Company refusing to let me have holiday entitlement

ukclare · 5 December 2012 at 3:19PM

My DH works for a large company. He requested that his line manager book him his remaining holiday entitlement and was told they would sort it out. Despite several reminders it has still not been done and now the company say that there is no more holiday time available to be taken by any staff.

He has an entitlement of 6 weeks per year and still has a couple he has not taken. The holiday period runs from April to March and there is no reason for holidays to be denied other than the company cutting back staffing levels to such an extent that they do not have any spare man hours available for holiday cover. He has not requested specific dates - just any days to use the entitlement.

I would be grateful if someone could please let me know his legal rights before we start to cause a rumpus!

With thanks for your help!

getmore4less · 5 December 2012 at 3:29PM

Statutory holidays are 5.6 weeks

4 weeks should be taken in the holiday year
1.6 weeks can be carried over for 1 year(but should not be paid)

Any over that are contractual so the company can make up rules for those
carry over or bought out(paid) are the common option

tanith · 5 December 2012 at 3:35PM

Has he asked HR what the procedure regarding what he's been told... He is being more than reasonable in that he's not asked for specifics, there is still 4mths to go , I don't know the legalities but it sounds like his line manager isn't managing properly if he can't let his staff take their allotted leave.

Sambucus_Nigra · 5 December 2012 at 3:40PM

Usually the procedure would be to request the holiday [either on paper or through an electronic system] and then the manager approves or doesn't approve it.

He needs to check what the actual procedure is and follow it.

paddedjohn · 5 December 2012 at 3:48PM

He still has till the end of March next year to take them, just put in a request for them and see how it goes. Don't forget that he may have to use some over Christmas. As said above, 1.6 weeks can be carried over to the next holiday year but only with the agreement of both party's. It would be illegal for the company to stop him having his legal minimum entitlement

ukclare · 5 December 2012 at 4:44PM

paddedjohn wrote: »

He still has till the end of March next year to take them, just put in a request for them and see how it goes. Don't forget that he may have to use some over Christmas. As said above, 1.6 weeks can be carried over to the next holiday year but only with the agreement of both party's. It would be illegal for the company to stop him having his legal minimum entitlement

Thanks so much for all of the replies - they are all very much appreciated.

He has put in two holiday forms but the "usual procedure" is to arrange it with the line manager first (as a courtesy to them). The first application was refused, the second is pending.

The company has a notice up saying unused holiday will be lost but surely three months notice should be acceptable - especially as he has been requesting it "through the normal channels" for an additional 3 months! Displaying the sign does imply that they will not consider carrying over the 1.6 weeks statutory - so "the agreement of both party's" will probably not apply - without a fight at least!!!

Russe11 · 5 December 2012 at 5:09PM

why are employers so poor at managing holiday entitlment? how do they end up retaining staff?

there is ofcourse the third senario.

Acc72 · 5 December 2012 at 5:27PM

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

He needs to check what the actual procedure is and follow it.

This ^^^^^

Don't worry about "courtesy to his line manager" as by the sound of it they obviously have their own issues managing their staffing levels and any verbal conversations can be denied.

ukclare · 5 December 2012 at 7:36PM

Russe11 wrote: »

why are employers so poor at managing holiday entitlment? how do they end up retaining staff?

there is ofcourse the third senario.

The only reason they retain staff is that they are the only major employer in our rural area so there is always a queue of grateful new staff for the minimum wage jobs.

Which is precisely why option three is not viable!

getmore4less · 5 December 2012 at 8:41PM

ukclare wrote: »

Thanks so much for all of the replies - they are all very much appreciated.

He has put in two holiday forms but the "usual procedure" is to arrange it with the line manager first (as a courtesy to them). The first application was refused, the second is pending.

The company has a notice up saying unused holiday will be lost but surely three months notice should be acceptable - especially as he has been requesting it "through the normal channels" for an additional 3 months! Displaying the sign does imply that they will not consider carrying over the 1.6 weeks statutory - so "the agreement of both party's" will probably not apply - without a fight at least!!!

This is good practice and has been done in plenty of time.

Employees and the managers can't say we did not know.

It may require a more aggresive approach and going over the line manager asking for the company to send out a reminder to the managers to make sure there is no outstanding holidays and to get all the holidays allocated ASAP.

The longer they leave it the bigger the problem.

Remind them they can't just keep refusing holiday till the end of the holiday year so you lose it.

It may require a grievence,, probably worded that the company are failing to let you take the statutory right to holidays.

One of the problems with holidays is there is no penalties for employers that fail to let people take them.

The default for holidays should be that you can take them at the end of the holiday year unless they have been taken earlier, the employer has the right to say when you take your holidays so puts the onus on them to manage their business.

Jinx · 5 December 2012 at 9:22PM

We had this issue in one of the companies I worked in - the Manager responsible for rotas etc was giving holidays to those he liked and it transpired that if he didnt like you you were just told it wasnt available!! Oh and he 'lost' applications, denied conversations and was proved to have ripped out a page of an agreed holiday prompting a member of staff to nearly face an awol disciplinary...... Long story short, photocopy the leave applications, put in a few more then have a chat with your HR team. It will probably only require one call from them to get your Manager to get some leave approved.

Company refusing to let me have holiday entitlement

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