Employer refusing holiday

mrshultz · 8 May 2015 at 4:36PM

Hi all,

I have been in my current role for 1 year 6 months, my employment was tuped over from my previous employer so I have a continued service of 5 years.

I have requested 10 days of holiday in August which my employer has refused on the grounds of lack of resource.

I am going to challenge the lack of resource for the following reasons:

There is adequate resource on the dates in question
Holiday has been granted for myself previously when there has been less resource
Holiday has been granted for others when there has been less resource
Holiday has already been booked and paid for
It has never been mentioned that there must be X number of employees present nor is it in my contract
This holiday means a lot to me, I have experienced high levels of stress already in this role and I feel this is important to stop me burning out.

Do I have a case or any legal ground to fight this?

Thoughts?

tomtontom · 8 May 2015 at 4:39PM

Have you asked your employer when you can take holiday? As long as you get reasonable opportunity to take it in the holiday year, they can largely dictate when you take it. You really shouldn't have booked a holiday without booking time off first.

MoneyMission2015 · 8 May 2015 at 5:07PM

Employers are entitled to tell employees when holidays are allowed and can refuse. As previous poster said, you really shouldn't have booked your holiday without having the dates agreed beforehand.

The fact that it has previously been allowed means nothing really, for all you know more work could be coming in during the period you want off, which you are currently unaware of but your boss is so is planning ahead.

I have heard in some places of work that holidays are actually allocated at the beginning of the holiday year by the managers and people have to just accept the dates they are given.

specialboy · 8 May 2015 at 5:49PM

As above, as long as your employer allows you to take your allowance during your holiday year they can dictate any and all of you holidays.

mrshultz · 8 May 2015 at 6:46PM

My contract doesn't state holiday has to be agreed with my employer or line manager, does this change anything?

tomtontom · 8 May 2015 at 7:01PM

mrshultz wrote: »

My contract doesn't state holiday has to be agreed with my employer or line manager, does this change anything?

No, it doesn't. It is common sense that annual leave needs to be agreed with management.

mrshultz · 8 May 2015 at 7:12PM

Thanks. It's incredibly frustrating, this has never been a problem before. I haven't taken a single holiday this year, haven't had a single sick day in my employment, work every hour under the sun even looked after everything when my boss was off for six months with stress while everyone else !!!!!!ed off on holiday. The second I want two weeks off there is a resource issue.

Argh! Rant over. Thank you all

DCFC79 · 8 May 2015 at 7:14PM

You can ask them to reconsider, if they still say no then nothing you can do afaik but what you should have done is got the holiday agreed before booking, would have prevented this.