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?

Your colleague may mean they've accrued 5 days of leave and they're going to take a week off. Any unused leave should be added to your final pay packet.

she is going to make the same mistake and the same thing is going to happen to her.

Then give her the heads up but the same common sense advice applies to her. Check your contract, don't assume you can have annual leave without accrued time and not pay it back if you then leave. It's tough but you've learnt something useful.

That honestly doesn't matter, there's still the assumption that you will work somewhere long term unless you're specifically a contractor. Your previous line manager did nothing wrong about your annual leave.

If the company are likely to be litigious and chase the money through court action I'd get in touch up front, in writing (preferably email) and explain that you are unable to repay the full amount at once, but can agree a payment plan of X euros per week/month.

Unless they're run by complete ego maniacs they'll accept a payment plan rather than risk court costs in trying to pursue you.

Please let this be a lesson in reading your contract in the future, there's all sorts of clauses that can catch people out if you're not aware of them.

Best of luck.

Hi @Mooshamoo think of it this way though, you weren’t working for 2 weeks, and got paid in full for it. Why would you not pay it back? I’m guessing if it was the other way around, and you left having not taken holiday you’d be ok not getting paid for it?

Frankly, I am quite surprised one company would manage to hire number of adults who don't understand how holiday entitlement works. What are the odds

Yes of course they can. You accrue annual leave each month. If you take annual leave that you haven't accrued you will be asked to pay it back. What did you think the 21 annual leave days were? Did you think they had made a mistake and just wanted to take advantage of it or did you know the 21 days were your annual entitlement?

Well they wouldn't inform you as obviously they weren't expecting you to leave. You should have worked it put yourself tbh if you hadn't been there for long, took paid leave and then left shortly after!

OP I'm so sorry you're finding things rough and that this now causes you distress and some financial issues

But nothing that you've added changes things. Their company policy will either be somewhere in your contract or referred to and then found online or in a handbook somewhere

This is absolutely common practice, people can keep telling you things and you just need to accept you didn't know, didn't ask and assumed.

Now you're armed with this information you'll be better informed at your next job

I hope things improve for you

*I'm just really upset as if I had known I'd have to pay this back, I wouldn't have left,l the job, I would have tried to struggle on a bit more and wait until I got a new job.

Now I've quit the job and have no income and also owe them money. Its awful*

Of course you have to pay them back. It's standard in any company that you need to do so if you haven't earned it. The company being awful has nothing to do with this matter.

See of theybwill set up a plan otherwise you could find yourself being chased for the debt.

If you work 3 months and you get 20 days annual leave, you do not get 20 days to take in those 3 months

Made up time frames for example

Do you really need to be told this?

Your colleague will be entitled to whatever hours she has worked up since 1st Jan. If you are shift, its 8 hours hols for every 100 you work. Plus bank Holiday payment.

If you are business hours you are legally entitled to 20 days hols plus the 10 Irish Bank Holidays Per year. Obviously companies offer different packages but these are the legal requirements.

Please read your contract for your next job and maybe do some research yourself. Citizen's information is a great resource.

No one is going to spoon-feed you. Take some responsibility for your career.

@Coffeellama
If it states in the contract that the employer may deduct overpaid holiday from final pay the they can legally do this.

If it doesn't state that then they have to seek agreement to do so or offer OP the option of working the extra taken holiday days to pay back the taken holiday etc. If OP does not pay the money back or come to an agreement then employer can take OP to court for the money.

I do think that jobs should tell you how holiday entitlement works.

They generally do. There is probably an employee handbook or intranet page somewhere that explains it all. Are you sure you haven’t missed it?

Some people are being overly harsh. You sound quite young and understandably stressed about the situation.

This is very standard, even if it’s not the way they’ve done things at previous companies you’ve worked for. You don’t actually accrue all your holiday hours until you work your very last hour of the year, so if you could only take holidays you had already accrued, everyone would be taking a portion of their annual leave at the very end of the year. That’s obviously not workable for either employer or employee.

