New Job Offer Accepted, Double Checking on Honouring Holidays!

Manxman_in_exile

getmore4less wrote: »

By making the holiday contractual the employer has waved their rights in the WTR on statutory notice for holidays.

It would also override any contractual holiday notice unless they are brought to the attention of the employee.

I'm confused again. So the employer cannot renege on the holiday commitment for a new employee in these circumstances?


I understand why in the private sector different employees can negotiate different salaries etc, but to my mind this is different. Personally, I think if you've followed company policy in booking and agreeing holidays then it shouldn't be possible for the employer to cancel them.


So what position is the OP left in? Can they rely on the holidays commitment or can't they?


You seem to be suggesting that they can rely on it.

Stylehutz

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

I suspect the employer may have the upper hand here. They probably aren't concerned. It's the OP who is concerned. I'm not sure how your views on what "employers should ask" at interview help the OP?


I've probably served on about a dozen interview panels and we've never asked any candidates about prospective holidays. We would expect them to tell us because they know about it and we don't!


Anyway, it makes no difference here. The OP has (correctly in my view) informed the employer of their holiday wishes. What happens, happens.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,

The candidate has the upper hand. Company makes job offer to candidate assuming they have no holiday committments. could have asked at interview but can't be arsed

Candidate now in position, who by the way is the companies first choice, states I am quite willing to accept the job but i have holidays confirmed. These could by the way have been booked in between after interview and waiting for offer

Company then has to say, Do we honour his holidays or shall we offer it to our second choice candidate

This situation of course wouldn't have arisen, if they had asked the candidate in the first place of any holiday committments

Yes of course the interviewer takes no blame at all its the candidates fault:rotfl:

Savvy_Sue

elsien wrote: »

Why should it be a priority question - if it's so important to the candidate then the candidate will raise it anyway.
The priority questions are whether the candidate has the skills for the job involved, not whether they want a week off next October.

Absolutely! Although we always ask the question, because we usually have an imminent preferred start date in mind. We have started people later than that date, or let them have time off very soon afterwards, but it would definitely not be appreciated if someone rolled up on their first day and wanted to book leave within their first month if they had not indicated this beforehand.

getmore4less wrote: »

By making the holiday contractual the employer has waved their rights in the WTR on statutory notice for holidays.

It would also override any contractual holiday notice unless they are brought to the attention of the employee.

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

I'm confused again. So the employer cannot renege on the holiday commitment for a new employee in these circumstances?

I understand why in the private sector different employees can negotiate different salaries etc, but to my mind this is different. Personally, I think if you've followed company policy in booking and agreeing holidays then it shouldn't be possible for the employer to cancel them.

So what position is the OP left in? Can they rely on the holidays commitment or can't they?

You seem to be suggesting that they can rely on it.

I'm going to defer to getmore's expertise on this one. The key thing is getting it in writing, as a contractual term.

As for employers cancelling holiday, I don't think it happens that often: I've NEVER known it happen and I'm nearer retirement than the start of my working life.

But what's an employer to do if there is a mission critical situation going wrong, and a key person has booked leave? Or something completely unforeseen happens? Obviously the ideal answer is to hire in appropriate help, but that's easier if it's the company switchboard operator with leave booked than if it's the senior widget designer with particular expertise in your line of widgets.

NeilCr

Stylehutz wrote: »

I doubt very much you are an experienced interviewer. From a previously thread you just appear to want to troll me. If the interviewer doesnt want to ask if the candidate has any holidays booked it comes across as if they are not concerned that they have.

I used to do a lot of interviewing for a reasonably sized organisation. It was more unusual than usual that we would ask the holiday question. It had no bearing on them being the best candidate for a start. You normally aren't going to give a job to someone just because they have got holiday booked (there could be instances with short term temp cover)

A couple of examples at each end of the spectrum

If we were interviewing a number of candidates for a clerical position then we wouldn't. Our clerical staff usually worked in teams and it was unlikely that there would be a problem with time off. Plus that would be for discussion if and when they were offered the job

We did have some jobs that required people to be there at particular times of the year. You'd ask then - but it was part of the explanation that leave couldn't be taken during those periods. The usual practice would be to honour existing commitments unless they were particularly onerous.

