Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Rihards  Valters

Accenture Ireland

Representatives

Lewis Silkin

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 27 of the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997

CA-00052012-001

29/07/2022

The Complainant was employed as a Platform Experience New Associate in the Respondent’s Administrative and Support Services department and earned a salary of €29,650. His employment commenced on 23 August 2021 and ended on 6 July 2022.

Although his outstanding accrued holiday entitlement was paid in full to him on 26 August 2022, the Complainant is claiming that the payment should have been made to him sooner.

The Complainant stated that the last day he worked was 26 June 2022 and that he received his monthly salary on this date. As he was not allowed to work from home after this, he resigned and his cessation day was 6 July 2022. When he inquired about the final payment of his unused holidays, he received an e-mail on 21 July 2022, informing him that he had an accrued holiday entitlement of 87.70 hours and that this would be paid in the month following his leave date from Accenture. He stated that it was unacceptable that the outstanding payment was not made to him until nine weeks after he had last worked with the Respondent.

He further stated that on leaving his employment in Ireland previously, he was always paid everything that was owed to him on the day after leaving or else at the end of the week of cessation of employment. He asked the WRC to clarify if some employers have special rules designed for them or if there is a specific time frame in which an employer is obliged to fulfil its final obligations to an employee

The Complainant was paid his salary for June 2022 in the June payroll on 28 June 2022. He did not work after 26 June 2022 and was on unpaid leave from this date until his resignation on 6 July 2022. The Respondent employs approximately 6,500 employees in Ireland and 738,000 employees globally. Therefore, from an administrative and logistical perspective, given the size of the Respondent and the number of employees it must process payments through payroll for, in order to ensure the correct amounts are paid to employees and the necessary internal procedures are carried out in order to process the payments, the Respondent’s standard practice is for outstanding annual leave payments to be processed in the payroll one month after an employee’s employment terminates.

In the Complainant’s case, he had accrued 87.70 hours annual leave as at 6 July 2022, the date of the termination of his employment and was paid in respect of this accrued annual leave on 26 August 2022, which was the payroll one month after the employment terminated. The Complainant was advised of this by way of email from the Respondent on 6 July 2022.

Section 23(1)(a) of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 provides as follows:

“(1) (a) Where— (i) an employee ceases to be employed, and

(ii) the whole or any portion of the annual leave in respect of the relevant period remains to be granted to the employee, the employee shall, as compensation for the loss of that annual leave, be paid by his or her employer an amount equal to the pay, calculated at the normal weekly rate or, as the case may be, at a rate proportionate to the normal weekly rate, that he or she would have received had he or she been granted that annual leave.”

I noted firstly that no timeline for payment of outstanding annual leave is prescribed by the Act and that an email dated 6 July 2022 from the Respondent to the Complainant stated that “Any final balances will be paid a month in arrears and not with your final salary payment. Any payments after you have left Accenture, such as vacation will be processed as payments after leaving. A separate letter and payslip will be sent to confirm these payments to you a month after leaving, plus supplementary details will be sent to Revenue directly.”

I further note that this payment was made in full to the Complainant on 26 August 2022, which he accepted.

The Complainant also asked the Workplace Relations Commission to clarify if there is any timeframe in which an employer is obliged to fulfil its final obligation towards an employee. In response to his question, I find that under the Act there is no requirement for an accrued annual leave payment to be made within a certain timeframe. I also find that the Respondent did not breach the Act in applying its standard practice and paying the outstanding annual leave amount to the Complainant in the month after his employment terminated.

I find that this complaint is not well founded as there has been no breach of the Act given that the Respondent paid the Complainant all amounts due to him in respect of his outstanding annual leave in the month after his employment finished, namely on 26 August 2022.