For future reference, all the details of holiday pay and annual leave will be (or should be) in your contract. Employers can only enforce terms that are within the law, so it’s helpful to do a bit of research and have a working understanding of your employment rights. Crucially, it is not the responsibility of an employer to draw your attention to any particular part of your contract. It’s your responsibility to be aware of what your contract says.

You’ll know for next time and it’s a lesson on personal responsibility. Nobody is looking out for you except you when it comes to work, landlords etc. Have you got some support in real life to help you through the next few weeks?

Surely you know how many days holiday a year you have? Our holidays run april-april like many places, I know if I used all my leave by December and decided to leave, I'd owe them the holidays I had taken that was over my calculated allowance. I thought this was a general knowledge thing, my sister had to do it at her last job, she left a few months before the end of the financial year and had hammered all her holidays, the job came up and she wanted to apply so she hadn't planned to leave, so she had to pay them back.

If you've taken your 12 months worth of holidays and left before the end of the financial year of course you owe them the money.

This. It's money you didn't earn so you should pay it back. Surely it must've seemed like a pretty good dea

Have you read every line of your contract?

It's not your manager's fault for sanctioning this.

It depends on how you're paid, but broadly even if someone uses more leave than they have earned pro rata, they have still worked a lot more days than they had as leave. The "extra" days of leave are taken off from their final pay packet so they are just paid less.

They are asking for repayment of what they paid you on days you weren't at work. They are effectively asking for you to repay overpaid salary, that's all. Asking if you can return to work off the debt is not a bad shout if you are up to it.

this

you accrue days monthly, normally around 2.2 per month (give or take) and if you use more than you currently 'own' and leave you have to pay it back

OP, you need to take some responsibility for yourself. Expecting a manager to predict that you were going to leave and coach you through taking annual leave isn’t reasonable. You need to read your contract and also google anything you are unsure of in regard to employment law and rights.

I once had pre-authorised annual leave prior to starting a job which meant I worked there for four days and then was abroad on leave the whole of the second week. If I’d never returned surely you can see why it wouldn’t have been reasonable to expect them to pay me for the leave? I did return and they paid me on the assumption I was staying with the company, which I did. A company cannot assume you are leaving unless you give notice yourself regardless of staff turnovers.

She might be owed some holiday days though - it depends if she has taken any to date. She will have accrued some entitlement while working and is either entitled to take what she has accrued, or be paid for them in her final salary. What she needs to do is find out how many days she has 'earnt'.

If there isn't a clause relating to holiday in your contract of employment then it will be in a company/employee handbook, or in a stand alone holiday policy. If you have left and owe them the money (i.e. they didn't retrieve it from your final salary), then they may agree a repayment plan with you. Saves them having to pursue you for it formally.

If it’s not in your contract- which it may not be because not all companies are professional outfits - then speak to a charity that can help with advice. Something like Citizen’s Advice Bureau if you’re in the UK.

Hi@Mooshamoo , sorry you're in this situation but I agree you do owe the money. Please follow the advice @pontipinemum gave above and I would also add that opening an account with your local credit union is a good idea if you haven't already done so. The credit union might loan you the money to pay back the company if the company won't allow a repayment plan. Credit unions can often offer loans with lower interest rates than other financial institutions and some give loans to those on low income so don't assume you won't be eligible.

Good luck with the next job, hope you find something suitable soon!

Yes that's how it works

No I can see what my colleague is saying on the group WhatsApp chat. She is saying she wants to use all her annual leave before she goes. Because she is finding the job stressful. She is saying she wants to take three weeks annual leave becauae she finds the job so stressful she needs the time off. And then she wants to leave the jon next month. She started at the same time as me . November last year. So if she leaves she will have to pay it back.

She is going to make the same mistake as me. So I will tell her what happened to me. I wish someone had told me