Annual leave already used but needed for Christmas shutdown

Undervalued

NoAngel wrote: »

Yeah but can they enforce unpaid leave over Christmas? Or can they cancel leave we already have booked to allow for paid leave over Christmas? What should they do?

Yes they can. An employer can cancel leave that has been booked simply by giving a fairly minimal amount of notice (equal to the length of the leave that had been booked).

See https://www.xperthr.co.uk/faq/can-an-employer-cancel-an-employees-booked-period-of-annual-leave/156224/ and many other online references.

In the absence of any additional contractual rights an employer is in almost total control of when you can and cannot take annual leave. They must allow you to take the minimum statutory holiday at some point during the year but your rights beyond that are limited to say the least.

Comms69

NoAngel wrote: »

Yeah but can they enforce unpaid leave over Christmas? Or can they cancel leave we already have booked to allow for paid leave over Christmas? What should they do?

Yes they can cancel leave. Which is exactly what will happen

nicechap

NoAngel wrote: »

So, my employer enforces annual leave use over Christmas as the company closes down. This is usually 5 days of annual leave and the 3 bank holidays. This year they forgot to take this automatically out of our annual leave entitlement. So now many people have used up their annual leave but there isn’t enough left to cover the Christmas shut down. Can anybody advise where the employer and employees stand here please?

NoAngel wrote: »

Yeah but can they enforce unpaid leave over Christmas? Or can they cancel leave we already have booked to allow for paid leave over Christmas? What should they do?

A lot will depend on custom & practice & industry and level of trust within your company, but the starting position is those with leave outstanding will have Xmas shutdown paid, those who have already used their allocation will be unpaid.

One option you might like to suggest is take take some of next years leave allowance to cover Xmas shutdown. Of course if you leave before next year is up they can take overpaid leave back from final salary.

getmore4less

KiKi wrote: »

It's an error, but at the end of the day, as long as you're getting your required holiday then the way forward is a pragmatic one. There is nothing in law to say 'X has to happen'.

If I were dealing with this, I'd offer for people to take AL from next year's allocation, take unpaid leave, or cancel some of the leave they have booked and use it for Christmas. Your company could choose to do any of these things if people aren't willing to forfeit AL that's already booked but not yet taken. There's no set approach for situations like this.

Also: no-one - not one person in the whole organisation - spotted that they had too much AL left? You all know this is what happens - you all know that 5 days should go to the Christmas shutdown - and none of you realised you were getting an extra week to book?! Don't believe that for a second! It's a two way street here. You know you need to use AL for Christmas, you didn't check because it's usually taken automatically.

If employees and the company can work together, a pragmatic solution can be found.

There can be a problem with that if a carry back causes the holiday year to go under statutory holidays.

The employees may not know and accept that option.

Some companies have this problem when their holiday year starts around Easter dates.

nicechap wrote: »

A lot will depend on custom & practice & industry and level of trust within your company, but the starting position is those with leave outstanding will have Xmas shutdown paid, those who have already used their allocation will be unpaid.

One option you might like to suggest is take take some of next years leave allowance to cover Xmas shutdown. Of course if you leave before next year is up they can take overpaid leave back from final salary.

As above that can cause problems.
Also they need a clawback clause in the contract to recover any holidays that have not accrued on leaving.

parking_question_chap

Let them make the first move.
I presume the other leave has been formally approved by your boss?
Take them all including christmas and then see what happens.
Worst case they would take it from salary or next years allowance, best case they forget.

Above is based on no legal basis whatsoever.