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return to work
Hello to you all
can anyone help, I am due to return to work in April after double masectomy and having had 10 weeks sick leave.I had 3 days pre booked annual leave for early March 2012 that I had pre booked in 2011 for a special event, needless to say I was not able to take this leave as I was certificated sick.Normally this would not be a problem and I would just be allocated the days back to take another time but as all leave has to be taken by the end of March or you loose it I have notified that I will now lose those days!
Leave allocation starts 1st April to March 31st on a yearly basis.I have argued that I took that into account and made provisions to use up any leave I had before the time ran out but due to an unforseen illness it did not happen.
Can my employers do this, I feel this is unjust and does not take into account all the circumstances.
I would be grateful if anyone else has had the same happen to them and could give me some advice
My company does the same, any leave not used by march 31 is lost. They used to pay unused leave instead but no longer do this. I managed to use mine up by juggling the dates on my sick notes .
It,s rubbish I agree, but I don,t think there,s very much to be done about it
Herbi x x
hi,
are you not allowed to carry any over at all then. my leave runs from april to end of march too, but you are allowed to carry 5 over to use by end of may. i have read the sickness/leave policy and it says about special circumstances if you are unable to use by time allocated. maybe they have something like this at your workplace. do they have any HR policys to look at. it stinks though.
TTM xxx
There has been a European Courts of Justice decision on this subject in the last few years, as a result of which if you are unable to take holiday you are entitled to carry it over. The company can't tell you to "use it or lose it", nor can they force you to take payment in lieu.
I'd query it with someone who knows employment law, don't trust your HR department to either (a) know what they're talking about or (b) tell the truth.
If you are a trade union member, get them to advise you.
Get hold of your employers holiday policy IN WRITING
good luck
grumpy
Payment in lieu can be quite a good option, especially if you have otherwise droppped to half or zero pay, see have you used all your tax allowance for the year 2012/2012, if not then it may be to your advantage to get the money now at a low marginal tax rate. It also gives you a clean slate starting into next year whatever that holds, and they can't manipulate you over it once it's in the bank.
Talk to your union and talk to macmillan adviser. My employer was guided by the case CheshireCheese referred to and it was in their national HR policy which was available online if you looked hard enough. Also i still accrued holiday whilst off sick and when i finally left i got this paid at full rate, along with my notice, which was really very useful at that point, but it helped that the previous year had been set straight. It does feel like a lot of hassle at the time and one more thing to have to deal with, one more stress, but it's worth it so do persevere, and get all the help you can.
the only trouble with that european ruling was that it's based on the european mimimum entitlement of 24 days a/l a year
so, for eg, i was working for the nhs & had got to the point (10 years +) where my entitlement was 33 days + public hols (pro rata)
but someone in hr did some very complicated maths so that, for the time i was off sick, they calculated based on 24 days then for the 3 weeks i tried a graded return it went back up to 33 then when i went back off sick it went back down to 24
i got this huge letter with all the maths worked out & i have to say it felt a bit mean - i'd bever heard of theis 24 days thing & certainly hadn't applied it when ayone i managed was off sick!
but i also appreciate that, even though that made quite a difference to my attempts to stretch everything out as long as poss before i went to zero pay, i was very lucky compared to people whose employers just seem set on getting rid of them from day 1
definitely recommend the macmillan phoneline for anyone who thinks they're being cheated out of what they're entitled to
Get a copy of your company's sickness policy. Under our "long term sickness" policy, we are allowed to carry over unused leave due to a long-term illness. The general policy is "use it or lose it", but I've been allowed to carry some over... and I used a whole load of it up by working 4 days a week not 5 for 3 months after phased return finished... Jane
There has been a ruling as Cheshire Cheese says. It allows you to carry over the statutory min no of days which IIRC is 24 days??. This means if you are entitled to say 33 days AL due to long service then only whats left of the first 24 can be carried over. And any Public Holiday entitlement cannot be carried over. Its really annoying as the timing(?)of your illness/absence can mean losing holiday time.