I have to take my 21days holiday accrued before April(plus bank holidays etc), but am told by the manager that I can only have days off as and when they approve it.And they wont approve 2 + weeks in one block, as I did not apply a long time ago.
Their “option” is for me to work 11odd days in march, with no more than a weeks continuous break. Meaning I cant jump on a plane to the sun for a couple of weeks, nor work as a temp

What are my rights?
Where is a good place to ask this question?CAB?
Should I join the union fast?
Is anyone on here familiar with this?

It is a very big company. They did say unofficially that they would pay me in lieu, which is fine with me, but now they seem to want me to take 11 extra days off,paid.
They do not have enough drivers, and are saying that they wont allow more than one driver on holiday per shift, so they dont have enough holidays/drivers for all the shifts until April
I did apply for a block of 4+ weeks off but it was turned down.
Also we werent allowed holidays in december cos of xmas/newyear

It’s basically at their discretion.

Btw start taking your holidays. How the hell can you go 10 months with a holiday? 😆

Holidays are taken at mutual consent. Check the TUC website. Joining a union now will give youaccess to the local reps on this but any access to the full time officers is very much discretionary as they really don’t like folk only joining when there are issues.

I doubt you have much you can do here. A week at a time off is perhaps a decent compromise.

You’ve worked there for a year and not taken any holiday, then about 6 weeks before the end of your holiday year rolled up to your manager and said I’ll be taking my holidays until end of March starting the day after tomorrow? And then been surprised by the answer?
Their response is pretty good to be honest.

Two weeks leave request requires two weeks notice i.e. equal to length of leave requested.

Cancellation of leave by employer needs to be at least equal to the leave previously granted eg. a week’s leave starting next Thursday could not be cancelled by employer today.

Their “option” is for me to work 11odd days in march, with no more than a weeks continuous break. Meaning I cant jump on a plane to the sun for a couple of weeks, nor work as a temp

Sounds very reasonable to me.

Jump on a plane for 1 week in the sun, and spend the other odd days riding bikes.

I don’t think you have a leg to stand on on this one.

I don’t think you’ve got much legal rights here, it’ll be down to employer policy. I would expect an employer to act fairly though, rather than just veto it for the sake of it. There was a similar thread not so long back, I’ll see if I can find it.

Our official policy is two weeks’ notice for holidays and anything under two weeks leave would generally be accepted unless there was a genuine reason not to (eg, half the department had already booked time off. Longer holidays would be subject to greater scrutiny.

Unofficially, this isn’t very heavily enforced. On occasion I’ve rung my boss at 8:30 and asked for the day off, and got it.

Have to agree with the responses here. Both sides need to show willing. Waiting until the end of Feb to book 21 days leave in March isn’t reasonable.

I work for an employer who is a bit arsey about leave. For example we can’t apply for 2017 leave until 2017. So I’ve booked a week in June which I had to book last year because of availability issues. The leave has now been approved but had they said no I’d have taken a sickie (my first since the 1980s).

They also have a policy that no more than 10% of staff can be off at one time. This means it’s actually difficult for everyone to get their holidays at reasonable time of the year.

But that’s the system. I know they are like that so I applied for all this years holidays on 1st January.

No point waiting until the month before and finding you can’t get the days you want.

So what happens when there are no days left for you to take your holiday?
Has the employer a Duty of Care to contact the employee when it is obvious that they are running out of available days to have off?

There never seems to be anyone there to ask about it.
With rumours of being paid in lieu,being told not to worry, the supervisor would approve the holiday request for me, there not being enough days available anyway, and needing the money I didnt see the point in applying before I needed it

Given how annual leave is a statutory right in the UK, I would expect my employer to approach me and if needs be, allocate me leave with notice equal to the allocated leave should I have a load of statutory 28 days leave remaining (which can include bank holidays) towards the end of the annual leave year.

Most places I’ve been it’s a case of use them or lose them. Some places let you run them over, some places pay you. But you need to say about that. They won’t come to you.

Has the employer a Duty of Care to contact the employee when it is obvious that they are running out of available days to have off?

