Hi
I’ve asked them for details of how their holiday pay is allocated but they’ve not come back to me. Does anyone on here work for them on the RM contract and if so how is your holiday pay worked out? Thanks in advance.
If you are working 5 day weeks, you should be accumulating more than half a day per week (based on legal minimum 28 days per year).
Over ten weeks, you should have accumulated 6.03 days holiday. Revised - 6.03 days holiday
Holiday pay can be worked out using 12.07%, but sometimes agencies use your last 12 weeks average pay to work out what you get.
A complicating factor can be if you are not working five days per week. Agencies may sometimes also only pay full days accumulated unless your are being paid up on leaving.
If you are on equal terms as permanent employees and they are on say 31 days holiday per year, you should be accumulating slightly more holiday.
Thank you for that information. Appreciated.
Just to clarify the legal minimum is 20 days holiday per year.
The “past 12 weeks” system of calculation - has the disadvantage that holiday “decays” during a prolonged quiet period, such as January. Thus, if you stockpile your holiday to take in say, Februry (when it’s still quiet) - then you might find yourself getting less than you expected…
The flipside of this effect is that with so many agency staff on this method of “decaying holiday calculation” on holiday immediately after a very busy period like Christmas, - it creates a shortage of staff for those first few weeks in January, where people like myself benefited by being flat-out for work across January, simply because there are not enough agency staff in to cover the reduced amount of work still available.
I now work for Staffline agency, who seem to have a better method of “non-decaying” holiday:
You accumulate 12.07% of gross pay worked, paid in “holiday hours” that can be taken on requst with about a week’s notice. You don’t even actually have to take a day off to get this payment, although it is usually allocated to whatever days off you might have had in the coming week…
This “accumulated hours” figure is then multipled by an average hourly rate, which of course will be higher if you work a lot of nights & weekends like I do, and lower if you do monday-friday earlies…
This amount doesn’t “decay” as such, but if you work a bunch of sundays & bank holidays, - the average gets pushed right up which then gradually decays over coming weeks as you end up doing fewer bank holidays, but presumably the same number of sundays.
Thus, over Christmas for instance, any holiday I accumulate would be at a higher hourly rate averaged, because I’ll be doing Sundays and the two bank holidays of Boxing Day and New Year’s Day combined. In addition, I get a “right through” rate, which doesn’t fall off the cliff if I for example, start a shift @ 22:00 sunday night (which I do often…) only to see the enhanced sunday rate drop down to the monday early morning rate after midnight. It is a sunday rate, albeit with no “night premium” as such - right through to whatever time monday I finish the shift.
It is calculating things in THIS particular way - that keeps me on @ Staffline, and motivates me to do as many shifts as I can starting on a premium day, regardless of how late.
john_london:
Just to clarify the legal minimum is 20 days holiday per year.
No, it is 28 days however they must force you to take at least 20 off and you can sell the remaining 8 to them.
Winseer:
The “past 12 weeks” system of calculation - has the disadvantage that holiday “decays” during a prolonged quiet period, such as January. Thus, if you stockpile your holiday to take in say, Februry (when it’s still quiet) - then you might find yourself getting less than you expected…
That is why on 17th December 2018 the government announced they were increasing the 12 weeks system to a 52 weeks system as of April 2020 along with rescinding the hated Swedish Derogation rule of the AWR which has personally cost me £10-£15k a year.
Conor:
Winseer:
The “past 12 weeks” system of calculation - has the disadvantage that holiday “decays” during a prolonged quiet period, such as January. Thus, if you stockpile your holiday to take in say, Februry (when it’s still quiet) - then you might find yourself getting less than you expected…That is why on 17th December 2018 the government announced they were increasing the 12 weeks system to a 52 weeks system as of April 2020 along with rescinding the hated Swedish Derogation rule of the AWR which has personally cost me £10-£15k a year.
AWR only cost me money with regards to working agency at Royal Mail in 2014, when I was getting over a fiver per hour less than everyone else around me…
My last session in there (probably my last, full stop) had me on full parity pay straight out of the gate for the very first time.
Despite the positive reforms in the agency holiday thing, I notice that managers seem to continue their reluctance in keeping you posted as to “how much you’ve got” at any point, as if they’re trying to steer you into taking holiday when it suits them rather than you.
Conor:
That is why on 17th December 2018 the government announced they were increasing the 12 weeks system to a 52 weeks system as of April 2020 along with rescinding the hated Swedish Derogation rule of the AWR which has personally cost me £10-£15k a year.
You could win or lose on the average pay over the last 12 weeks system.
My wife is under an umbrella, but somehow they manage to pay holidays into a part of a weekly wage…but good news from the tax office, she is not liable for N.I. or Employers N.I. they have been stopping will be getting a large claim from us shortly for the back payments.