employer has cancelled my pre booked holiday

dizzydolly

I had booked a week off about 3 months ago and when I looked at the rotas this week , I had been scheduled in to work so I looked at my holiday form and funnily enough it was a new one with no evidence of my booked holiday , they are very short staffed and have blatantly hidden any knowledge of my week off , unfortunately I cant prove it , I cant believe how underhand this is , any one know what I can do ?


luckily I was about to hand my notice in this week as I have a new job , I have to be careful with my actions as I need a decent reference but I am so angry .

bell123321

I can't help but have been in the same situation unfortuntely. Ended up losing two weeks worth of holiday at the end of the year and not being paid it because they suddenly lost the holiday request and then said there were no other weeks available.

Sorry to hear this has happened to you I can't offer any help apart from maybe speaking to the manager.

dizzydolly

yes I was afraid this is the case , I have had 2 weeks out of the 5 im allowed this year , all hols are booked till next oct ,( that would mean if I stay there I wont have had any holidays from june 16 to oct 17 ) their holiday policy is actually not legal , I shall get my reference and then when I start my new job , I shall seek advice and hopefully get them into trouble and claim back unpaid holiday money .

paddedjohn

When you leave you should receive payment for any unused holidays in your final wage packet.

dizzydolly

their policy is when holidays run out ( if theyre all taken by other workers before you've booked )you miss out and don't get paid , im pretty sure that's not legal , I shall be going to the cab or acas about it

elsien

It's not. Employees have to be given the statutory minimum, although this may be less than the contractual amount.

Xbigman

If you are leaving anyway and need a good reference then I'm afraid my advice would be to suck up working your weeks cancelled holiday and get your holiday pay when you leave.



Darren

sangie595

dizzydolly wrote: »

yes I was afraid this is the case , I have had 2 weeks out of the 5 im allowed this year , all hols are booked till next oct ,( that would mean if I stay there I wont have had any holidays from june 16 to oct 17 ) their holiday policy is actually not legal , I shall get my reference and then when I start my new job , I shall seek advice and hopefully get them into trouble and claim back unpaid holiday money .

If you are saying that they don't pay for untaken holidays, then no, that isn't unlawful. They are obliged to pay for untaken holidays in the current leave year only at the termination of employment. Not otherwise.

I'm not entirely understanding what you are saying. If you have a copy of your holiday form, doesn't that have the original dates on it? There must be some record of you having booked and had approval for the dates?

What is the holiday year? April to March?

TELLIT01

When does your holiday year run from / to. Jan to December, April to March etc? It's possible you will actually owe them if you have taken more holiday than you are entitled to for the part of the year you have worked.
Probably unlikely if you have only taken 2 of 5 week entitlement, but worth bearing in mind.

Malthusian

sangie595 wrote: »

I'm not entirely understanding what you are saying. If you have a copy of your holiday form, doesn't that have the original dates on it? There must be some record of you having booked and had approval for the dates?

At my office (a small business) the "holiday form" is an Excel spreadsheet that looks like a calendar. If you want time off you find your name and cross off the dates you want. Usually you don't even need a verbal OK from a manager. In theory anyone could go into it and uncross the dates so it looked like I hadn't booked it, in order to keep me at work or to book the time off for themselves - but this being a very small office we trust each other not to do that. So what the OP is describing makes sense to me. The "holiday form" may be a calendar that you edit directly rather than a form you fill in and submit. She didn't feel the need to print off a copy because it didn't enter her mind that someone might change it.

OP: In general I agree with the advice already given. Are you absolutely certain you didn't forget to book the time off? If you don't get formal confirmation that the holiday has been booked, it's easier to think you've booked it when you haven't. I find it a bit hard to believe that an employer would secretly remove a whole week's holiday from the system. What if you'd already paid for your flights to California and hotel room? They'd have to be really stupid to think you'd just swallow it, waste thousands of pounds and go to work instead of flying off.

ohreally

dizzydolly wrote: »

luckily I was about to hand my notice in this week as I have a new job , I have to be careful with my actions as I need a decent reference but I am so angry .

Why do you need a reference when you already have a new job?