Told cant have holiday

I am (not) surprised by the rudeness on this board.
Less than 10 posts downs and there are people digging up OP's posting history and giving a thorough dressing down.
Why not just answer the question and add "by the way, ..."? This is what I do at work when asked stupid questions. If I respond like some here, I do not expect to keep my job for long!

To OP, at our workplace it is worse. If you do not put in your request early enough, you will not be able to take time off and will lose your holiday entitlement for the year.
As others told you, there is no automatic right to getting time off, so check company policy and stay on good terms with your colleagues.
Remember that the employer has right to cancel leave even after approving (please refer to a thread I started about 4y ago), so count yourself lucky that they are saying no now, rather than 2w before when you have tickets booked, etc.

Why can't you just ask for different dates?

If too many other people are off at that time, it makes sense that they are asking you to choose different dates.

If everyone is off at the same time, that isn't fair on the people who are left and have to pick up the slack. I prefer to work at places which have an organised approach to leave and don't let everybody go at the same time!

HardCoreProgrammer wrote: »

To OP, at our workplace it is worse. If you do not put in your request early enough, you will not be able to take time off and will lose your holiday entitlement for the year.
As others told you, there is no automatic right to getting time off, so check company policy and stay on good terms with your colleagues.
Remember that the employer has right to cancel leave even after approving (please refer to a thread I started about 4y ago), so count yourself lucky that they are saying no now, rather than 2w before when you have tickets booked, etc.

your company is behaving illegally - you are ENTITLED to your holiday and thus must be allowed to take it. If your employer wants to cancel your holiday, they must give at least as much notice as the length of the leave. And the gov.uk site is VERY clear - 'Although employers can refuse to give leave at a certain time, they can’t refuse to let workers take the leave at all.'

jobbingmusician wrote: »

your company is behaving illegally - you are ENTITLED to your holiday and thus must be allowed to take it. If your employer wants to cancel your holiday, they must give at least as much notice as the length of the leave. And the gov.uk site is VERY clear - 'Although employers can refuse to give leave at a certain time, they can’t refuse to let workers take the leave at all.'

I can't see anything unlawful - unless they are saying you can't use your holiday leave, which isn't the same as saying 'you can't have those days'. As others have said they need to ask when they can have the leave.

OP, it is frustrating, but as others have said, they are entitled to say no, and most employers will have limits on how many people can be off at once.

Is there any kind of office calendar so you can see when time is available? In my job, we have a calendar on the intranet where you can check, before making a holiday request, who is out on the dates you want, so that you can see whether the time is available and if it clashes, you can then address that when you make your request (for instance, I recently had a long weekend which overlapped with the friday of my colleague's week-long holiday. Normally we would not have the same time off but on this occasion I worked round it by making sure that my, and her, assistant had contact details for me and could get in touch if anything urgent came up. (had I booked my time first, I would have been willing to allow her to take the week off if she had been willing to be the emergency contact and to be available to access and respond to phone calls and e-mail if need be)

OP, if this is a recurring issue then check with your manager how far in advnace you are allowed to book time off and book earlier.

I currently have some days booked off as far ahead as next July, because there are specific events I wish to attend so it's crucial to book early. We have a 'first come, first served' system.