should colleagues with kids get preference for holidays?

ShAnE

aliasojo wrote: »

Some can holiday at any time, some can only holiday at certain times due to constraints put on them by schools.

Seems a no brainer to me.

Don't have kids?

jellyhead

Luella-14 wrote: »

Out of curiosity, when your child is ill how is the time taken off? Do you take annual leave or flexi time/ make the hours up? At my place parents are entitled to 5 days a year (paid) to look after sick children, that an breed some resentment.

My husband takes it out of his annual leave, but a half day could be made up with flexitime. He used up all of his annual leave while I was pregnant because I was in hospital so often and he had to look after the eldest. In the school holidays he sent eldest to stay with granny, and having no annual leave meant he had to work while I was in labour! They let him leave 2 hours early though :T

jellyhead

GlasweJen wrote: »

what about my example of someone taking at least 1 day a month off every month since coming back off maternity leave due to an ill childminder? I have very few staff who are not already on set days due to child care so is it fair on my poor new start to be called out of bed on a saturday morning to come in and help me?

How is it fair to have to reschedule hospital appointments because child minder is sick? Or tell a heavily pregnant woman that she will need to do the other persons usual work as she's not going to be in AGAIN.

When I have a 80% female work group, I'm the only female with no kids, all of the women with kids are married then I do have to start asking why can't dad cover some of these days?

I wonder if the childminder can't cope when she gets PMS? We frequently discuss one teacher in the playground because once a month she hands out detentions willy nilly purely because she's in a foul mood. We wish she'd just take the day off!

Perhaps you could suggest she uses a nursery instead?

jellyhead

lolavix wrote: »

Those who choose to have kids should not be treated differently. My boss at the mo is pretty good with holidays and doesn't favour those with kids over those without, but we tend to all cover each other anyway.

Was the complete opposite in my previous job though - I didn't have a Christmas off for 4 years as I don't have kids, and I was lucky to get a few days over summer. I have a step son but apparently as he's not mine I wasn't allowed time off in the summer holidays or over Christmas.

That's so unfair :eek: a stepson is a part of your family!

heartbreak_star

Nobody should have priority, and it prickles that people with kids think they own the workplace a lot of the time.

Let me give my experience.

I have generally been quite happy to work over Christmas, and often New Year, and rarely go away for any more than a long weekend in summer. At my current workplace, this is fine and parents say thank you to those of us who do it.

At my last workplace...2 weeks before Christmas one year (I'd been working there about 5 years) my father had a bad fall down the stairs and fractured his skull, causing him to have more strokes. I had to go into work with my head spinning after finding him in a pool of blood the previous night and ask for some time off.

Could I have it? Could I hell. "Nobody to cover" was the excuse. Apparently somebody's kids having a normal Christmas was more important than my dad's life and what could have been his final Christmas. I never forgave them and left shortly afterwards.

Annual leave should be granted on a case-by-case basis, or if it's literally just holiday, out of the hat.

HBS x

Melaniep101

I don't think people with kids should take priority over holiday, I have a daughter but I wouldn't dream of insisting that I should be given holiday over anyone else. She's now 18 but when she was younger, I just took my holiday whenever I could, on a first come first served basis. Why should my colleagues have to put up with it when it was my choice to have a child?

sassyblue

heartbreak_star wrote: »

At my last workplace...2 weeks before Christmas one year (I'd been working there about 5 years) my father had a bad fall down the stairs and fractured his skull, causing him to have more strokes. I had to go into work with my head spinning after finding him in a pool of blood the previous night and ask for some time off.

Could I have it? Could I hell. "Nobody to cover" was the excuse. Apparently somebody's kids having a normal Christmas was more important than my dad's life and what could have been his final Christmas. I never forgave them and left shortly afterwards.

Your dads life WAS/IS more important. :mad: Why did you even go into work? You could have rang them and told them you couldn't go in, which leaves them with no alternative to fob you off

Some of these stories are not solely the employers faults.... l'm sorry but nobody should take this sort of treatment lying down... (I know you left soon after though)

I'm an employer too.... :cool:

heartbreak_star

Honestly? I'd have been disciplined.

"He's in hospital, there's nothing you can do, so come in and we'll let you go if he gets worse."

HBS x

F_Bear

Thanks for all the replies.

unfortuanlty the 'first come, first serve' isnt an option.

we have to book 5 weeks leave, 1wk in spring, 2wks summer, 1 autum, 1wk winter by the end of october the previous year.

(before theres an outcry of 'how many holidays!' this includes 11 bank holidays that are added to our leave as we'er a disciplined service)

Fire_Fox

heartbreak_star wrote: »

At my last workplace...2 weeks before Christmas one year (I'd been working there about 5 years) my father had a bad fall down the stairs and fractured his skull, causing him to have more strokes. I had to go into work with my head spinning after finding him in a pool of blood the previous night and ask for some time off.

Could I have it? Could I hell. "Nobody to cover" was the excuse. Apparently somebody's kids having a normal Christmas was more important than my dad's life and what could have been his final Christmas. I never forgave them and left shortly afterwards.

Annual leave should be granted on a case-by-case basis, or if it's literally just holiday, out of the hat.

HBS x

That is terrible. I'd have gone off sick with stress: I don't believe in faking illness but I bet you actually met the criteria and been eligible for a doctors certificate. Can't discipline you then.