Annual Leave for all employees

[smiler01]

Hi
I was wondering if someone could give me some information.
My employer has about 70 employees all are on the statutory annual leave of 20 days plus BH except about 5 who either negotiated additional days when being interviewed or have worked here for 20 odd years and have been given additional days over the years.

My Employer is now looking to bring in an extra days annual leave every 5 years up to 25 years so eventually gaining 5 extra days. For the employees who already have more then the stat entitlement they are considering just bringing them in line
for example an employee has been here 21 years already has 22 days plus BH and in theory they should get 4 days hols for 20 years service but my employers are saying as they have 22 already they will give them just 2 days to bring them inline with their new annual leave structure.

Could someone tell me where they stand with this, is it perfectly acceptable to do this as its their discretion any additional days or should all employees be treated equally with the new structure regardless of how many days they started with?

Thanks in advance

[peggyundercrackers]

in the company I work for everyone is treated the same within a new structure - everyone got/gets the same no matter what was negotiated previously. in systems where they may loose out rights are protected however if they are going to be better off everyone is made the same.

[littlewoollypervert]

Our company did a huge exercise last year and changed hols etc - the rule was that under the new system, no-one was worse off (so preserved any hols etc that they had from the old system) - and a lot of people ended up better off.

So, if you had 20 days hols, and the new system would give you 23 - you got 23 for 2016 onwards.

If you had 24 days hols under the old system, and would have had an increase to 25 in 2016 due to length of service - you got your increase (and didn't lose entitlement to any further increases)

[flowery]

"is it perfectly acceptable to do this....or should all employees be treated equally with the new structure"

If I am understanding your post correctly, all employees are being treated equally with the new structure, as opposed to the old structure where that was not the case.

No one is being penalised, no one is having any holiday entitlement taken away from them, lots of people will get extra days but on the basis of a defined formula rather than randomly (and therefore unfairly).

What's the problem?

[smiler01]

Thank you for the replies.
Flowery, there isn't a problem from my point of view, extra holiday is extra holiday. however a few of the employees who have the higher negotiated holidays will kick up a stink when they get told they won't be receiving 4 extra days on top of their pre negotiated holiday entitlement only the additional to bring them in line with the new structure.

I'm just checking what the actual situation is regarding this if an employer is well within their rights to not give 4 days just the 2 as they already have 22 and give 4 days to another employee who's been there the same length of time but never pre negotiated extra holidays.

I process the holidays and do the general admin of it but am not aware of the rules around these things so just checking that it's done correctly, if that make sense :)

[lougle]

As long as everyone is being treated the same, then they're absolutely within their rights to give tapered allowances to even up the annual leave entitlement. So it's absolutely fine to give employee A 2 extra days and employee B 4 extra days so they both end up with 24 days. The only time it wouldn't be ok is if the different allowances were based on a protected characteristic, so men ended up with 26 days and women ended up with 28 days, for example.

The people with more leave currently may feel slighted that they lose their advantage, but as long as it matches or exceeds the legal entitlement and doesn't discriminate, it's up to the employer.

[smiler01]

Fantastic thank you so much for your reply, that's basically what I was trying to ask I don't think I was very clear lol

Thank you again

[flowery]

"however a few of the employees who have the higher negotiated holidays will kick up a stink when they get told they won't be receiving 4 extra days on top of their pre negotiated holiday entitlement"

Good grief. They're getting extra holiday but they're still going to kick up a stink because they're not going to continue to be the beneficiaries of an unfair system? Blimey.

[smiler01]

yes unfortunately we do have some staff here just like that, you wouldnt believe the fuss when they get an £800 xmas bonus and someone else in their dept gets more, its shocking!!

[Musicaltheatremum]

I'd love to have flowery as my employment lawyer. Says it how it is. Some people are incredible.