Can my employer make me cancel my leave?

HardCoreProgrammer

Earlier this year, I requested a 3 week holiday in November to visit my family. This is from my holiday allowance. The request was approved by my manager, tickets booked, plans made, etc.

Recently, one of our team members became ill, and it seems that she will not be able to return to work by the start of my holiday.

We are covering her workload and it is already quite hard going. If I am gone as well, I think the situation would become critical.

My manager has not spoken to me about this yet, but if I was in his shoes, I would seriously consider whether a member in the team should take a 3 week holiday at this time.

I would like to be prepared in case the dreaded conversation takes place, and would be grateful if somebody could enlighten me on the following:

1. Does the company have the right to ask me to cancel/curtail the holiday?
For your information, I do not work for the police etc. where I often hear stories about leave being cancelled.
My company handbook says that holidays should not be longer than 2 calendar weeks in principle. If they are longer, special approval is required.

2. If my manager talks to me nicely, I may be willing to consider. After all, it is not in my interest to return to a crisis in the team and with my colleagues resentful/unhappy.
Other than the below, what should I ask for in return?
a. reimbursement of the flight re-booking fee and any increase in fares of the changed date
b. guarantee that my holiday allowance will not be forfeited at the end of the year (as per company rules), if I cannot take the holiday until next year
c. a confirmed date when I can take my holiday

3. My manager may ask me to take my computer home in order to be on call and/or work part of my holiday. I strongly think it is a bad idea because it sounds like a slippery slope to working full tiime. The place I am going to has a large time difference with the UK, so I think it would be even worse than staying in the UK and working.
So I would probably say to my manager that this is a non-starter. Do you agree?

Savvy_Sue

1. Yes, they can, but they have to give you twice as much notice as the length of the holiday, I believe. So if they're going to do it, they need to do it quick ...

2. Sounds reasonable, actually they can't legally ask you not to take your stat min holiday before the end of the year, so checking when you would be able to take the leave is definitely good.

3. Impossible to say whether it's a good plan or not. If it's a case of keeping on top of emails and offering remote advice / responses within a 24 hour time frame, that's a bit different to expecting you to be up and active at 2 am local time every day.

However, my counter proposal to the manager might be along the lines of getting additional help in if this person's not going to be back any time soon. You're already stretched, if you were to fall ill (and it's that time of year when the coughs and colds start!) what would they do then?

paddedjohn

To refuse the leave the employer must give notice at least as long as the time requested,

Funky_Bold_Ribena

They are bound by law to let you have at least 4 weeks of the 5.6 weeks annual leave allowance, and you are only allowed to carry over 1.6 weeks.

Me, I'd take a laptop and offer an hour a day keeping on top of urgent stuff. As long as I got 10 hours pay for it of course.

andygb

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

However, my counter proposal to the manager might be along the lines of getting additional help in if this person's not going to be back any time soon. You're already stretched, if you were to fall ill (and it's that time of year when the coughs and colds start!) what would they do then?

Exactly this.
There is no way that I would even consider cancelling a holiday, where it has all been signed off and the travel booked.
There are huge numbers of unemployed people, many of them in this situation because employers are cutting back to the bare bones, thus making staff work long hours and cover for sickness and holidays.
In this case, I think the employer should definitely get some extra help in to ease the situation.

HardCoreProgrammer

Savvy_Sue, I did a search of past forum posts and think paddedjohn is right - if it is a 3 week holiday, my employer only needs to give me 3 weeks notice if they want to cancel it, whereas I have to give them at least 6 weeks notice when booking the holiday in the first place.

andygb, I found that unfortunately the employer does have a right to make you cancel if there are "operational needs".

3. We get over 200 emails per day. Keeping on top of emails everyday is not reasonable.
A lot of the issues cannot wait 24 hours, so offering remote advice / responses within a 24 hour time frame is not really feasible.
And it is difficult to limit your online time if there is an emergency going on. I cannot say to my colleagues: "Sorry, my 2 hours today are up, bye!"

While I am happy to provide support to my colleagues, I am worried that if I say yes once, it will be difficult to say no next time, and soon I will find myself on a slippery slope to working full time (and finish at 3am instead of 8pm due to time difference).

I would like to think of everybody as reasonable human beings, but I have seen enough of what some people will do if they are under pressure or if they see weekness in you.

Takeaway_Addict

Don't mention anything and the company will have to sort something out, the short pain your colleagues may have will most likely solve the longer issue.

andygb

HardCoreProgrammer wrote: »

andygb, I found that unfortunately the employer does have a right to make you cancel if there are "operational needs".

The only places which I can think of where the employer can demand that you cancel annual leave for "operational needs" are the police force and the military.

TBH I find your attitude rather strange, because you ask for advice and then seem to have the answers ready to contradict the advice given.

Are you 007 by any chance;)

Savvy_Sue

HardCoreProgrammer wrote: »

Savvy_Sue, I did a search of past forum posts and think paddedjohn is right - if it is a 3 week holiday, my employer only needs to give me 3 weeks notice if they want to cancel it, whereas I have to give them at least 6 weeks notice when booking the holiday in the first place.

I can find a reference to the employer needing to give the same amount of notice as the length of the holiday if they are refusing a request, but nothing about if they cancel a previously agreed request.

So if you want a week's holiday, you must book it at least two weeks ahead. If they want to say "sorry, no", they must do this at least a week before you're due to leave.

The only reference I can find to cancelling a request that's been granted says what I said: the employer must give twice as much notice as the length of the holiday. But it's not an 'official' source, only SarEl on another forum ... who usually knows what she's talking about.

Takeaway_Addict

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I can find a reference to the employer needing to give the same amount of notice as the length of the holiday if they are refusing a request, but nothing about if they cancel a previously agreed request.

So if you want a week's holiday, you must book it at least two weeks ahead. If they want to say "sorry, no", they must do this at least a week before you're due to leave.

The only reference I can find to cancelling a request that's been granted says what I said: the employer must give twice as much notice as the length of the holiday. But it's not an 'official' source, only SarEl on another forum ... who usually knows what she's talking about.

Your first bit doesn't make sense, you are basically saying an employee can book a weeks holiday and give less than one weeks notice and the employer is stuffed.

Savvy_Sue

What I'm trying to say is that if I want a week's holiday, I have to request it at least two weeks in advance.

If my employer doesn't say 'no' more than a week before the holiday is due to start, I think I can assume they've said yes.

If I want a day's holiday, I must give two days notice, and the employer must say 'no' by the day beforehand.

Obviously making assumptions is very dangerous because the leave request could have been mislaid.

All of which can probably be over-ridden in the staff handbook / terms and conditions, but ...

paddedjohn and I are disagreeing about how much notice an employer must give if they wish to CANCEL leave which has previously been agreed. I think that if they are cancelling a 3 week period, they must give 6 weeks notice, he thinks it's only 3 weeks. I've given the best source I can find.

But I still think - especially given the further info from the OP - that the employer needs to face up to the fact that they need some additional help to cover the long term sickness!