should colleagues with kids get preference for holidays?

Nicki

Spendless wrote: »

I would find it completely bizarre to decide who has an annual leave requested based on parental status. There would have to be a different tie-breaker rule in place if two people with kids wanted the same week/s or two people without wanted the same week/s, so why not just make that the rule of thumb anyway?

In all circumstances?

Employee A has two primary school aged children and has asked for 2 weeks off over the Easter holidays as she does not have access to any form of childcare and she and her husband cover school holidays between them by taking the whole of their annual leave separately.

Employee B who has no children wants to go skiing with a group of friends over the same two weeks.

Employee B will undoubtedly be very upset if her request is declined, but as an employer, if you refuse Employee A it is likely that she will have little option but to resign and find a job which will enable her fit in her work round her childcare commitments, whereas if you refuse Employee B she will be upset and demotivated for a while, but the chances of losing her is less. So assuming that you don't want to lose either of them, isn't there a business case in circumstances such as this to accomodate the parent over the non parent, irrespective of your personal preference on the matter?

michelle2008

Nicki - no I don't think there is a business case to say the parent deserves the holiday more than the non-parent.

I think it is completely unrealistic to assume the parent would quit over two weeks holiday but the non-parent would not. Leave should be allocated on a fair and unbiased system.

Neither worker has a stronger case for leave.

Nicki

I didn't say the parent "deserved" the leave more though!

Spendless said she would find it "completely bizarre" ever to take into account parental status to determine who should get contested annual leave. My question was whether this was always the case.

In the example I gave if dad had used his entire annual leave already and could not take unpaid leave, and there were no other viable childcare options, one parent would have no option but to leave their job before the date of the contested holiday, as primary school children cannot be left alone at home all day. So not IMHO "completely unrealistic" at all to suggest that by refusing mum in this case may well lead to her leaving.

Spendless

Nicki wrote: »

In all circumstances?

Employee A has two primary school aged children and has asked for 2 weeks off over the Easter holidays as she does not have access to any form of childcare and she and her husband cover school holidays between them by taking the whole of their annual leave separately.

Employee B who has no children wants to go skiing with a group of friends over the same two weeks.

Employee B will undoubtedly be very upset if her request is declined, but as an employer, if you refuse Employee A it is likely that she will have little option but to resign and find a job which will enable her fit in her work round her childcare commitments, whereas if you refuse Employee B she will be upset and demotivated for a while, but the chances of losing her is less. So assuming that you don't want to lose either of them, isn't there a business case in circumstances such as this to accomodate the parent over the non parent, irrespective of your personal preference on the matter?

Yes in all cases. Put the same scenario around 2 people without children, who gets the hol off? Put the same scenario of 2 people with children neither with childcare who gets the time off? You're going to have to choose a method that decides which it is with either of my cases, that doesn't include parental status so why not do this for all cases? Then it is fair on everyone.

It is also highly unlikely that one person and their spouse can cover all school hols between them, given that there's 13 weeks off school and most people get 4 weeks hols. Even if both parents got the mega generous 6 weeks of AL that I 've known very people get, they'd still be short.

Nicki

Spendless wrote: »

Yes in all cases. Put the same scenario around 2 people without children, who gets the hol off? Put the same scenario of 2 people with children neither with childcare who gets the time off? You're going to have to choose a method that decides which it is with either of my cases, that doesn't include parental status so why not do this for all cases? Then it is fair on everyone.

It is also highly unlikely that one person and their spouse can cover all school hols between them, given that there's 13 weeks off school and most people get 4 weeks hols. Even if both parents got the mega generous 6 weeks of AL that I 've known very people get, they'd still be short.

The 13 weeks of school holidays include all the bank holidays though. And I think the statutory minimum for full time employees is 20 days plus 11? bank holidays on top. So, it is only just do-able I think.

Your proposed scenarios don't really change the question I asked though. Yes, if both employees needed the time for intractable childcare reasons, (ie not just wanting to take the kids away on holiday) you would run the risk of losing one and could do nothing about that. But in the specific case I mentioned, you only run a real risk of losing one member of staff permanently (with all the on costs of recruiting and training someone new, plus termination costs) if you decide in favour of the non parent rather than the parent. So, would it in your opinion still be "completely bizarre" in all circumstances not to take that into account? Bear in mind, you would still end up being two staff down over the contested period, if one resigned and the other was on holiday, as well as costing the business a potentially sizeable sum.

