not allowed (except when an employee leaves employment). Practically speaking, there is effectively no difference in complexity between calculating an employee's annual leave pay on a weekly basis and calculating and tracking the accrual of leave hours over the same period, so you might find it very difficult to justify such a system on that basis, and the WRC may well view it as a cheeky attempt to discourage your employees from taking their annual leave entitlement. Your best bet would be to run this by your solicitor and see what they have to say about it, but unless you want to go through the hassle of defending it to the WRC or the court (and possibly coming out the loser and being liable for penalties) when a disgruntled employee makes a complaint about the practice, I'd reconsider this plan.

    Its easy to work out 8% of hour paid in the weekly payroll and then forget about it as our obligations have been met. The staff understand this concept easily.

    The complexity is 3 months down the line and we have accrued and then staff are querying everything , their sick pay accrual, maternity accrual, overtime, working less hours some weeks, they get totally bogged down and never understand how we arrive at their holiday entitlement. Believe me it wastes so many man hours tryng to explain. And we are accruing it correctly.

    "It's too hard to explain annual leave accrual to employees!" isn't likely to go over well with the WRC or the court. It's a concept that every employer in Ireland deals with. If you want to reduce the queries, get a payroll system where employees can monitor their own annual leave accrual, or just print it on their payslips each pay date.

    Also, unless a significant number of your staff work significantly fewer than 1,365 hours in total per year (including hours spent on annual leave, maternity leave, parental leave, force majeure leave, adoptive leave or the first 13 weeks of carer’s leave), if you really want to simplify things, you'd be better off dropping this whole 8%-of-working-hours business entirely and just give everyone four weeks of leave per year. That should put an end to any confusion, and if it means a few employees might end up with slightly more annual leave than their legal minimum entitlement would be, that's a small enough price to pay for saving all those man-hours spent dealing with complex annual leave calculations.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,930 ✭✭✭mrslancaster


    curious about the payment in advance bit of the OWT & others experience of this.

    I used to work in a place who just ignored that rule. All employees were paid monthly in arrears & when they took a week or two annual leave they still just got their monthly salary, no extra payment in advance. Anyone else like that?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,504 ✭✭✭Deeec


    curious about the payment in advance bit of the OWT & others experience of this.

    I used to work in a place who just ignored that rule. All employees were paid monthly in arrears & when they took a week or two annual leave they still just got their monthly salary, no extra payment in advance. Anyone else like that?

    I think most people on a salary are paid like this. Everywhere I have worked this is the way it has operated. Easy to understand and operate.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,284 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    curious about the payment in advance bit of the OWT & others experience of this.

    I used to work in a place who just ignored that rule. All employees were paid monthly in arrears & when they took a week or two annual leave they still just got their monthly salary, no extra payment in advance. Anyone else like that?

    Pretty much everywhere does this, including places with hourly wage employees, ie not just salaried.

    The in-advance thing is a throwback from the days when.people were paid in cash, and if you weren't physically at work there was no way to get your money. It's not required now people are paid to their bank accounts, and ATMS are widely available.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭dennyk


    I suspect the "pay in advance" bit is to prevent employers from using annual leave as an excuse to delay paying employees who are paid more frequently (e.g. weekly). In the jobs I've had here which were salaried and paid monthly in arrears, I've always just received my normal pay on the normal pay date for months in which I took annual leave. I doubt any employee would complain if they're receiving their normal pay amount on their normal pay dates when taking leave, but if a place is paying employees weekly and is going "OK, now, go off on your two-week holiday and you'll be paid for it when you get back!", that's going to cause some hassles for employees who are living pay date to pay date, so that's likely to lead to a complaint.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 744 ✭✭✭Kewreeuss


    I had prepared a long reply on how to do it with all the warnings involved.Before I posted it I checked to see what other replies came in.
    The other posters re correct. You are making things unnecessarily difficult for yourself. Forget about the 8% go with a 13 week average it just involves one excel spreadsheet if your payroll package doesn’t do it, and pay their holidays as they fall. You have no worries then about the WRC.. ideal opportunity to Create an annual leave policy to ensure people take their leave.
    Create separate pay elements for sick leave hols, maternity leave hols and other leave, so the employee can see what they are getting paid for. Keep notes on the calculations. Other leave covers parental, etc.

    Paying salaried employees is much easier.
    I got the impression that OPs employees were paid hourly, which is a whole different ballgame and the simplification of fixed pay workers is just not possible.


