New job, negative leave

[SO224350]

I started a new job with a care agency a few months ago. They finally sent me the link today to book time off. It currently says -8/0 days remaining.

I work about 24 hours a week on a zero hours contract. Does this mean I have to take any days off as unpaid? How long would it take to start getting into credit? Never seen this before!

Query it. I’ve never seen that before. Could it be human error - eg two people with similar names and someone has booked the holiday quota incorrectly? So Jane smith took a weeks holiday but it’s booked as Jamie smith taking it.
I've always estimated that I earn around 1.5 days worth of holiday per month worked in any job I’ve done, it’s not too far out as a guesstimate tool.

Is that somehow accounting for bank holidays for this calendar year? I'm pretty sure we're 8 BH's in at this point with the 9th at the end of August and then no more till next year.

Depending on when op
started she wouldn’t be eight days in deficit purely by having the bank holidays as holiday.Even starting in January and only
accruing I days holiday per month would only mean she was breaking even. (6 bank holiday so far plus august and December Christmas ones to come to make up the 9 for this year. ) Possibly may still
be owed them in lieu if they worked them.

Definitely query it. I wonder if it’s because you’re on a zero hours contract so the system doesn’t automatically update your allowance, as it would for someone who has fixed/min hours (so based on contract being 0, your basic entitlement is 0, and what you accrue depends on what you work)

Ours is similar, in that it doesn’t update anything outside of our standard allowance/contract e.g days earned in lieu, holidays carried over. But bank holidays show up as all booked/taken even though we have depts who work them as normal days. Our management has to manually request these updates for individuals.

Thanks will definitely query it ! Definitely no one in the company with a similar name. I started beginning of April and annual leave starts on the 1st January

It does mention bank holidays now I've looked again so could be that? I have worked the bank holidays between beginning April and now

Probably because you have to accrue leave before you can take any.

I'm full time and have to work 2.6 weeks for 1 day (think thats the calculation).

Might mean on your hours you can accrue 8 days leave until end of the year. How long have you been there and when does the year end?

Been there about 10 weeks, annual keave starts 1jan

If you’ve worked the bank holidays then you should either be paid for the holiday plus the time worked on the holiday or - still have the holiday to take and have been paid for the time worked. They cannot say you’ve worked it and been paid your normal day rate and take away your right to that days holiday. Have you checked you wage slip for this?
So, if you started in January and it’s now June you have 5 1/2 months of accrued holiday time and from the start of your company year. So you would get roughly the equivalent of 6 days holiday owing. Even allowing for them taking the bank holidays off you (assuming you have been paid for them) you still wouldn’t be in a deficit for your holiday allowance.
Even if you started later than January, we’ve only had 6 bank holiday so far with August and December bank holidays yet to come. (9 this year). So you couldn’t be more than 6 days down.

The only thing I can think is that they are trying to make you work an entire year before accruing any holiday. If so, the. Yes you would be in deficit for all 9 of this years bank holidays. That way you would not accrue any holiday until a year from your start date. However I THINK that is now illegal - hopefully someone with better legal knowledge will pop up.

No, the annual leave is from Jan 1st and I started beginning of April so not been there long and worked the last two bank holiday Mondays. I've kept a record of the hours I've worked in each pay period and I got more than expected, no mention of holiday pay just more hours than I've done - could this be for the bank holiday?

ah I used that as an example.
so from April to now you would have earnt roughly 2 1/2 days of holiday. If you have been paid extra for working bank holiday, then check that the extra is for the holiday itself and not an enhanced bank holiday rate. If it’s enhanced bank holiday rate then you still get your holiday in lieu. Your contract should stipulate what happens to your pay and holiday if you work a bank holiday.
minimum holiday allowance by law is 20 days plus all bank holidays - usually this is 28 days a year. The jubilee this year gives us an extra day. This holiday is earnt throughout the year and is cumulative. So you’ve started roughly a quarter of the way through the year, so will earn 3/4 of the full annual allowance by the time December 31st 2022 is reached. If you leave earlier, then you holiday entitlement is reworked and if you have taken holiday above what you have earnt, you will have to pay it back via deductions from your wage.

so you need to check how they pay you for working bank holidays - is it time plus paid for your holiday allowance or do you get paid extra (eg time and a half) for working bank holidays plus time off in lieu. Also you need to ask how much holiday time have you already accrued. Basically go back to them and make them explain how you are in deficit when you’ve not had any holiday yet!

to complicate things further. !!!! Some
companies record holidays as days, some record it as hours owed to you. So if your shift is four hours per day, 8 hours holiday actually gives you 2 days off. So I guess another thing for you to ask - is holiday shown as hours owed back or as days.

applogies for long post.

This may explain things better than my ramblings.
www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights

That's very helpful thank you! I work 3 days a week anything between 8 and 10 hours.