It is going to depend on the particular job/number of candidates/organisation but it certainly wasn't high on the list of questions that had to be asked or, indeed, asked at all. It just isn't relevant to their ability to do the job

We did find that candidates did ask. Some had holidays booked - others wanted to know what the likelihood was of getting time off at certain times of the year (school holidays for example)

CCFC_80

I was involved in interviews at a call centre environment and we would always ask interviewees if they had any upcoming holidays

2 reasons for this as the previous poster stated, we had a start date in mind when it was appropriate to start. We preferred to start a group together as it was convenient for induction training Also job was working in a 24/7 environment and needed to know sometimes upto 2 months in advance what are schedule was. It was a case of first come first served for holiday requests and religious festivals were booked over a year in advance.e.g xmas 2018 would probably be already booked

That way the candidate knew where they stood at interview and they might have to change their holidays booked as part of job offer.

So we werent put in a position where our time was wasted if we offered them a job and they could hold us to ransom with a conditional job offer

Undervalued

Stylehutz wrote: »

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,

The candidate has the upper hand. Company makes job offer to candidate assuming they have no holiday committments. could have asked at interview but can't be arsed

Candidate now in position, who by the way is the companies first choice, states I am quite willing to accept the job but i have holidays confirmed. These could by the way have been booked in between after interview and waiting for offer

Company then has to say, Do we honour his holidays or shall we offer it to our second choice candidate

This situation of course wouldn't have arisen, if they had asked the candidate in the first place of any holiday committments

Yes of course the interviewer takes no blame at all its the candidates fault:rotfl:

Nonsense!

The default position in employment is that you are entitled to 28 days holiday to be taken entirely at the employer's discretion. Any enhancement on that, be it extra days or more flexibility as to when the holiday can be taken, is a contractual matter to be negotiated.

So unless the job description offers better terms or they are negotiated at interview the employer is quite entitled to assume the prospective employee has no special requirements.

Stylehutz

Undervalued wrote: »

Nonsense!

The default position in employment is that you are entitled to 28 days holiday to be taken entirely at the employer's discretion. Any enhancement on that, be it extra days or more flexibility as to when the holiday can be taken, is a contractual matter to be negotiated.

So unless the job description offers better terms or they are negotiated at interview the employer is quite entitled to assume the prospective employee has no special requirements.

Eh? Completely Lost on this one

getmore4less

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

I'm confused again. So the employer cannot renege on the holiday commitment for a new employee in these circumstances?


I understand why in the private sector different employees can negotiate different salaries etc, but to my mind this is different. Personally, I think if you've followed company policy in booking and agreeing holidays then it shouldn't be possible for the employer to cancel them.


So what position is the OP left in? Can they rely on the holidays commitment or can't they?


You seem to be suggesting that they can rely on it.

The key is the employer cannot use the WTR(statutory) or any contractual notice to change the holiday if it has been agreed in advance.

But the employer has more options than notice to not to take holidays.

For a new starter there are other options like put the employee on termination notice as the terms of employment are no longer satisfactory for both sides.

A more sensible approach is negotiation.


re: the bit in bold, the way the legislation was written it takes no account of previously agreed holidays unless there are contractual terms on mutual agreement to change..

The reality is many employers override some/all of the statutory rules with their own anyway.

A very typical one is holidays must be approved this overrides the twice the notice to take holidays and the default that if the employer does not say you can't take them(by the same period as the holiday before the holiday) they are automatically approved.

[Deleted User]

Hi OP

Was there an update on this?

Many thanks

Gavin83

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

But what's an employer to do if there is a mission critical situation going wrong, and a key person has booked leave? Or something completely unforeseen happens? Obviously the ideal answer is to hire in appropriate help, but that's easier if it's the company switchboard operator with leave booked than if it's the senior widget designer with particular expertise in your line of widgets.

Then the employer shouldn't have a single point of failure. What if the person was to leave, or even worse go on long term sick/die suddenly?

I've never had a holiday cancelled before after booking but if it was at the very minimum I'd expect my employer to cover any financial losses I'd incurred for any cancellations, including those for my partner or anyone else going with me. In all honesty it would probably be a deal breaker for me anyway and at the same meeting they cancelled my holiday I'd be handing in my notice. Obviously depends on the reason. If I was just having a few days at home or visiting friends I'd be a little more flexible than if I had a 2 week 5* luxury holiday in the Caribbean.

I have had a holiday request denied in the past and ultimately it ended in me leaving the company. In that situation I decided the holiday was more important to me than the job.

CCFC_80 wrote: »

So we werent put in a position where our time was wasted if we offered them a job and they could hold us to ransom with a conditional job offer

Guess it depends on the role. If it's a fairly generic role then you can afford to be a little demanding. If it's a specialist role with few potential candidates I'm willing to bet you'd be a little more flexible to get the right person for the job. Only an idiotic company would take on an inferior candidate because the better option wanted a week holiday.