Edwardia

My husband is a parent and as his daughter lives abroad he doesn't see her much. We don't have kids. His (male) boss (parent) does flexible working so my husband has to work round that AND school hols. Recently when OH's daughter was over here OH's boss didn't want to work ONE DAY in order to give OH longer weekend with daughter so he had to ask the boss of his boss who said yes straight away and told his boss off.

Some parents use kids as an excuse to get the schedule they want ie later mornings or earlier finishes regardless if whether they actually DO the school run.

Also, you'd think people would think about childcare issues before having sprog 2 ? Do people on a salary that affords them foreign holidays for example really not earn enough to cover childcare ? So if they don't shouldn't one be at home ?

michelle2008

We clearly have differing views here.

If I was the employer I would find it difficult to tell one employee they couldn't go on holiday because another employee had child care issues.

I would however be happy to say an employee couldnt go on holiday because they didn't ask first or it wasn't their turn to have the premium leave.

That said - I have personally changed my plans on several occasions to help out colleagues with children and am sympathetic to the challenges. I just don't think it should be forced on anyone.

Nicki

Edwardia wrote: »

Also, you'd think people would think about childcare issues before having sprog 2 ?

Knowing that you have a certain statutory amount of holiday entitlement, and assuming you will be able to use this in the future to look after your children when they are off school doesn't count as thinking about childcare then? I imagine a significant number of parents do not remain employed by the same person for the full 12 years minimum it takes between thinking of starting a family, completing the pregnancy, and growing the child to secondary school age

Gees

I’ve been a full time working parent with two young children, and can remember how difficult it was covering the 12 or so weeks of school holidays, and the additional inset days. It was a struggle, not just mentally but financially too. Either I or my OH would do our best to use our holiday entitlement to cover the holidays, but this wasn’t always possible. The long summer school holiday was always a challenge, and we would have to plan ahead to ensure we could afford to place our children in a suitable weekly/daily activity camp near home, since we had no family living close by.

When you take on a position of work, and you are given your holiday entitlement, nowhere is it written that you can take your holidays whenever you like, so I think everyone needs to face the facts that if there is no fair system in place, it is a first come first served basis, and therefore no member of staff should be given priority over anyone else.

For the record I work with a mum of two young children, and we are not allowed to be off at the same time. My children are now grown up, and I appreciate she always discusses with me her holiday plans before she books them. It works really well!

Fire_Fox

BobQ wrote: »

I really do not see the relevance of your point about both parents working. The children are the ones on holiday and I think that they deserve the maximum opportunity to spend time with their parents. Whether this is in a luxury house or a modest home or on an expensive foreign holiday or holidaying at home is irrelevant. Ideally couples would earn enough that they did not both have to work but life is not that fair and in reality double income is needed to raise children with the many costs involved.

I did not say that those with children should be the only ones given priority during the school holidays. As I stated in my post, if someone without children has a particular need for time off in the school holidays then they too should be considered on a fair basis.

The thread contains many posts along the lines: " you choose to have children so its your problem" or "first one to apply gets the time off" or "parents should be treated like everyone else". Those without children often have the opportunity to take their leave outside of the school holidays. I am just saying its selfish to take the view that when you have a choice you will chose to make it more difficult for parents to take their holidays in the school holidays just because you can.

You talk about flexibility but parents always being allowed to cherry pick is the absolute opposite of flexibility, it's restrictive. People getting equal opportunities is NOT the same as choosing to make it more difficult for parents, that has to win a prize for ridiculous claim of the week. I highly doubt many of the child free sit down and plan their annual leave around how awkward they can make it for their colleagues with children! We plan our holidays around our OWN friends, partners and families, around particular events we wish to attend, work we might need to do on our home or garden or seasonal hobbies. Any of that might well happen to occur outside the school holidays anyway.

Again there are fifteen non school weeks in a year, if parents were willing to take a random selection of four of those then they'd get just as much time with their children as if they took two weeks in the summer and two weeks at Christmas or four weeks in the summer. But that is not the sole goal in many cases, what is actually desired is the ability to do particular things at particular times of year .... EXACTLY the same as for the child free.

Why should having children be an automatic free pass but the rest of us get judged whether our reasons for having annual leave at a particular time are good enough? Why should we always have to tell our bosses what we want to do with my annual leave, isn't that our personal business?

As I said earlier in the thread
"If we want equality in the workplace then we want equality we can't pick and choose when it is applied, employers are not permitted to be sexist or sack women for being pregnant but then parents get to cherry pick annual leave. Having said that if a child is sick I would usually be happy for a parent to get priority, that cannot be planned for or changed. Ditto for specific school events that the parent has no say over like plays."