They have, and you have decided you are not happy with what they have given you.

Unfortunately you need to be more aware of your responsibility in this and act more in advance in the future.

Btw I’d think you have some form of grievance if they are just letting you know now when you asked in January.

Given how annual leave is a statutory right in the UK, I would expect my employer to approach me and if needs be, allocate me leave with notice equal to the allocated leave should I have a load of statutory 28 days leave remaining (which can include bank holidays) towards the end of the annual leave year.

They could hold your hand and walk you home as well.

I don’t understand people who sandbag holiday then get bizarre when their master plan to take a whole month off fully paid with minimal warning doesn’t fly.

It’s healthy to take your breaks staggered throughout the year. If you need to take a long time off, speak with people and agree a way it can work with everyone upfront as soon as you know of the plans.

You only have a right to holidays, not when they are taken. If you haven’t requested days before now then you have little choice.

In my work you can book holidays up to 2 years in advance on a first-come-first-served basis. We’re not allowed to carry any holiday over and you must take all your entitlement, no pay instead etc. There is a limit on the amount of people off at any one time and if you haven’t requested any dates by November of that year they get allocated where there is space and you can request them to be changed afterwards (holiday year runs from May 1st to April 30th). It’s not a perfect system but everyone knows the rules so it works. Probably th only thing that does there but ho-hum 😉

Most places I’ve been it’s a case of use them or lose them. Some places let you run them over, some places pay you.

We allow five days either way. Ie, you can have up to five carry over into next year, and you can ‘buy’ up to five additional days if you like (essentially Unpaid Leave I suppose).

legally they can not deny you the hols even if its carried over nor can they buy them back from you if that takes you under the stat min hols

Holidays are taken at mutual consent.

Note the word mutual, that doesn’t just mean the company can dictate terms and the employee has to suck it up. It is however quite a hard fight to take on, which is why many companies get away with treating it like “mutual consent” means suck it up buttercup.

Our managers get reports every so often.

If anybody has more than 10 days unbooked by the end of September they have a big fit about it.

^ This, you should have been encouraged to use them or lose them.

My Dad use to run a car factory, Nov/Dec and Jan was quiet.

Anyone who’d not taken all their hols (or had it booked) was called in the day before (so their allowance would take them to 31st Dec), and told they were on holidays from tomorrow.

Myself, I always made sure I used ALL my holiday allowance, but often with a large team had to constantly hassle employees to use theirs.

As a manager I’ve had to deal with employees who just wouldn’t be persuaded to take their holiday entitlement. Some were disorganised, some were prevaricators and some thought they were so important that the company would go under without their presence for a few days. Bloody annoying!

b r – Member

Myself, I always made sure I used ALL my holiday allowance

And some of my sickie allowance! 😆

We can carry up to five days to the following year which gives a bit of flexibility. Some places insist that you take half your holidays by six months into the holiday year which does force people’s hands a bit.

Putting in for holiday requests is usually along the lines of “the longer the holiday, the longer the notice” so a day off (other than funeral or emergency) would be a week or so. For a week away, it’s likely to be a couple of months especially if you have to book flights/hotels.

At one employer we were about three months from the end of the holiday year (probably April-March) and the head of engineering called us in and said something along the lines of “The project has to come in on time. Any holiday you’ve booked is OK but please don’t request any more. Whatever you have left I’ll clear it to be carried over.” I had over forty days holiday the following year!

Note the word mutual, that doesn’t just mean the employee can dictate terms and the employer has to suck it up. It is however quite a pointless fight to take on, which is why many employees don’t get away with it.

I like this idea.

The problem is presenteeism. No one want’s to take so much as a sickie these days. It may have worked in the past when people had careers for life, but when it’s normal to change jobs every few years and job security is patchy who’s going to want to be the one on holiday?

Note the word mutual, that doesn’t just mean the company can dictate terms and the employee has to suck it up. It is however quite a hard fight to take on, which is why many companies get away with treating it like “mutual consent” means suck it up buttercup.

That kind of represents the company’s attitude.
I’d be quite happy to get one over on them.
I dont have much faith in the outcome of such situations.