Off sick, untaken holiday and leaving a company.

Daniee

Daniee

Daniee

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So basically, I have a friend, lets call them Bob. Bob's been off work sick for quite long periods over the year for various reasons.

Most of this information is a bit vague, as I could get in trouble for mentioning it, I may have to edit some of the backstory out later.

Bob's been off sick a few times this year, first time maybe ~2-3months and then ~1.5-2months later one. Bob resigned after being constantly being messed around by the company ~9/10 months into the holiday year.


Some questions and thoughts:

Any holiday Bob had booked for the year whilst off sick will be classed as sick and holiday given back? Was all sick pay for the entire time Bob was off.

Is holiday is still accrued whilst off sick?

Without being off sick, Bob has had only ~1week of holidays this year

Should Bob be paid for the untaken holidays?

The company has taken the stance of "no" and "you owe them us" which doesn't sound right to me which is why I'm here with those questions.

Thanks

Daniee
 
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challengedavid said:
bob is entitled to all holidays accrued whist employed, sick or not
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Thanks, that's what I thought, is there any routes to go down as the company is being stubborn about it? Bob recons it's around £800 worth but just wants nothing to do with them anymore really after all the poo they've done, but £800 is a lot of monies!
 
Employment tribunal maybe? I dunno. But if theres evidence against the company they have no chance with this sort of thing.

You can be sick while on leave and that day becomes a sick day instead of a leave day. But in the end you still have to have at least 20 days paid leave (assuming it's a full year).

The rules might be different if your signed of sick long term though.
 
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Nasher said:
You can be sick while on leave and that day becomes a sick day instead of a leave day. But in the end you still have to have at least 20 days paid leave (assuming it's a full year).
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Thanks, it'll be around 9 months into the holiday year so that'd be converted to ~15? With ~5 days already taken and at £80 per day, 10x80=£800?

I'm not sure if it's long term sick or not, it didn't start out that way.
 
Yes he is entitled to his full holiday pay pro rata sick or not sick.

My boss hates that peopl can be off a year and then still get all their holiday pay.

By the way it's 28 days including the bank holidays as I presume Bob didn't get paid for his bank holidays? Although a lot depends on exactly how his holiday is laid out in his contract on this point.
 
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As has been said, you accue all holiday during the leave year (and there are also allowances IIRC for if you then can't take holiday in a leave year due to illness)... (Not that that matters here).

It's a clear cut case though, so I'd say to fight it.
 
We had a new sickness policy brought in at the start of the year in my place and one of their new rules is that "Any holiday booked that is then subsequently covered by time off sick will be lost"

Honestly did they get the work experience kid to come up with that, it's a complete contradiction to the law and I'm tempted to book some holiday and then call in sick just to see if they actually try to enforce it.

Anyway http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=4264 that covers Bob's question.
 
Sick leave and holiday
Statutory holiday entitlement is built up (accrued) while an employee is off work sick (no matter how long they’re off).

Any statutory holiday entitlement that isn’t used because of illness can be carried over into the next leave year. If an employee is ill just before or during their holiday, they can take it as sick leave instead.

An employee can ask to take their paid holiday for the time they’re off work sick. They might do this if they don’t qualify for sick pay, for example. Any rules relating to sick leave will still apply.

Employers can’t force employees to take annual leave when they’re eligible for sick leave.


Long-term sickness
Employees who are off work sick for more than 4 weeks may be considered long-term sick. A long-term sick employee is still entitled to annual leave.
 
Daniee said:
Bob's been off sick a few times this year, first time maybe ~2-3months and then ~1.5-2months later one. Bob resigned after being constantly being messed around by the compan
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Sounds to me like Bob's a **** taking git that I wouldn't like to work with... (But of course I don't know all the facts :) )
 
Sorry to hijack the thread OP but I thought I'd ask a question regarding a friend who's trying to book holidays for a large supermarket chain she works for.

The issue is the manager has told her to book her holidays before April or she will lose them she has around 80 hours left to book. Now, because the company has told most of its colleagues to book them before April she hasn't been able to get her days in that she would like off due to the likes of no cover etc. The days which are available are after April. So it seems she would lose them.

What can she do to get her holidays in? As her stance on it is that it's not her problem if they can't cover her. She is entitled to holidays. Is there a specific law on this or is she buggered?
 
Vita said:
Sorry to hijack the thread OP but I thought I'd ask a question regarding a friend who's trying to book holidays for a large supermarket chain she works for.

The issue is the manager has told her to book her holidays before April or she will lose them she has around 80 hours left to book. Now, because the company has told most of its colleagues to book them before April she hasn't been able to get her days in that she would like off due to the likes of no cover etc. The days which are available are after April. So it seems she would lose them.

What can she do to get her holidays in? As her stance on it is that it's not her problem if they can't cover her. She is entitled to holidays. Is there a specific law on this or is she buggered?
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Unless it's in her contract that she can carry it over into the new holiday period then it's lost if she can't find any suitable time to take it.

Edit: This is assuming that she's just not taken it throughout the rest of the year rather than been unable to take it due to sick or maternity leave.
 
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Vita said:
Sorry to hijack the thread OP but I thought I'd ask a question regarding a friend who's trying to book holidays for a large supermarket chain she works for.

The issue is the manager has told her to book her holidays before April or she will lose them she has around 80 hours left to book. Now, because the company has told most of its colleagues to book them before April she hasn't been able to get her days in that she would like off due to the likes of no cover etc. The days which are available are after April. So it seems she would lose them.

What can she do to get her holidays in? As her stance on it is that it's not her problem if they can't cover her. She is entitled to holidays. Is there a specific law on this or is she buggered?
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As has been said, it's a normal thing to do (certainly in retail)..

You're generally told this before hand, though, so it's up to the employee to manage their own bookings. (If everyone booked off time in April to use up holiday, there would be no-one left to work the shop!)
 
tom_e said:
We had a new sickness policy brought in at the start of the year in my place and one of their new rules is that "Any holiday booked that is then subsequently covered by time off sick will be lost"

Honestly did they get the work experience kid to come up with that, it's a complete contradiction to the law and I'm tempted to book some holiday and then call in sick just to see if they actually try to enforce it.

Anyway http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=4264 that covers Bob's question.
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Yeah, it wouldn't stand up at an employment tribunal. You see similar things with unfair clauses in contracts. the amount of times someone has told me "the company are allowed to do it because it's in my contract and I signed it". Well sorry, if it's an unfair clause then it's unenforceable (commonly seen in notice periods) - your contract may say "your boss may slap you on the third Wednesday of the month", doesn't actually mean they can!

Companies try this kind of thing on all the time as employees either don't know their rights or are unwilling to fight for them. This is why I always laugh when people say trade unions are no longer needed.
 
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If Bob's employers sick-pay policy isn't discretionary and they've already paid him Full Sick Pay then their's not much they can do.

I don't think they'd be able to retrospectively only pay SSP (processing a deduction) having already paid it in full.
 
BennyC said:
If Bob's employers sick-pay policy isn't discretionary and they've already paid him Full Sick Pay then their's not much they can do.

I don't think they'd be able to retrospectively only pay SSP (processing a deduction) having already paid it in full.
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??????? Lost. What has that got to do with the OP?
 
Greebo said:
??????? Lost. What has that got to do with the OP?
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If they begrudgingly pay OP's annual leave they could try and claw back full sick pay by retrospectively reducing it to SSP, with a deduction, to some extent. Doubt this would be legal or possible mind.
 
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