  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 7,278 Mod ✭✭✭✭cdeb


    brenno1 wrote: »
    Its easy to work out 8% of hour paid in the weekly payroll and then forget about it as our obligations have been met. The staff understand this concept easily.

    The complexity is 3 months down the line and we have accrued and then staff are querying everything , their sick pay accrual, maternity accrual, overtime, working less hours some weeks, they get totally bogged down and never understand how we arrive at their holiday entitlement. Believe me it wastes so many man hours tryng to explain. And we are accruing it correctly.
    I can see where you're coming from, but for me the bit in bold is key. Don't forget about it. Each week, keep a simple excel log for each staff

    Joe Bloggs
    Wk 1 worked 30 hours => 2.4 hours' annual leave (balance 2.4)
    Wk 2 worked 40 hours => 3.2 hours' annual leave (bal 5.6)
    Wk 3 didn't work; paid 5 hours' annual leave => bal 0.6 hours

    Each week will tie into the payslip, so queries should be straightforward.

    I have seen it done the way you're suggesting, but that was by agreement, and as others hint too, I don't know if you can force that on people. I think your best fix here ultimately is to grasp the nettle and log hours by staff. It's the most common in my (fairly limited) experience.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    listermint wrote: »
    With all due respect. If you have 60 staff and your finding this difficult then your Training or IT systems are inadequate. You need to make an investment in both asap. Doing so will actually save you time and money rather than hack short term fixes like paying people up front which will carry the same headaches, questions and if someone leaves you'll find back and forth issues constantly.


    You know what you need to do.

    With all due respect, you have no idea about our business, our finances etc and our skillset and the fixes you suggest are not practical for us at the moment, the pandemic has really impacted our business to the point we are just about hanging on. And even a with a top notch IT system in place im not sure the issue will be fixed.. Its more the people element of trying to explain their entitlements to them, we actually manage to calculate it with the resources we have but its their lack of understanding of the calculations when things move from the standard that is the issue. We are trying to simplify the process so they easily understand it within all legal requirements and only if the employee would want it.

    But thanks everyone for the constructive feedback (wil certainly take on board some of the good advice) and the people who actually understand how messy this sometimes gets in a non standard payroll.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    OP get proper legal advice.

    I think Ireland has a law saying that you generally cannot do what you propose, but there are exceptions.

    But I don't know the name or details of the law or the exceptions.

    Thanks and agree I think i need to get the proper legal advice before we could implement this. 2 staff have actually asked for this which prompted the discussion in our business. I think if anything moves on it it would be optional for staff to opt in or out. I would have no interest in trying to make it compulsory.



    FWIW, I can easily see how your scenario is painful.

    Yes it is unfortunatley.:-(


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    ted1 wrote: »
    Don’t be miserable. Pay them like ever other employer does. Holiday pay is designed todo as to maintain a continuous flow of money. Paying them up front removes that and undoubtfully they’ll struggle when they do take holidays.

    What will happen is that employees will forget it’s holiday pay as it’ll be considered regular pay . And you’ll be up in front of the labour court when they go looking for it.

    "Don't be miserable". Do you actual read posts before you make such throwaway statements? Why would it be miserable by asking if its possible and legal to pay people up front...ie give them money. Surely being miserable would be holding onto it and trying not to pay it?
    It is nothing about being miserable, it is about seeing if there is a solution that satisfies the employees so they don't get so confused 3 months down the line when they cannot understand how it was calculated.

    As ive said a few times now i have no interest in trying to force this on anyone, it would be optional for anyone who wanted it ( as a couple of people already asked for it). I was just trying to ascertain if it was legal to do so but obviously you failed to read any of these points.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,888 ✭✭✭✭ted1


    brenno1 wrote: »
    "Don't be miserable". Do you actual read posts before you make such throwaway statements? Why would it be miserable by asking if its possible and legal to pay people up front...ie give them money. Surely being miserable would be holding onto it and trying not to pay it?
    It is nothing about being miserable, it is about seeing if there is a solution that satisfies the employees so they don't get so confused 3 months down the line when they cannot understand how it was calculated.

    As ive said a few times now i have no interest in trying to force this on anyone, it would be optional for anyone who wanted it ( as a couple of people already asked for it). I was just trying to ascertain if it was legal to do so but obviously you failed to read any of these points.

    It’s miserable as you are to cheap to pay for a payroll system that can easily do the system.

