Same as you JonEdwards, 95% of our work is out of the country, international medical meetings and congresses. It’s still no guarantee that’ll we’ll survive given that our work relies on travel as well as meetings but at least it gives some hope.

I’m not convinced I understand why furloughed staff get to accrue leave whilst furloughed.

Thinking of my wife’s firm – those left are working their bollocks off doing their bit to keep the company alive for both themselves and those furloughed. Some have taken leave during the lockdown to give themselves a bit of recovery time having worked through from New year. With furloughing going on for another 4 months plenty more will have to do the same if they are not to suffer long term consequences. Others have had their request to cancel their pre-booked leave turned down. Yet there will be a cohort of the firm coming back from furlough after 6 months entitled to a wedge of leave. Lockdown has been pretty unpleasant but from tomorrow it does not look too bad for those furloughed – 80% of your pay without the hassle of working and permission to have long days out chillaxing in the summer sun. If anything the accrued leave should be transferred to those left behind to man the ship as a bit of a thank you from those (not their fault I hasten to add) who played no part in keeping it afloat so they had a job to come back to. That would seem fairer.

I’m not convinced I understand why furloughed staff get to accrue leave whilst furloughed.

I’d be interested to see the guidance that says they should. Whilst furloughed they’re essentially unemployed, (normally they would be unpaid but the job retention scheme is paying that presently).

Furloughed workers are entitled to accrued holiday – they can’t be forced to take it whilst on furlough and they don’t loose it but if they’ve been furloughed for 6 months they’d normally only get the pro-rata holiday allowance for the 6 months they worked.

Obviously things aren’t currently normal.

The company is allowed to let staff carry over leave they can’t reasonably use this year because of furlough but I’ve not seen anything saying you should be accruing holiday and benefits in any of the stuff I’ve seen (far from all, or even a half no doubt)

Whilst furloughed they’re essentially unemployed

They are actually still employed and are being paid by their employer. It’s just that the employer gets the furlough pay back as a grant thus all benefits such as holiday still accrue. Where companies have cut pay to the 80%, they should have had agreement from employees to do so.

Yes, the holiday bit is unfair on top of the fact some staff are working and others aren’t. It was a quick and broad approach- these injustices probably weren’t on the radar when it was devised. What would be the alternative- mass redundancies and imagine how swamped the DWP (or whatever it is now) would be. Social distancing on the dole queue would be fun.

The company is allowed to let staff carry over leave

No, staff are allowed to carry it over, with the proviso the company agree to it.

Would be fairer for the working staff to have furloughed staff not accrue, but what if a furloughed person had a big holiday booked for Dec? Or now furlough is extended to allow rotation. There will always be winners and losers.

My lad got a call from his manager today. He bricked it.

But…

He’s coming off furlough tomorrow…. luckily to go back to work but working from home for now.

I’m relieved on multiple fronts.

Just hope his company can weather the coming storm. Let’s face it, this is just the start of the global downturn.😟

My lad got a call from his manager today. He bricked it.

But…

He’s coming off furlough tomorrow…. luckily to go back to work but working from home for now.

I’m relieved on multiple fronts.

Just hope his company can weather the coming storm. Let’s face it, this is just the start of the global downturn.😟

My lad got a call from his manager today. He bricked it.

But…

He’s coming off furlough tomorrow…. luckily to go back to work but working from home for now.

I’m relieved on multiple fronts.

Just hope his company can weather the coming storm. Let’s face it, this is just the start of the global downturn.😟

My lad got a call from his manager today. He bricked it.

But…

He’s coming off furlough tomorrow…. luckily to go back to work but working from home for now.

I’m relieved on multiple fronts.

Just hope his company can weather the coming storm. Let’s face it, this is just the start of the global downturn.😟

My lad got a call from his manager today. He bricked it.

But…

He’s coming off furlough tomorrow…. luckily to go back to work but working from home for now.

I’m relieved on multiple fronts.

Just hope his company can weather the coming storm. Let’s face it, this is just the start of the global downturn.😟

My lad got a call from his manager today. He bricked it.

But…

He’s coming off furlough tomorrow…. luckily to go back to work but working from home for now.

I’m relieved on multiple fronts.

Just hope his company can weather the coming storm. Let’s face it, this is just the start of the global downturn.😟

My lad got a call from his manager today. He bricked it.

