Is It Legal...

[trt]

for a company to lessen an employers hours 2 weeks before their holiday, so as not have to pay the full amount of holiday pay?

My friend is a carer and they reduced her hours by half last week and the week coming as she is taking a holiday next Monday.

Apparently they do this to all of the staff.

[RATTER15]

Surely she has already qualified for the holiday pay by the hours already worked.

[boxtops]

Have they asked her to sign a new contract from last week, so her hours will be less each week after she comes back from holiday? Her holiday entitlement so far will be based on the time she's worked before the holiday (i.e. several weeks/months) not immediately beforehand. She can always contact the ACAS helpline for advice.

[IggyB]

If your friend has irregular hours / flexible contract as a carer then her holiday entitlement will be based on the hours she has actually worked.

https://www.gov.uk/calculate-your-holiday-entitlement

Have a look at this leave calculator, your friend can select the 'casual / irregular hours' option, then enter the number of hours they have worked within the leave year (most businesses seem to do their leave allocation based on financial year April-March, but they may do it Jan-Dec).

The calculation will show the basic level of holiday entitlement.

[trt]

''If your friend has irregular hours / flexible contract as a carer then her holiday entitlement will be based on the hours she has actually worked''.

IggyB, the staff have been told that, because they work flexible irregular hours their holiday pay is based on the hours they work 2 weeks before their holiday. Sounds wrong to me!

[pixie373]

That is wrong. It's based on the average of the previous 13 weeks.

[IggyB]

Hi trt that is indeed wrong, your friend really needs to calculate the holiday leave she has accrued this leave year, the gov.uk calculator makes this quite simple.

There is a bit more info explaining the reason for the calculation from acas that you can see here
http://www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/p/4/Holidays-and-Holiday-Pay-accessible-version.pdf

I think this is a serious problem with zero hours contracts where the balance of power is significantly in the employers favour.

Hope your friend has good luck

[trt]

Thanks for all the helpful answers, will be seeing her tomorrow.