    If you can’t calculate holiday pay. How do you know what holidays they are entitled too?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,419 ✭✭✭antix80


    Op
    Not really. That's like saying "your holidays are factored into your pay".. You'll find yourself paying a holiday entitlement on top of that as it's not going to fly.

    Also you can't change terms, frequency, method of pay without agreement.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,284 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    ted1 wrote: »
    It’s miserable as you are to cheap to pay for a payroll system that can easily do the system.

    If you can’t calculate holiday pay. How do you know what holidays they are entitled too?

    The OP has very clearly explained that they can and calculate it. And with PMOD, there's no way in hell that they're doing an 80 person payroll without a system.

    But the issue is the time taken to explain the calculations to the employees.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    ted1 wrote: »
    It’s miserable as you are to cheap to pay for a payroll system that can easily do the system.

    If you can’t calculate holiday pay. How do you know what holidays they are entitled too?

    Your inability to actually read and understand the post is embarrassing for you now.

    When did i say I don't have a payroll system?

    The irony is that your responses are exactly the issues im grappling with in the workplace; people failing to understand information after explaining it numerous times.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    The OP has very clearly explained that they can and calculate it. And with PMOD, there's no way in hell that they're doing an 80 person payroll without a system.

    But the issue is the time taken to explain the calculations to the employees.

    Thank you, at last someone who gets it. I was starting to feel like im in work with this thread. It is nearly as painful. Haha.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,284 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    I know :)

    I stand by my earlier suggestion re getting professional advice. Your may just be one of the exception scenarios where what you suggest is legal.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    I know :)

    I stand by my earlier suggestion re getting professional advice. Your may just be one of the exception scenarios where what you suggest is legal.

    Agreed thank you. Just want to take the confusion out of it for the employees. It wastes so much time explaining. And even a fancier HR system than the standard Micopay package we have i dont think would explain it to them any better. They are great bunch of staff that work hard and want it seamless for them.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    antix80 wrote: »
    Op
    Not really. That's like saying "your holidays are factored into your pay".. You'll find yourself paying a holiday entitlement on top of that as it's not going to fly.

    Also you can't change terms, frequency, method of pay without agreement.

    Agreed. No intention of changing anything without agreement. More questioning the legalities of it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭dennyk


    brenno1 wrote: »
    Agreed thank you. Just want to take the confusion out of it for the employees. It wastes so much time explaining. And even a fancier HR system than the standard Micopay package we have i dont think would explain it to them any better. They are great bunch of staff that work hard and want it seamless for them.

    If you really want to remove the confusion, just give everyone four weeks a year of annual leave and that will solve all your problems.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    dennyk wrote: »
    If you really want to remove the confusion, just give everyone four weeks a year of annual leave and that will solve all your problems.

    Most staff work varying hours per week, some on relief work etc, we have been advised the 8% of hours worked is best approach for our workforce.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭dennyk


    brenno1 wrote: »
    Most staff work varying hours per week, some on relief work etc, we have been advised the 8% of hours worked is best approach for our workforce.

    Do you have a lot of staff that work fewer than 1,365 hours during the leave year (April to March)? Anyone working 1,365 hours or more in the leave year is entitled to four weeks of leave anyway, so unless you have a lot of staff members working fewer hours per year than that, you're probably not saving much by getting nitpicky with annual leave for those few staff members who would be under the 8% rule compared to the time you're apparently spending trying to calculate their accruals and explain the whole system to them repeatedly.

    If you're using the 8% method for staff who do work more than 1,365 hours a year, that isn't correct, and is going to be an issue for you if anyone complains that they're being shorted on their annual leave entitlement.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 61 ✭✭brenno1


    dennyk wrote: »
    Do you have a lot of staff that work fewer than 1,365 hours during the leave year (April to March)? Anyone working 1,365 hours or more in the leave year is entitled to four weeks of leave anyway, so unless you have a lot of staff members working fewer hours per year than that, you're probably not saving much by getting nitpicky with annual leave for those few staff members who would be under the 8% rule compared to the time you're apparently spending trying to calculate their accruals and explain the whole system to them repeatedly.

    If you're using the 8% method for staff who do work more than 1,365 hours a year, that isn't correct, and is going to be an issue for you if anyone complains that they're being shorted on their annual leave entitlement.

    We have 10 staff on a salaried 35 hour a week payroll who get 24 days a year entitlement. This is a monthly payroll.No issue with these staff.

