Covering Annual Leave

Undervalued

tacpot12 wrote: »

The employer is acting reasonably, if they refuse to allow you to take time off when your role cannot be covered by the other members of the team, providing they operate fairly. It would not be fair if A always wants time off in school holidays, and the employer insists that B always covers their leave at those times, but will not insist that A covers B's leave when B wants to take annual leave during school holiday in order to attend their sister's wedding.

What is "fair" or not is a matter of opinion and not particularly relevant. The fact of the matter is, unless there are any specific contractual entitlements, an employer can totally dictate when an employee can and cannot take their holiday.

Obviously from a business point of view an employer has to balance exercising this right with the need to recruit and retain suitable staff.

A wish to attend "their sister's wedding" or have time off during school holidays does not have to be granted, nor does it give that employee any rights over and above another member of staff who has no family commitments.

Comms69

So you each currently work 56 hours a week? Because that’s already higher than the WTD. And you’re suggesting that actually it’s higher

Comms69

It seems to me that the 3 of you have employer over a barrel; but are all to worried to do anything.

agrinnall

Three people doesn't seem enough for this role even at the best of times, and what happens when one is on leave and another if off sick? If there is an absolute requirement for two people to be available at all times then I'd say they need to employ at least one more person (or train someone else to do the job when necessry).

Comms69

agrinnall wrote: »

Three people doesn't seem enough for this role even at the best of times, and what happens when one is on leave and another if off sick? If there is an absolute requirement for two people to be available at all times then I'd say they need to employ at least one more person (or train someone else to do the job when necessry).

Need atleast 7 people for this role in reality

Unclefoobar

Thank you for the constructive comments. The role involves a lot of stand by time with the restrictions I listed above but the employer refuses to consider this stand by time as work time, therefore it is actually a struggle to accrue the required hours. the case mentioned above https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/experts/legal/being-on-call-working-time is a fairly new development which I'll be looking into.

To answer one point, no there is not enough staff to cover the role, something that is raised on a regular basis (falls on deaf ears)

The situation with covering each others annual leave is a long standing verbal agreement based on nothing other than goodwill of the employees. Of course goodwill has to work both ways.

And to answer another point, yes I will contact my union but what I was really after was anyones personal experience with being asked / forced to cover others annual leave (that'll be a strangers advice as I don't know anyone on the forum :rotfl:)

getmore4less

Is the role 100% on call/standby only paid when there is work to do?

sangie595

So you actually don't have a lot of work to do because you struggle to get working hours (which you are paid for)? But it needs a lot more people to do this non-work? You do recognise that this is more non-information?

paddedjohn

If you already work full time and are forced to work extra to cover holidays then this in effect means you are not getting holidays by yourself.
If you are entitled to 5.6 weeks holiday but have to cover for 5.6 weeks it's the same as having your holidays bought off you.