Holiday leave

susanneblue

Hi all,

i am planning on taking a 3 week holiday to florida next year, we have booked the villa etc already.

my question is can my employer stop me taking this amount of time at once?

i am job share my colleague is taking 14 days in a row over 4 weeks to go to florida also this year and that has been authorised.

but i have been told by several other employees that its in our handbook that we cannot take that amount of time at once on 2 weeks allowed.

i have never seen or heard of this book before and i have been here 10 years.

but just double checking can they legally stop me?

thanks

TadleyBaggie

Yes they can. You have no legal right to take holidays when it suits you, I it doesn't suit the employer they can say no.

Undervalued

TadleyBaggie wrote: »

Yes they can. You have no legal right to take holidays when it suits you, I it doesn't suit the employer they can say no.

Indeed.

Unless your contract gives you any additional rights in this respect your employer can totally dictate (subject to fairly minimal amounts of notice) when you can and cannot take your holiday.

Your only legal right is to at least 28 days leave (if full time) so they have to let you take it at some point.

BoJangles_2

Best not to book before getting the holiday request approved anyway.

bell123321

They can refuse you holiday if it does not suit the needs of the business at that specific time.

TBagpuss

Unless your contract or employee handbook gives you additional rights then your employer is under no obligation to grant holiday requests, only to allow you the total amount of holiday required by law (28 days).

In my experience, it is quite common to have rules saying that you can't normally have more than 2 consecutive weeks off.

It's never wise to book holidays before getting the time off approved - after all, even if you were planning a shorter trip you have no guarantee that the request will be approved.

However, if the trip is not until next year I'd suggest making the request sooner rather than later.

Depending on what type of work you do and how holidays are normally covered, think about hoe your work can be covered if you are granted the time off.

Torry_Quine

I agree with others that it was silly to book a holiday before getting approval for the time off. I can never understand why some people think they are so important that the employer will give them what they want.

Hedgehog99

Agree with the others on this.

Additionally, I'd say, if they do let you take the holiday, make sure you've accrued those days in advance - i.e. if your holiday year starts in January & your holiday is in June, make sure you don't use more than January-May's proportion of the year. In this example, this leaves you with a bit of a problem because you'd only have earned 11.6 days by the end of May. (28 days divided by 12 months = 2.3 days earned per month, x five months Jan to May = 11.6). Be careful not to take additional time at Easter etc. so you have enough holiday left.

alibean121

Hedgehog99 wrote: »

Agree with the others on this.

Additionally, I'd say, if they do let you take the holiday, make sure you've accrued those days in advance - i.e. if your holiday year starts in January & your holiday is in June, make sure you don't use more than January-May's proportion of the year. In this example, this leaves you with a bit of a problem because you'd only have earned 11.6 days by the end of May. (28 days divided by 12 months = 2.3 days earned per month, x five months Jan to May = 11.6). Be careful not to take additional time at Easter etc. so you have enough holiday left.

While I agree with the rest of the advice on the thread, this is odd. Why should they ensure its earned before it's taken. I've only ever heard this for new employees. As an employee of 10 years I'm sure they can be trusted to accrue it later. Your suggestion would have the whole office required to take the last week of the year off as it wouldn't be accrued until then! Probably the complete opposite of what you want ie to spread the holidays out for cover.