Have to work during my agreed AL

That means in reality you do not get the legal minimum of four weeks holiday plus bank holidays.

If you're going to lose the leave anyway I'd rebook the days you definitely don't want to be working as leave and point out you had to work it last time. What would have happened if you'd been on holiday and not able to work at all?

What would have gone differently if you'd been on annual leave rather than 'closed'?

It’s tricky. I remember feeling miffed when other people in my organisation enjoyed paid snow days when I had to get myself in to resolve problems, so I do get how you feel.

Where I worked, we had two weeks shutdown over Christmas but we had to assign our AL to cover it (contractual).

Then I would ask to redirect your emails to another person in the team, as you're technically on AL and won't be available. You cannot be working during your AL. Talk with HR about it.

So they’re giving you two weeks’ paid leave, in addition to your annual entitlement?

But you’re miffed because you might have to work some of it - is that right?

If you haven't used your annual leave you can carry up to 5 days over. However most employers will want you to take it in the year it is supposed to be taken. What they don't want is carry over on carry over so that an employee then takes months off in order to take their leave. But if for example something happens and you are unable to take it all, legally you can carry over up to 5 days and no more. That doesn't mean employers can't impose you having to take it all in the year you are supposed to.

It's not AL and you've been told to keep an eye on the inbox. I actually think that's fair enough! If you have spare AL then ask HR to move it to next year as you didn't realise christmas didn't require you to save your AL.

I work in a business service role (bookkeeping, minute taking, business admin etc), self employed so don't have to book AL as an employee. However, if I know I have a holiday or scheduled time off coming up, I always make sure I regularly remind my clients of that.

2 months prior - email signature includes upcoming leave dates. Emails sent to clients that have regular (monthly/bi-monthly) meetings etc that could potentially fall in that time. I offer to bring forward, push back or hire a cover.

1 month prior - during weekly check ins, I remind of a/l and ask that all required work be sent in asap for completion to be guaranteed before my leave.

2 weeks before a/l I set a cut off date for any new work requests.

The week prior to my a/l is allocated specifically for work already set (with a little bit of discretion for emergencies).

Now that we have Christmas coming up, I've done a similar thing. Spoke to them all to advise my shut down dates, asked about their own shut down plans over Christmas and advised cut off dates for work requests.

If the clients success is tied to your own, what the hell would happen if you had an emergency operation tomorrow?? Your company doesn't seem to have a very good business continuity plan in place if you're struggling to have proper annual leave without it affecting their clients.

And when the next round of redundancies happens or jobs can be lost to AI management will remember who was non contact
That is the REAL world

Have you seen the many threads here about the state of the job market??
The way things are and with AI a massive threat to jobs you say yes sir no sir and do everything you can to appear to be indispensable

I assume you are finding this out through looking at your work email or messages to your work phone. Both of which should be firmly off during your annual leave!

Oh I think this is where people are confused, certainly I was. You said in your OP:

When they announced this, HR requested that we should reschedule our AL if we had already requested it for those two weeks , so I did.

So I assumed you meant that you had been told to take/save some of your AL so that they could close the office for that period. I have certainly worked for companies where your AL includes 3 company days which have to be taken in the days between Christmas and NY so the office can be closed.

However, from what you are saying now it sounds like the next two weeks are in addition to your AL, hence your manager does feel entitled to ask you to work. I suppose if you had insisted on using some of your AL for that period you would be within your rights to refuse to work, but it sounds like the situation wasn't made clear, especially if HR requested you reschedule existing leave requests.

I agree it sounds a bit like you have been played. Or at least it wasn't properly explained or you misunderstood

In which case, you need to get some clarity on what it means.

If it's working from home time, then you can request annual leave if you don't want to WFH.

Ok so they have closed office for 2 weeks but you dont have yo use any of your annual leave and your being paid?

I work in payroll. I am not aware of a legal entitlement to carry over 5 days of annual leave.

There is a legal entitlement to be able to carry over up to 4 weeks of unused leave in certain circumstances eg. you have been on sick leave or maternity leave.

There is also a legal entitlement to carry over leave if your employer has not allowed you to take all of your leave for some reason. Again it is up to 4 weeks.

You tell them no, this is my paid annual leave and I won't be aware of my inbox. You need to learn to say this and not just accept unfair terms and conditions.

AL rollover is a common exception made in my office. If you're cancelling leave for business reasons you shouldn't have any problem taking it in Jan or Feb instead. It can always be fudged if need be, just ask your manager on a phone call not in an email.

The rules are "strict" to stop people saving up huge amounts. Moving a bit by a week or three to accommodate your work should be - and 100% would be at my work - appreciated not punished

Call ACAS helpline. Your manager can't make you be aware of anything work-related when you are on AL.