Annual leave query

SpongeMuppet

Good morning all….

I have a query, my wife recently asked her employer for time off (1 day) . This was asked for in plenty of time and was eventually refused…..it has since transpired that another member of staff asked for the same period of time off AFTER my wife had asked and been refused and they were granted it!

There are so many issues in this place of employment it’s insane, but this example is surely out of order?

Does anyone know if there are any legal reasons that this treatment could be allowed eg medical appointments etc?

Thanks in advance 

turnitround

It's different in all workplaces I think. Where I used to work you had to fill in a paper request and hand it to your personal team manager of which there were 12 of them across the shift. The problem was that he could take 3 days to check the system to see if the 'allowed percentage off on any one day' had been filled. Another manager may get a request the following day but check at once so the first person to ask could be refused whilst the second was given the holiday.
The previous workplace did things differently and would refuse a request to anyone who always asked for Monday or Friday to get a long weekend. 

SpongeMuppet

I understand what you’re saying, but as far as I’m aware there’s one person doing the leave on their own so there’s no confusion because of other approvals …..this however is a company that asked my wife to work extra to help out and accrued time in lieu and then when she asked when she could take it was told they’re too busy and then out of nowhere was told if the hours weren’t taken then they’d be lost….
 

So she lost her hours and wasn’t paid either …..

oldernonethewiser

Do both people do exactly the same work?

Is there (there should be) written policy on how leave is treated?

SpongeMuppet

I’m not entirely sure as regards their roles, but I believe so….

Regarding what should or shouldn’t be there, I can’t even imagine but it often seems on any given day one then, but tomorrow something else….but I’ll find out 

Andy_L

You're looking at it the wrong way round

There needs to be a legal reason that the employer can't do something. They are alowed to treat other people more favorably than others, unless the treatment is due to sex, race, religion etc.

It might be a bad idea from the PoV of staff morale & retention but its not illegal

Undervalued

SpongeMuppet said:

Good morning all….

I have a query, my wife recently asked her employer for time off (1 day) . This was asked for in plenty of time and was eventually refused…..it has since transpired that another member of staff asked for the same period of time off AFTER my wife had asked and been refused and they were granted it!

There are so many issues in this place of employment it’s insane, but this example is surely out of order?

Does anyone know if there are any legal reasons that this treatment could be allowed eg medical appointments etc?

Thanks in advance 

Any leave request can be refused providing the employee is allowed to take at least their statutory annual leave at some point during the year. The employer doesn't have to give (or even have) a reason.

Agreed leave can be cancelled by the employer providing they give the fairly minimal notice the law requires.

An employer can instruct an employee to take leave just by giving the fairly minimal notice the law requires.

There is no automatic right to time off for routine medical appointments but there might be complex "duty of care" issues if this was unreasonably refused too often.

As others have said, what another employee was or was not allowed to do is irrelevant unless there was clear unlawful discrimination on a protected ground (e.g race, religion gender etc). 

Whilst what you describe is understandably annoying it is not unlawful.