Annual Leave

brute03

Hi,
So I work for a leisure centre and as you know since around 23rd March 20 we were advised by the Welsh government to close and since then I've been working from home. I have a 37 hours per week contract, but while we were closed during the pandemic I was only carrying out between 60 - 100 hours per month. Now we are back open I've heard  that they may be taking leave off us. We were encouraged to take leave through the closure, but how many people would take leave when we were going through this. All I'd like to know is can they just take leave off us or not?
Thanks in advance 

Jonesy1977

If they asked you to take it then yes you should have taken it, if you didn’t take it then you have probably lost it. It depends when they asked you to take it, how much leave and how much notice they gave you. 

brute03

They want to take it off us now we are back open. It was only encouraged while we were in the lockdown. They are only just notifying us now that they will be taking leave off us.

elsien

By taking leave off you,  do you mean they are asking you to take some leave now while things are quieter, as opposed to cutting your leave allowance for the year?
Perfectly legal and what many companies are doing. They don't want everyone saving it up because they can't go anywhere then trying to fit it all in together as the end of the leave year approaches. They can tell you when to take leave if they give enough notice ie twice as notice as the length of the leave. So if they tell you to have a weeks leave they have to give two weeks notice. 

brute03

They are not asking, they are taking. Literally telling us as no one has taken much leave while we were closed and at home, we are taking so much leave off you. They are telling us today. There was no discussion of them doing this back in March, only encouraged us to take it.

Thrugelmir

After several months doing nothing do you actually require a holiday?

Diamandis

Can you clarify exactly what you mean by "taking leave off you". Do you mean they are deducting days from your annual leave that you won't be able to take? If so they can't do that. They could have insisted you take annual leave whilst on furlough though, they just needed to give you notice. 

74jax

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brute03

Diamandis said:

Can you clarify exactly what you mean by "taking leave off you". Do you mean they are deducting days from your annual leave that you won't be able to take? If so they can't do that. They could have insisted you take annual leave whilst on furlough though, they just needed to give you notice. 

Yes they are just deducting it from our leave, without us actually taking it. There was no notice or communication that this would happen in March, for example, if they said back in March when we closed, if you only do so many hours wroking from home we will deduct x amount of leave from you. 

At Christmas they ask us to take leave
on the days we close, but we get at least 2 months notice on that.

brute03

Thrugelmir said:

After several months doing nothing do you actually require a holiday?

Not really, but I have been working so many hours from home for the past 5 months. So was looking for a week off 

warby68

Generally speaking your employer can tell you when to take leave, subject to the required notice. They might be trying to retrospectively impose this and whilst probably not how it should be, as you have been at home on full pay for only around half your hours, you will have to decide whether it is a battle worth fighting. I'd say as long as its just pro rata for amount of the holiday year that's past it might be worth taking on the chin. Sounds like speculation anyway rather than anything definitive at this stage as to how much. Is this a local authority facility or private business - most people have to weigh up the value of the business surviving and thereby keeping a job against your technical rights. I'm not saying all employee rights should go out of the window but many people have been 'winging' it for months as there was so little precedent and so little time for planning so a bit of 'is this fair overall' might have to come into your thinking. 
Genuine question, although pure nosiness I admit, but what work can you do from home for a closed leisure centre?