Did you know the calculation for holiday pay has changed?

The Court of Appeal has confirmed, that when calculating a worker’s holiday pay, you must include payments made in respect of regular voluntary overtime.

This could have far reaching consequences for many businesses.

The Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR) state that all workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid annual leave. Four weeks of this derives from the EU Working Time Directive (WTD) and the remaining 1.6 weeks are a UK derived right.

The recent case between East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust v Flowers 2019 has highlighted this subject. Mr Flowers and his colleagues worked compulsory, non-guaranteed overtime, which occurred when their shifts overran, and voluntary overtime to cover absences. The overtime was not included in the holiday pay calculation.

The case ended up before the Court of Appeal which has held that regular voluntary overtime pay must be included when calculating holiday pay in relation to a worker’s WTR derived rights.

The overtime must be considered ‘sufficiently’ regular for it to be included in the holiday pay calculations.

This has had a significant impact on some of my clients, so please take a closer look at your overtime and holiday pay.

Please contact me for a free copy of my holiday policy Tel: 07798 788719 or email jane.rodger@activehr.org