Does your employer tell you when to take your annual leave?

C_Mababejive

As per the subject line..

Does your employer tell you when to take annual leave?

If not, do they impose conditions as to when you may take it?

bugslet

We shut down between Xmas and New Year, so there is 3 days then which have to be taken, otherwise the only restriction is that if someone else is off, or two people in the larger office in the South, you can't take the same time off.

Seems to work well.

lkmc01

My partner gets told when he can take his leave. Its a week in a 3 month block which is supposed to fall in each season. He therefore can not have 2 weeks off together. His work shifts are 5 days out of 7 Monday to Sunday. Many shifts are 12 hours long, some a little over. Its also a 24 hour clock as some shifts can be 2am to 2pm and some shifts 2pm to 2am. Sundays are no exception. He usually has 9 hours between shifts and earns a little under 20k a year pre tax. He does nothing around the house and is constantly exhausted. He works bank holidays, boxing day, easter sunday etc and earns days in lieu.

C_Mababejive

lkmc01 wrote: »

My partner gets told when he can take his leave. Its a week in a 3 month block which is supposed to fall in each season. He therefore can not have 2 weeks off together. His work shifts are 5 days out of 7 Monday to Sunday. Many shifts are 12 hours long, some a little over. Its also a 24 hour clock as some shifts can be 2am to 2pm and some shifts 2pm to 2am. Sundays are no exception. He usually has 9 hours between shifts and earns a little under 20k a year pre tax. He does nothing around the house and is constantly exhausted. He works bank holidays, boxing day, easter sunday etc and earns days in lieu.

That sounds absolutely shocking in this day and age. Doesnt the WTR regulate for 11 hours rest per 24 hour work period..this must be killing him physically and mentally.

bugslet

C Mababejive, not so up on WTD, but RTD drivers hours, allow for 9 hours. Rules actually read:

Regular daily rest 11 hours. May be reduced to no less than 9 hours up to 3 times between any 2 weeksly rest periods.

Double manned vehicles it's 9 hours all the time.

System

We book our annual leave in Jan for the next financial year which for us is mid March - mid March.

Hand in our forms in at a certain date and time.

Maximum we can book off in one block is three weeks. If require more than three weeks at once such as getting married etc, you need to write a letter with why you need the time off. If anyone needs a specific week off like it's a milestone birthday or wedding anniversary, colleagues tend to write the letter as well.

Then when we get our forms back, our manager highlights which weeks still got allotted space left if you couldn't get your initial weeks off. Normally Feb and November.

lkmc01

He drives the public on a coach. Its an 19 week rota. The whole rota can change with about 3 weeks notice and they usually change his shifts on a Friday for the following week so we have no life away from his job. He looses an hour a day unpaid for rest and an hour a day commuting. His shortest week is paid 39 hours, which when you add on the 2 hours a day for break and travel turns into a 49 hour week. His longest week is paid 47 hours so turning into a 57 hour week. That week his hours are
Monday 10am - 8pm
Tuesday 7am - 6:30pm
Wednesday 6:30am - 3:15pm
Thursday and Friday off
Saturday 10am - 8pm
Sunday 7:45am - 7:30pm


Plus the hour a day commuting. This week he has Friday, Saturday and Sunday off, will be paid for 40 hours and been away from home 49 hours, so in my point of view he has done 49 hours in 4 days by the end of today. He has shifts where he finishes at 1am and is driving again at 10am. Entitledto.com shows that after tax credits have done with us (as we have 2 children the 9 year old with behaviour problems) he is working for £2.54 an hour.


Some days I forget I have him!! But he loves his job!! Well more than his family

InsideInsurance

ScarletMarble wrote: »

Maximum we can book off in one block is three weeks

When I worked for a bank we were required to take one holiday of a minimum of 2 weeks duration once per year. This was claimed to be a counter fraud mechanism with the theory being that if you went away for less than this you could avoid handing things over to others but for 2 weeks holibobs you'd have to and so they'd spot what you've been doing.

Went from there to work for an insurance intermediary and without thinking booked a 2.5 week holiday. Went to my boss to get it approved and was told that anything over 2 weeks had to go to the Exec for special approval! Talk about polar opposite approaches.

In recent years there has been a bit of a trend of not allowing contractors to work over Xmas/ NYE without special dispensation and so have been forced to take time off. Outside of that tend to take very little time off as not working = not earning and so makes holidays exceptionally expensive

BoJangles_2

No but restrictions are made, only so many are allowed time off at the same time and certain busy periods are blocked for obvious reasons.

C_Mababejive

I guess some of the factors involved here are the size of the company and also how many employees it has. Obviously if there is only a small pool of workers with specialist skills, they may need to fit with eachother to take holidays. In a major company where there is a large pool of people each able to do that work,it should be much less of or not an issue at all.

DCFC79

We each get given a form to fill in to choose which days/weeks to book off, certain times of the year no one is allowed to have time off unless in certain circumstances eg religious reasons and its looked at by the manager. If the weeks I wanted aren't available then I book another week.

I guess if its coming to the end of the year in terms of using the holiday then yes they could tell us to take these days off to use whats left.

Obviously if we are contracted to work certain days eg bank holidays or days where we are closed eg Easter Sunday then we can either book said days as holiday or not get paid for the time.