Holiday entitlement

bartman612

First off I am broke.haven,t had any support from the government.
I have three employees on furlough.The other two are doing 4 days a week to keep the overheads paid.We all agreed that any holiday requests would be cancelled as they couldn,t go anywhere and I would struggle to pay holiday pay at the moment.The one guy now insists he wants his holiday leave as he booked it 6 months ago.
Hes not a team player. Is he entitled to this.

Jeremy535897

It will depend on his contract of employment. If it does not say, statutory rules allow an employer to cancel an employee's holiday by giving notice at least equal to the length of the holiday (regulation 15(4)(b) Working Time Regulations 1998), unless the employee could not then take all their statutory holiday entitlement for that holiday year. There could be other consequences. See:
https://www.xperthr.co.uk/faq/can-an-employer-cancel-an-employees-booked-period-of-annual-leave/156224/

epm-84

bartman612 said:

First off I am broke.haven,t had any support from the government.
I have three employees on furlough.The other two are doing 4 days a week to keep the overheads paid.We all agreed that any holiday requests would be cancelled as they couldn,t go anywhere and I would struggle to pay holiday pay at the moment.The one guy now insists he wants his holiday leave as he booked it 6 months ago.
Hes not a team player. Is he entitled to this.

If the 3 employees on furlough are getting paid through the Job Retention Scheme then you are getting support from the government.  Those 3 people are still your employees and you can call them back at any time if work picks up.  Without this scheme they wouldn't be your employees anymore, you would have had to pay the costs of a redundancy process and when work picks up you would have had to pay the costs of recruiting and training replacement staff and could potentially have difficulty finding the right staff.

You say "we ALL agreed", yet say one employee wants his annual leave.  If that's an agreement did they sign it as part of the agreement they would have needed to sign to either reduce their hours or go on furlough?  If not did you discuss each of the dates individually booked with each employee and request that they cancel them if they wouldn't suffer any financial or other loss from being in work those days?

Thrugelmir

Wouldn't you prefer your employees to take holiday during the furlough period. Rather than later when they could be working and generating a profit for you. 

[Deleted User]

Thrugelmir said:

Wouldn't you prefer your employees to take holiday during the furlough period. Rather than later when they could be working and generating a profit for you. 

Probably not because he has to pay them full wages if they take holiday during that time. Furlough rules.

sharpe106

Have you tried explaining the situation to him? Are they currently furloughed? If so it will only cost you 20%.

Although if you are really that badly off is it worth trying to keep all your employees as it will be more expensive to get rid of them further down the line? (I can guess who is first in the firing line)

epm-84

sharpe106 said:

Have you tried explaining the situation to him? Are they currently furloughed? If so it will only cost you 20%.

Although if you are really that badly off is it worth trying to keep all your employees as it will be more expensive to get rid of them further down the line? (I can guess who is first in the firing line)

Whether it's more expensive or not at a later date depends on the date they started working for the employer e.g. someone who has been there for 7 months won't be more expensive to get rid of in 6 months time, someone who's been there for 9 years and 8 months will be, especially if the notice period increases with the length of service.

I wonder if 'not a team player' really means not a team player or whether it means someone who is standing up for their employment rights at a time when their employer wants to bend the rules due to being cash strapped.  I notice he/she hasn't yet returned with any follow up following on from the posts offering advice.

Grumpy_chap

bartman612 said:

First off I am broke.haven,t had any support from the government.
I have three employees on furlough.

If you have employees on furlough, then you have received some support from the Government.  If you share a bit more about your company and current position, people on here may be able to suggest if there is anything further available.  Grants, BBLS, etc.

Is the person who wants to take their leave one of the three on furlough or one of the two working four days / week? 
Have they said why they still need the holiday as they will not be able to use it for the normal 'holiday' things, so there must be another need - it may be financial rather than time that is the pressing factor for the employee.
With an adult discussion to understand need, then a solution may be workable.  Until you understand the real driver behind it all, you cannot make a fully informed decision so, instead, get frustrated and annoyed.