But…

He’s coming off furlough tomorrow…. luckily to go back to work but working from home for now.

I’m relieved on multiple fronts.

Just hope his company can weather the coming storm. Let’s face it, this is just the start of the global downturn.😟

Sorry guys, don’t know what happened there!

Did he get a lot of calls? 😀

^ I think the site bricked it as well as my lad.😆

Practically though – imagine the furlough scheme runs through to the end of September. Do you expect everybody to get all of their accrued holiday allowance to use in the three months before the end of the year?

As above Scot Routes, the rules are assuming the company agrees annual leave can be carried for up to two years.  There’s no need for it to be removed, and its quite clear in the gov.uk rules it should continue to accrue.

This isn’t about her having time off to get her nails done as perhaps your post implies.  We rely on this time for her to perform childcare duties during summer school hols.  Other parts of the summer holiday they go to kids camps but we can’t afford and wouldn’t want for them to be in Kids camp for the whole six weeks.  Add to that, at the moment she’s on 80% pay and I’m effectively on 50% looking at no more than 75%, and we will have a struggle to find the extra days of somehow looking after the kids while they are off school.

This may now be mitigated by the Furlough extension – if She’s off until September at least she’s there to cover the gap.  But if they call her back got work in July and insist she goes back with 50% pro rata’d leave as they believe they are allowed to restrict (they aren’t) we have a problem, because she’s just lost 7 of those days she has previously save up and had booked in August.

Whilst furloughed they’re essentially unemployed

They are actually still employed and are being paid by their employer

Normally… Now is not normal. You’re quite right, I should have been clearer.

I’d be interested to see the actual advice though as my Google foo is failing me.

… the company agree to it.

I see, so they can agree without allowing it?

because she’s just lost 7 of those days she has previously save up

If she’s already accrued the holiday they can’t take it off off her, furlough and symantics aside. She can take holiday for existing allowance if she wishes* (currently under the scheme) – for which she should be paid at full rate, not the 80%.

*I don’t believe she’s entitled to cancel existing holiday bookings just because she’s on furlough but then it’s full pay for those periods and it’s not to say she can’t cancel it just that there’s no legal entitlement for her to do so

Good news. Means my company (events industry) might survive. If we’d have been kicked off Furlough in June with an empty order book until public gatherings are allowed again we’d have been dead in minutes.

It would make sense for them to taper it at different rates by different industries when they come to fading it out, as some industries are going to recover at different rates. Anything involving lots of people crammed in close proximity is going to have to wait for a vaccine / all the old people to have been killed off via Cumming’s Herd Immunity strategy.

I see, so they can agree without allowing it?

I think its like normal with extra supported government rules – you could ask or be asked if you can carry holiday over to the next 24 months period, to avoid the issue Scotroutes alludes to I believe, yet I may be wrong in that both parties need to agree.

If she’s already accrued the holiday they can’t take it off off her,

There is where we have an issue.   The company are currently stating that when an employee re-starts working their holiday will be pro-rata’d e.g July 1st = 50% entitlement, September = 25% entitlement regardless of what you had “in the bank” before you were furloughed.  In Mrs K’s case she worked to May 7th, has taken 2 days off so will lose 7 upon her return which she would normally accrue between Jan & August.  7 days we need to cover the kids off school…

Quite a bit of useful stuff here:-

https://www.cipd.co.uk/news-views/coronavirus/faqs/furlough

CIPD is the go to place for HR professionals to get advice and whilst employercentric are usually pretty spot on.

There is where we have an issue…

So let me check in reading this correctly (I’m going to pick numbers that work easily, sorry)

Your wife has worked (not on furlough) 4 full months this year then in furlough from beginning May to ???

Holiday runs Jan to Jan?

Assume 27 days leave pa

That’s 9 days accrued leave (27/12*4)

She’s taken 2 days leave.

Her employer is saying she losses the 7 days she’s already accrued (9-2)

She’ll then be given a holiday entitlement of 13.5 days for the rest of the year if she starts back 01/07, 7 days of she starts back 01/09 and so on.

Not EXTRA to her 7 but only that?

From my link – it might be that they have required her to take the leave during the furlough….turns out that is a thing.

Q: Can employers require furloughed employees to use up their holiday leave during furlough?

