Bank holidays and annual leave

bitemarx

Hi, I work for the NHS in secondary care. I've noticed that my employer is marking bank holidays such as Christmas and Boxing Day as "Annual Leave", although I havent requested it. Why is my annual leave being used up without my requesting it?

Can someone please explain this?

Thanks!

:mad:

tomtontom

They can stipulate when you take annual leave, it looks like they've decided you're not needed on those days.

bitemarx

tomtontom wrote: »

They can stipulate when you take annual leave, it looks like they've decided you're not needed on those days.

And this is legal?
Pardon my ignorance, but I thought annual leave was for me to decide when to take. This way, it looks like my annual leave is being forcibly used up, thus reducing the days I can have off in a year.

I may need to speak with HR?

zagfles

What does your contract say? Lots of jobs have annual leave wholly or partially set by the employer, school teachers being an obvious example, also some factories which shut down for a couple weeks etc. My contract says the employer can select up to 5 days IIRC though they never actually do. You don't have a legal right to choose your leave dates, did you really think you did? It'll depend on your contract, it'll be in your contract somewhere or a policy referred to by it.

CKhalvashi

What does the contract say?

We close the office for 2 weeks over Christmas and New Year (18th December to 4th Jan this year), with 2 weeks taken from the annual allowance.

And yes, we are entitled to do this.

tomtontom

bitemarx wrote: »

And this is legal?
Pardon my ignorance, but I thought annual leave was for me to decide when to take. This way, it looks like my annual leave is being forcibly used up, thus reducing the days I can have off in a year.

I may need to speak with HR?

Yes, it is legal.

No, your employer can tell you when to take AL according to the needs of the service. Is your service working on those days, if so have you offered to work?

bitemarx

tomtontom wrote: »

Yes, it is legal.

No, your employer can tell you when to take AL according to the needs of the service. Is your service working on those days, if so have you offered to work?

No, I haven't offered to work those days. The service is 24/7 (365 days).

I shall have to carefully read my contract!

El_Torro

I just did a quick Google search and it appears that legally your employer can tell you exactly when to take up to all your holiday. A bit harsh, though I've never heard of that being enforced.

In my current contract it states that my employer can tell me to take up to 5 days a year (so far this has just been reserved for the 3 days between Christmas and New Year).

In previous jobs I took time off whenever I wanted, including choosing whether to work bank holidays and take the days off in lieu. As mentioned above a lot of it depends on what your contract says.

ohreally

This shouldn't have happened as these days are public holidays, (unless there is some sort of local agreement to convert p/h's to a/l).

Speak with union rep for clarification.

discat11

Perfectly legal and normal practice IME.
My staff are getting arsey about having to work 28/12 as we don't recognise substitute bank hols -funny though -they haven't said anything about the 5 days more leave granted every year beyond the statutory minimum.

agrinnall

ohreally wrote: »

This shouldn't have happened as these days are public holidays, (unless there is some sort of local agreement to convert p/h's to a/l).

In a 24/7/365 service I would expect this to be the case.

OP, this is pretty normal - if they want to employers can dictate when every day of your holiday is taken, although very few would go that far.

https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/booking-time-off-
When leave can and can’t be taken

Employers can:

• tell their staff to take leave, eg bank holidays or Christmas
• restrict when leave can be taken, eg at certain busy periods

There may be rules about this in the employment contract or it may be what normally happens in the workplace. The notice period for this is at least twice as long as the leave they want their staff to take.