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?

@Mooshamoo thanks for your reply, however I still can't see why you can't take a break? Just when you're finished with one case, change your status so you have no more calls coming in and let your team leader/manager know you are taking your break.

Do you have a schedule which tells you when your scheduled breaks are? Have you told a manager before that you haven't been able to take any breaks and you need one?

OP as others have said, if you get paid on 24th and it's for the whole month, you may owe some salary back.

We get paid on 21st and its 3 weeks in arrears and 1 week in advance. So if I left on 21st and received a full months salary, I would owe back a week

Please keep this in mind

How bad the job is regarding breaks etc is a totally different issue to you not understanding how the leave works. Other colleagues not being happy etc is not going to change anything

This

How did I deliberately not take breaks, when there is no time to take breaks?

If the level of workload is so huge that their is no time to take breaks, that is their fault.

All of my team say the same thing that there is no possible time to take breaks.

I spoke to three different managers about this last week. That the workload is too huge for us to be able to take a break. That we need to have 15 minutes scheduled administration time. I told them about this.

None of my team are able to take breaks. The last three people in my team quit because of the same reason, because they couldn't take a single break. It's physically impossible to keep up that level of work without a break every day.

I don't think it is humanly possible to take 9 hours of back to back calls, and updating 4 tech systems at the same time without any breaks at all.

It's illegal and it's extremely detrimental to your health.

I see one of my colleagues on the WhatsApp chat today saying that she is going to quit because she couldn't take a single break all week , and she is really sick now because of it.

I know Fiddledediddledeedee however many HR departments will allow an exceptional carry over where holidays could not be taken (for example because an employer is undergoing training). I any case since it seems unlikely OP can pay it back and chasing through courts would be more expensive than the actual holiday pay itself its possible they'll agree as the easiest and cost efficient option.

It’s not illegal because they are not stopping you taking a break.

You are choosing not to have a break so you don’t get behind, but that is your choice.

Take your legal break entitlement and if you fall behind, so what? Perhaps then your company will see the workload is too large.

Standard practice the holidays are accrued over the year, often employees chose to use them before they are accrued, this is fine but they will be deducted from your pay should you leave, also if you have earned holiday and have not taken them they will be paid in final salary.

You know what OP, I was a bit abrupt with you earlier but my sister worked in one of those places like you were in. It completely depleted her, affected her mental health and her confidence until one day she just walked out with no other job to go to. Horrible place to work and they honestly don't let you get a breath between calls. They time you going to the toilet, it's disgraceful.

Contact them and tell them you are not working and that you have not got the means to pay them back in full at this time. Ask them if you can have a payment plan and then offer a small amount a week until such time as things change for you. Make a point of contacting them though and offering this and don't panic. If you don't have it to give they cannot take it but make the contact and get the ball rolling. It will be ok xx

There is so much technical work to do on systems , and we have no administration time (no time off calls) at all, that the only possible way to keep on top of the technical work is to do the work during your alloted break times. 15 mins break in morning, 30 mins lunch , 15 mins afternoon. There is no possible way to keep on top of the work other than work through your breaks.

you said that the press have got wind of this and this is why the big boss called you? Tell the people you are still in touch with to have their breaks. 2 x 15 minutes and 1 x 30 minutes. Because if they are planning on quitting anyway, they may as well be fired. Right? You all need to join a union

JOIN. A. UNION.

I can't stress that enough. Did i mention unions? Too late for this job, but not for the next.

People getting fired for taking their breaks? more than one of them? The papers will have a field day.

When you put in for annual leave did you ask the manager would you be covered if you left? A manager does not sign off leave having whipped out a calculator with all different scenarios of entitlement should you leave at various points.

Its not possible. Once I receive a call, that call has to be logged and sent within a certain timeframe. We get back to back calls.

We have no admin time. There is no time to do what they want to us to do. The only possible way to do the tech work is to do it on my break.

If I don't get it down I will get into huge huge trouble for not doing it. As contractors won't have been sent out to the customers in time.

No one in my team is able to take a single break ever. We have all told the managers that we need administration time every day, that we need to be off calls for 15 minutes.. They won't give it to us.

The bit I don't get is that OP has been out of the workforce for a couple of years but still didn't know that AL is accrued over the year (it's in the name). It's not a sudden legislative change. Weird.

The no breaks thing (if they are preventing breaks rather than workers being martyrs and sacrificing breaks to catch up on work) is hugely illegal and I echo sentiments upthread to join a union and get this investigated.

This is correct and something I consider when resigning from a job.

They are stopping us from taking a break. Because if I don't get the tech work done for every single call in time, I will get three -four managers contacting me threatening me asking why it is not done. You don't realise how much of a threatening environment it is.

I have explained to them that there is not physically enough time to do it. We all as a team have pointed out that there is not enough time to do things. Every one is working full out through their breaks. No one gets a break.

I've worked in other jobs. You know how in other jobs you have five to ten minutes here and there to send in an email.

I can't describe what this job is like. You wouldn't even have time to read one email. You wouldn't have time to go to the toilet. The amount of work they expect us to do in the time they give us is unreasonable. I'd like to see one of the managers answer a call and update four tech systems at the same time, then have 20 seconds before the next call. And never have ANY time off calls ever during the whole day. And see if he can do it. Or if he breaks from stress.

@Mooshamoo do you have 'wrap time' option on your phone system? When you put the phone down does it not go into a wrap status?

Of course then can, you accrue holiday days and you took more than you had accrued. You owe them the money.

Ask for a copy of your contract...AFAIK to deduct the holiday pay, it needs to be in your contract that they can do this. (It us normal as you have been told lots of times on her). I'm in Ireland.

*is not us
*here not her

so are you working there at the moment? or not

You said it's not illegal because they are not stopping you taking a break

But if the level of workload given is so high , that it is not possible to take a break. That is the company's responsibility.

No one in my team is ever able to take a break. It has been pointed out to managers by many of us, that there needs to be administration time off calls , so we have some time between calls to do tasks. We asked for just 15 mins administratiom time in the morning. This wasn't given to us

No we go straight into the next call. There is no time between calls.

^Once I receive a call, that call has to be logged and sent within a certain timeframe. We get back to back calls.

We have no admin time. There is no time to do what they want to us to do. The only possible way to do the tech work is to do it on my break.

If I don't get it down I will get into huge huge trouble for not doing it. As contractors won't have been sent out to the customers in time.

No one in my team is able to take a single break ever. We have all told the managers that we need administration time every day, that we need to be off calls for 15 minutes.. They won't give it to us^

Unless you're an emergency services despatcher, and your 'contractors being sent out to the customer' are actually fire/police/ambulance people, what's the rush? Even if you're taking an hour or two per working day for breaks and admin, it will only be a few minutes longer wait per customer so won't make any difference at all, outside emergency services.

Take your call, do your admin/tech work and don't answer another call until that's done.

If they want a certain standard of service (calls answered within X rings, contractors despatched within Y minutes) they need to provide appropriate staff members for this including allowance for admin/tech, breaks meeting legal requirements and preferably also to cover any staff shortages.

And it they don't do that, it's not your problem. It's theirs. If they asked you why you left tell them. Unreasonable workload and illegal working conditions.

Oh my god. I don't think I'm due more salary. I was replying to a lady that said : if you are paid weekly, and you are paid a week in hand they may owe you a weeks salary.

I replied to her that "I am paid monthly so I don't think I am owed any more salary"

What does your contract of employment say? If they have provided one it will almost certainly have provision in there about leave entitlement. In which case the fact your managers didn't explain when you booked leave is irrelevant.