Yes, employers can require furloughed employees to use up their take holiday leave during furlough. Employers may want to do this to reduce outstanding annual leave to be taken once the lockdown ends and businesses return to normal.

Standard employment law provisions (which are not frequently used) state that employers can require force workers to take holiday as long as they give twice as many days’ notice as the period of leave the worker is required to take. For example, if the employer requires the worker to take two week’s annual leave at a certain time, it must give the worker at least four weeks’ advance notice (or whatever is outlined in the employment contract).

So, an employer could furlough the employee and require a proportion of that to be annual holiday as long as the requisite notice is given. Insisting an employee take annual leave during a period of furlough, when government advice prevents them from travelling freely anywhere, is not without risk. The employees’ agreement should therefore be sought to take annual leave while on furlough. Employees may agree as it would be on full pay.

Our company have given us back our bank holidays and shutdown week we should have taken during furlough. Some to be taken this year, some added to next year’s allowance.

Reading between the lines, I don’t think we’ll be busy for the next year or two, so extra time off for staff will be welcome!

I’ve been pondering a scenario today…. I came off furlough after the first 3 weeks and have been back in work for 4 weeks now running the department on my own and will probably remain this way for the next month or two. I replaced an employee who wasn’t performing and to be fair have worked bloody hard but managed the work load and done a decent job..imo and been well praised by management. Thing is that it’s almost a given that we will loose a shed load of staff when furlough ends. There are 5 in my dept and I’m sure it will be reduced to 2 or 3. My manager and the longest serving member of staff are both furloughed (medical reasons) and I was brought in as I’m local to the office and have a lot of experience….but, when and if cuts are made I was hoping that my performance during the furlough period would put me in good stead but I have a nagging feeling I will be for the chop as I was the last in (less than a year) and have found out (during a drunken work night out) that I’m on considerably more money than everyone else in the dept…Inc the manager. So I got to wondering how many people will have worked their arses off as the surviving members of the work force for several months keeping the ship affloat so to speak only to be told that their job is gone when the Furloughed boys come back!!
Just paranoia I guess but when the financial crunch really hits them a high salary and no redundancy to pay out makes me the obvious candidate to go.

Just paranoia I guess but when the financial crunch really hits them a high salary and no redundancy to pay out makes me the obvious candidate to go.

if the priority was saving money they’d have left you on furlough and brought the tea boy back to answer the phones and read the mail. Presumably the fact they are paying you (rather than the government paying you 80%) means they think you have something to offer right now, and I would expect if you’ve put in the graft now continue to think that. I don’t think many places use last-in-first-out principles anymore, where I am redundancy is used as a way to weed out the people who have been there for 10 yrs and have got lazy or ineffective, especially if they don’t like change.

Finally heard from my work, looks like I might be coming off furlough in the next couple of weeks fingers crossed.

Haven’t used any annual leave this year but my allowance has been reduced to 50%. Can’t grumble though, actually excited at the thought of going back!

Haven’t used any annual leave this year but my allowance has been reduced to 50%

Hmmm, this is becoming common.   A loophole perhaps?

Anyone on here taken a second job whilst on furlough?

It’s allowed under the rules and my employer allows it provided I keep my manager informed of shifts via email. Looks like I’ve got a job at the local supermarket, it’s only shelf stacking/tills/warehouse work but it’s money coming in rather than me sat at home spending it! Are there any bits of paperwork/HMRC rules etc I need to be aware of? Don’t want to cock it up as it could have implications for my main job.

Haven’t used any annual leave this year but my allowance has been reduced to 50%.

My place tried that, the union shot them down.

I’m back to work as of yesterday and off Furlough. I had to go through redundancy consultations over the last couple weeks but got the call Thursday last week that I was needed back to work. Working from home for the time being but will be back onsite once the Scottish government says that building sites can open again.

Thanks for all the informative contributions. Hopefully you’ll all be back at work sooner rather than later.

My wife had a generic email that basically said:  “Those of you are on Furlough are still on Furlough until July 31st.  She turned up at her team meeting today to find the student asked to cover her job hated it, keeps making mistakes and doesn’t want to do it any more, and her Manager said to her, “what, you mean you aren’t coming back Thursday?”

She put the phone (well, Teams) down and went out for a bike ride with the kids.