Holiday accrual during shielding/ sickness

[Gastontehladybird]

If anyone has any understanding around this I'd greatly appreciate your insight.

So my mam was off work last January, on sickness, she has a lot going on physically so wasn't well enough to work.

Then covid-19 happened and she was told she was clinically extremely vulnerable and must shield. So she was moved off the sick and onto shielding with her works her dept.

During the summer when restrictions were lifted she went back on to the sick because she still wasn't well and then now back on to shielding.

Her work are saying she has no entitlement to annual leave from last year. Her work annual leave runs Jan to Dec.

My understanding is that she is legally entitled to carry over her leave over the next years.

Now her employer is a national retailer who is supposed to be renowned for treating staff well. So it's not a case of just someone getting it wrong, it's a whole personnel department that are informing my mams supervisor.

She doesn't want to rock the boat and whilst she is being paid while off, it's not a holiday. She can't leave the house and has no enjoyment for a year.

Any ideas?

So she would 2 years worth of holidays to be taken in one year, after being payed fully (sick) for a year? Is this what your asking

There is no statutory right for an employer to award full pay to someone off sick. The law is actually SSP for 28 weeks only.
Your mother is very lucky that she is entitled to enhanced sick pay under the terms of her contract. Asking for more entitlements to paid holiday is taking the piss.

PS. As a large retailer this employer will have been very aware of their annual leave obligations to employees both working and not working in 2020, and very motivated not to leave themselves with a significant unfilled obligation late in the year that could cause them chaos/piles of money. I'd be willing to make at least a modest bet that they communicated with all furloughed employees to tell them no a/l excess could be carried over and therefore all employees should be sure to take some of their furlough as a/l.

@Gastontehladybird

No she's being paid in full. Like I said she doesn't want to rock the boat but I thought this was law and she should be given it back.

So she hasn't worked for over a year, and has been paid her full salary?

She may be entitled to annual leave, but fucking hell, I would be embarrassed to ask.

"I haven't had to work in the last 12 months, and you have paid me, can I have some more paid time off please"

I think you need to respect your mum's choice not to pursue any accrued holiday entitlement. She presumably has the capacity to make her own decisions on this.

When you say she was moved to "shielding" do you mean she was moved to furlough?

You continue to accrue annual leave throughout employment, regardless of whether sick or furloughed. However, there isn't an additional requirement to be allowed to carry forward a full entitlement - there has been a shift to allow more leave to be carried forward where it was impossible for employers to let employees take it last year

• as PPs said, it was also clarified that leave could be taken within furlough (but should be paid at usual salary) and many employers required furloughed employees to do this, to prevent a logjam of booked leave this year, and also to decrease the resentment that could occur between furloughed and non-furloughed employees.

Personally, if there wasn't ever a conversation about it between employer and employee, and the leave entitlement wasn't used, I would expect to carry forward the no of days permitted by the company policies. That might be none, or it might be a small number. It may also have a requirement to use the carried forward days within the first quarter for example.

The company were totally in their right to demand she takes some of her annual leave whilst she was shielding. On this basis, it's reasonable to assume she has indeed taken all the time.

It should however have been recorded as such on her record and even more clear that she should have been informed.

As a matter of principle, why do you think the company should pay her in full whilst shielding AND pay for all her holidays, in addition, to be taken next year so she gets ton of time off after not working for a year? Extremely entitled attitude.