Company wants me to pay back holiday days.

[Mooshamoo]

I started in a job in November 2022. We have an online annual leave system .
At the start of January 2023, 21 days on our online system became available to me for me to take.

I asked my manager could I take two weeks off at the start of the year. I took the last week of January and the first week of February off. This was approved by my manager. I took them. I was then moved to a new manager. Which was the way the company worked. New starters were with one manager. After two months you were changed to another manager

The company was pretty abusive and at the end of February I decided to leave.

I left. I then got an email from my second manager saying I had taken more annual leave days in the time I worked there, then I had accrued. And that I have to pay this annual leave money back. It is 550 euro. I'm in Ireland. This is a lot of money to me as i am now in between jobs.

Can they do this. My first manager who approved the annual leave days, never told me that I did not have enough annual leave days to take. She approved them. She never told me at any stage that if I left the company that I would have to pay these annual leave days back. If I had known that I wouldn't have taken them .

Can they do this to me now?

I bet it is in the contract.

Also sounds like OP just walked out with no notice so her employers had no time to adjust her pay or inform her of this

Yes I am in my late thirties. I don't know why some people assumed I was young. People can make mistakes at any age. I had been out of the work force for a couple of years.

I am in Ireland and I do the payroll and manage the holidays in my company.
This is totally standard. You'll probably find that it is written into the company's holiday policy.

We usually do not let new employees take more than 1 week more than they have accumulated so we probably wouldn't have let you take 2 weeks off a the start of the year due to you being a recent starter. However your company did allow you to take the holidays and you have been overpaid so they are within their rights to ask for the money back.

However If you have already left and have received your final pay it will be difficult for them to force you to repay the money.

But on the flip side, it means no-one can take a longer holiday or break at the beginning of the holiday year. For example, I took 3 weeks off in February once to go to New Zealand as it was the best time of year there. If my holiday year started in January I wouldn't have accrued enough time to go until October!

The system of using it and being aware of the potential to repay it is the much more logical way.

Definitely get a copy of your contract to see whether it was mentioned in there, and take advice from someone - is there the equivalent of ACAS in Ireland? If they didn't have it in their contract, or they're now trying to recoup it after you've already left, you may have some argument against it.

My first reply was before I'd read all your posts OP. For what it's worth, you've done the right thing in leaving. Working for the sake of building up accrued leave sounds like it would destroy you in other ways.

If you do need to repay it, tell them you can't afford it all in one go and they'll have to accept installments, perhaps starting when you find your next job.

@Mooshamoo The issue is now repaying the time you owe them. You will owe it regardless of whether your manager made you aware. I would contact them and advise that you arent able to pay it in one go and look to arrange some kind of payment arrangement with them. I did this with an employer when I had taken more leave than I should have for the point in the year when I left. I was head hunted for another job which I couldnt turn down, I hadnt been expecting to leave. I still needed to pay it back.

It's quite usual to have your full annual leave entitlement available from January 1st.

Why would your employer pay you for more time than you're entitled to? If you hadn't taken leave and had given your notice, you probably would've received extra pay for your January leave entitlement, at whatever rate you accrue holiday.

Yeah I understand that. But I took annual leave at the start of the year.

Things got so bad a month later that I quit. When I quit I wasn't thinking about the annual leave that I took previously.

I was thinking how much suffering and in mental pain I was on the week that I quit. It's hard to remember everything when you are in a bad place and quitting.

It was only after i quit and the manager told me about the annual leave that I remembered it.

Some people seem to think that:

I decided to take the annual leave and then quit.

But it wasn't like that.

I took the annual leave at the start of the year. Things got so bad a month later that I quit. When I quit I was just thinking of all the bad things I had gone through that week, I wasn't thinking about the annual leave I had taken, I forgot about it.

It was only after I quit and he told me about it that I remembered it. And I was like shit.

Yes but if OP is looking for a phrase such as "If you take all your holidays and leave we will take that from your last pay" that might not be in the contract. Someone else mentioned phrases like "statutory deductions" or there might be phrases about accrued leave or whatever. OP's contract may well be entirely legal but the salient point has been lost in legalese or the OP has assumed it doesn't say about paying back holiday as it's not spelled out in black and white in the way she was looking for it.

Agree best way forward is to agree a payment plan.

The only thing to do now is a payment plan or go back.

But I think the managers will make my life a living misery if I go back. I already work 9 hours without a break every day. If I go back they would probablt take me back, but i know the managers will abuse me badly for quitting .

I feel ill with stress

This job is going to psychologically break me

Its noticeable from your posts that you don't want to take any responsibility for reading the company policy on annual leave, its all somebody else's fault.

Did you not get a company policies and procedures handbook? You can check with you local citizen right bureau. www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/employment_rights_and_duties/employee_rights_and_entitlements.html#:~:text=You%20have%20the%20right%20to,in%20the%20workplace%20is%20unlawful.
The Workplace Relations Commission has published a Document to Employment, Labour and Equality Law (pdf) and a booklet on Employment Law Explained (pdf).

You can get more information on employment protection legislation from the Workplace Relations Commission’s Information and Customer Service.

Workplace Relations Commission - Conciliation and Mediation Services
Lansdowne House
Lansdowne Road
Dublin 4
D04 A3A8

Tel: (01) 613 6700
Locall: 0818 80 80 90
Fax: (01) 613 6701
Homepage: www.workplacerelations.ie/en/

So get another job and agree a repayment plan.

What happened if you took a break?

Also, the OP apparently didn’t email herself or print out a copy of the contract so she has no idea what it says because she hasn’t got it - she relied on viewing it on the work HR system and was locked out as soon as she left.

Well as everyone has said, it's perfectly normal and legal for this to happen so there's nothing to be done about it now.

You'll just have to lose out on the two weeks of pay or see if HR can arrange some kind of payment plan - however they're not obliged to offer that so you may just have to consider it a lesson learned.

@Mooshamoo
Your best next move OP is to make sure their bill to you is correct
Work out how much leave you were entitled to based on how long you worked ( see previous post )
How many extra days you took off over and above that
Multiply the extra days you took by you daily rate (euros )
Thats how much you owe
Then agree a monthly payment plan…..they won’t want to take you to court or pass it over to a debt collector as it will cost them more to do this.

We all live and learn…..

The section about breaks is illegal, see my post re employee rights.

The site manager (or someone higher?) called you because you'd cried in a conversation with your manager? That's extremely unusual and actually makes them sound like they are interested in employees! However, call centre work is indeed tough. Hopefully they will accept a repayment plan. You've got your answer here, speak to them and set up a solution. Don't dwell on it, it won't change anything.

I think you are spiralling here. Call them, set up a payment plan. Its only 700 €.
In a year you won't remember this . Positive mindet.
And then educate yourself on your workplace rights. Knowledge is power. Citizens information or gov.ie.

Really sorry you're not getting the answers you want to hear. I too expected you to be in your first job around aged 18 when I read your post. It really is common sense that you can't take a couple of weeks paid leave when you've only been there a couple of months and then quit and owe nothing. It really isn't their responsibility to show you where this is in your contract it really is your responsibility to read it in the first place.

Nope, assuming you are an adult they shouldn't have to explain basic AL to you.

And if the company has a high staff turnover as the OP states, management will 100% ensured that they have policies and contracts which allow them to claw back overpaid holiday.