    The other 55 are all hourly paid and maný work different hours depending on their availability and the needs of the business. Some are on relief so could work 30 hours one week and 5 hours the next. It is messy...not to mention bank holidays and their other leave entitlements and shift premiums etc. About 20 of the staff work certain relatively standard shift patterns of 21 hours per week but again they will do extra hours if needed or request less hours some weeks.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭dennyk


    Christ, that is messy, especially keeping up with all the regulations around such varied working hours anyway, like minimum payments and such. Still might be worth considering a fixed four working weeks of annual leave for those folks just to simplify things, but if you genuinely can't afford that, just tell them flat out that they accrue 8% of their hours worked as annual leave during each pay period; that should be straightforward enough.

    Actually paying that 8% immediately as it's earned is still not a great idea, though, as that's likely to end with a WRC complaint eventually, and I suspect you might not come out the winner. Unless you are absolutely militant about forcing all employees paid in such a manner to actually take all of their leave hours each year (including that unbroken two week period of leave per year that the law requires but that many forget is actually a legal entitlement), there is a real risk that it will appear to the WRC or the court that you are doing your annual leave payments that way to deliberately discourage your employees from actually using their leave and effectively give them payment in lieu instead, which would be a violation of the law.


  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 7,278 Mod ✭✭✭✭cdeb


    dennyk wrote: »
    but if you genuinely can't afford that, just tell them flat out that they accrue 8% of their hours worked as annual leave during each pay period; that should be straightforward enough.
    It's not a matter of affording it - it seems to be that it's not straightforward (from the point of view of the employees understanding it anyway)

    It's why I think the best option is the weekly log tying into the payslips. They can see the hours they worked each week, the annual leave that accrued, and when they were paid their leave.

    If they still can't understand that, you need new staff :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭dennyk


    cdeb wrote: »
    It's not a matter of affording it - it seems to be that it's not straightforward (from the point of view of the employees understanding it anyway)

    It would be straightforward if they just gave everyone four weeks, full stop. That would mean giving some (maybe most) of those part-time zero-hour-esque folks more annual leave than their minimum entitlements, though, which might not be in the budget.


  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 7,278 Mod ✭✭✭✭cdeb


    Fair enough; mis-read that.

    It still seems unnecessary though.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,599 ✭✭✭✭CIARAN_BOYLE


    Consider using a package that produces payslips with total cumulative hours worked to date on them.

    It becomes easy to calculate and very transparent when your payslip is a constantly updating document showing the whole thing.

    Cumulative
    Normal working: 1000 hours
    Holiday pay: 40 hours

    Get a calculator out. 1000*8%=80-40=40.

    A lot of these systems won't keep the cumulative hours worked on the payslip.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 142 ✭✭marko99


    I do the payroll for a sports club which has one year round part time (8 hours per week) employee and up to 20 temporary full-time employees in the summer season (some working just one or two weeks, others doing up to 10 or 11 weeks). We pay holiday pay as it is accrued, i.e. a separate line on payslip for holiday pay with an additional 8% on top of agreed hourly rate. It would be impossible to manage otherwise with a number of employees only being hired for very short periods as demand for training courses dictates.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,284 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    dennyk wrote: »
    It would be straightforward if they just gave everyone four weeks, full stop. That would mean giving some (maybe most) of those part-time zero-hour-esque folks more annual leave than their minimum entitlements, though, which might not be in the budget.

    Nope, it would mean some get less than their entitlements.

    Imagine someone who regularly does 10 a week, but occasionally does more.

    If you give them 4 weeks at 10 hours per week, they don't get any extra leave entitlement for the weeks when they worked more.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,930 ✭✭✭mrslancaster


    brenno1 wrote: »
    Most staff work varying hours per week, some on relief work etc, we have been advised the 8% of hours worked is best approach for our workforce.

    I thought the legislation said that the rate of pay for holidays for non salaried employees should be based on the previous 13 weeks & paid in advance of annual leave.

    the 8% is just one method of calculating the amount of annual leave due up to a max of 4 weeks.

    Paying 8% might not always be the correct rate even if the number of hours are right.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,257 ✭✭✭Love2love


    How would that work for statutory unpaid leave that accrues holiday pay? For instance, accruing annual leave whilst on Maternity Leave (assuming you don't top up) or Parental Leave, Carer's Leave, Sick Leave or the likes of that?


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