Annual leave problems

houghw

Dear all,

I am sorry if this has been asked before, but my wife is having 'issues' with taking her annual leave entitlement...

My wife works for the NHS and the department she works for seems to operate a somewhat unique approach to allocating shifts and leave etc. (IMHO)

Staff rotas are prepared by a single individual (with the aid of a computer) and released anywhere between 2 and 6 weeks in advance. The rotas appear to follow no rational pattern and they appear to be prepared with no regard for staff leave and sickness.

As a result, it is impossible to plan any activity in advance as you literally have no idea when you will be working and when you wont.

Unfortunately, the system means that on a regular basis, there are insufficient staff to cover the work and when you add in 'on the spot sickness' (as opposed to long tern illnesses) and shift swapping the situation gets much worse.

Leave requests are dealt with when the rota is being drawn up and it appears that the main way of allocating leave is to work trough the requests in alphabetical order, granting leave until all available slots are used up, regardless of how far in advance the leave is requested.

The net result of this approach is that my wife has been refused most requests for annual leave throughout the year (presumably as our surname starts with the letter S) and so, with two months of her leave year left, she still has over three weeks leave to use.

Needless to say, this too has been refused and so it looks like my wife will be losing a sizeable chunk of her annual leave as she is not allowed to carry any over.

I was wondering if it is legal for an employer to repeatedly refuse annual leave requests and then simply cancel that which is not used.

This seems grossly unfair to me and as our surnames won't change, is a problem that will obviously reoccur again and again as staff members with a surname that begins with a letter closer to the beginning of the alphabet continually undercuts my wife’s requests and takes their leave ahead of her.

Any advice on this matter would be gratefully received.

acs_2

My partner works within the NHS and encounters similar problems. After my own bit of investigation, it appears that healthcare professionals are doing admin and management jobs and with the greatest respect in the world, they do them no experience what so ever. They learn, train and work as a healthcare professional, or they learn, train and work as a police officer....great at saving lives, caring and policing, but then, say 15 years into that career, they are given a desk and a set of policies to work to and are told to get on with it with no training or support. They then proceed to make the proverbial " mess " of things like duties and leave tasks.

It is a tentative issue with granting annual leave in this environment as they are essential workers (as are police officers, firemen, paramedics etc) and their duties and leave requests have to be configured around operational need. In some cases, employee X will be approached and advised they have X amount of leave to use and this is when they need to use it by or lose it. Its a very contentious issue and is rife around Healthcare and Law enforcement.

Generally these people tend to be Sisters/senior sisters/ward managers in hospitals and chief inspector ranks in the police service, who tend to be on wages of £40k-£50k because they're excellent at nursing and policing...and why shouldn't they be paid that much? they do a great job in very difficult circumstances, but...you could have a good business manager for less than that and they would do a far better job...because that's what they have trained to do - stick them in a uniform and ask them to go nursing and they'd make a real mess of it....

a fundamental flaw if you ask me...

kingfisherblue

I may be wrong, and I'm sure that someone will correct me if I am, but I don't think tghat any employer can refuse annual leave. By that, I mean that the employer must allow staff to take the statuatory requirement within the annual leave year (so presumably int he OP's case, April 1st to March 31st). The employer can dictate when the leave is taken, but cannot refuse to allow it to be taken. Annual leave is a legal right and no employer can remove that right.

I would seek union advice or contact HR and let them know that annual leave is continually refused. Your wife could raise a grievance.

paddedjohn

no employer has the right to refuse you the oppertunity to take your holiday entitlement. she should point this out to the person doing the rotas

Uncertain

paddedjohn wrote: »

no employer has the right to refuse you the oppertunity to take your holiday entitlement. she should point this out to the person doing the rotas

This is true for the employee's statutory holiday entitlement (i.e 28 days per year).

If she gets more holiday than this then the employer can set pretty much whatever conditions they like regarding the extra.

getmore4less

Uncertain wrote: »

This is true for the employee's statutory holiday entitlement (i.e 28 days per year).

If she gets more holiday than this then the employer can set pretty much whatever conditions they like regarding the extra.

I bet the policy(NHS) will be to take the holiday and not normaly allow payment or carry over.

local policy may be slightly different.

very local shift allocation not taking account of holidays will probably be against the policies

Go higher immediately(local management and HR) and get this clarified.