Work won’t let me cancel leave

At my work only the manager can actually go in and cancel leave, for example. To be fair I’ve never known them to actually refuse!

But that’s the point isn’t it. It might screw others over. OP took some prime holiday dates, meaning someone else couldn’t have them. She now wants to cancel. If she gets the days back, she might book some more prime dates, depriving people again.

That's so strange and bizarre.

So what happens if something unexpected comes up? What happens if you have a medical appointment that comes up and you need a day off or a half day to go to the hospital?

Does your workplace think that people don't get sick or have unexpected events outside of work, or what?

I think it makes sense if you think about it.

If you were allowed to cancel short notice, people could book up really prime periods of leave (like you have) as a sort of holding position to see how they felt later on. And then cancel without losing anything.

Thats really unfair as it basically means you’re putting back the time when you need to decide on that leave at the expense of others.

Holding on to prime periods of leave means that others like your colleague can’t book them, and as you’ve seen, missed out on the chance to go on holiday at a reasonable price.

You’ve correctly identified why this period of time was so valuable - you get ten days off at the cost of only four days leave.

You’ve still got that nice break from work, so enjoy it!

The other reason for not allowing people to cancel is that employers want people to take leave evenly throughout the year rather than all trying to get it at the end of the year, or wanting to carry it over. Then it builds up and you have people off for unworkably long periods, possibly at the same time.

I think it serves you right tbh. You booked it straight away and stopped someone else having it when you obvs didn't have any firm plans, mean.

I imagine they can refuse yes.

Although if you were in my team I would approve (provided suitable time to swap to) but I am not sure it might depend on workload whether I would approve your colleague instead at such short notice

I don't see why you shouldn't be allowed to cancel it, whether anyone else can use it is pretty irrelevant.

Yes it's allowed. Employers don't actually need to give you any choice at all about when you have your paid leave, they could dictate the lot. You created this situation and now want to create extra work for someone redoing the schedule, reworking whatever they need to do to plan for you being off to instead make plans for a different colleague to be off, basically just so that you don't need to take the consequences for your bad decision. YABU.

In future, make your plans and bookings properly, and if you don't have a plan then leave the best Annual Leave slots for people who do know what they want to do with the time. I agree with your employers that the best way for you to learn this lesson is to make you live with the consequences now, both in terms of you having wasted the annual leave and you incurring the resentment of your colleagues.

Pretty sure you can legally cancel any leave you want.. contact HR. However it’s a shame someone else wanted it and you haven’t given them enough notice!

The problem is that it would seriously piss off your colleagues. If the system is so tight and booking leave is so tricky, then manager has to stick with it. And this might discourage people from booking prime holiday time without actually wanting that time.

It’s weird to force you on a holiday you don’t want because someone else is arsey. As long as the request you make for other holiday isn’t screwing over anyone else, who cares? I’ve never worked anywhere with such rules, how bizarre.

We can cancel but only up to six weeks out from the booked leave.

I don’t know the law but my work doesn’t allow cancelling holidays.

I can imagine the chaos of people constantly cancelling and booking holidays.

You can’t allow one person to do it and not the others.
There has to be some sort of rule to follow.

I agree, I think the employer is saying something to the effect of ‘If you ‘bagsy’ a prime holiday time you take it even if you decide later you don’t want it’. It’s now too late for anyone else to arrange their holiday for that time.

Unless there is someone else prepared to negotiate for that time and even then, the employer should have the right to say no, our arrangements have been made.

Obviously it depends on the circumstances of your employment but sometimes employers can't, or aren't prepared to, be flexible.

Can the employer legally do this? Yes. Once leave is booked and approved, it can be considered to be a binding arrangement. Cancellation is at the employer’s discretion. Sure it'll piss the employee off but I suspect that because of the colleague's complaint, they're making an example of the OP. In my experience, it's to stop people booking prime time off in the hope of catching a last-minute deal, not finding an acceptable deal and then giving backword meaning that others miss out (or incur expensive additional childcare costs). If OP had given a reasonable amount of notice for the cancellation, that's a different argument.

Well you grabbed prime leave time now suddenly don’t want it - when no one else can use it as it is too late. So I don’t know what your holiday policy says, but to me stopping you from cancelling it is reasonable.

You booked a prime slot, blocked others from taking it and now you're wanting to cancel at the last moment meaning it's too late for anyone else to use it. Managing team dynamics are part of a manager's job. It's not just about individuals. If you book leave early so you can reserve the best dates then you need to use it.

It depends on your role as to whether it's impactful to allow leave and cancel it but I can understand your colleague being miffed if you jumped in to book the leave and prevent others from having it.

I've usually been able to cancel leave but it's not a given where I work now.

Same here! This rigidity is alien to me.

Yes they can refuse.

People cancel leave or change it all the time at my place of work then someone else takes it if they want to, I can’t see the issue.

Is it possible to swap with the colleague? Would it effect work?

It could have easily been a different colleague who beat him to it and he’d be in the same predicament and complaining about it to the manager was childish imo.

He knows like the rest of your team that it’s first come, first serve. That’s what it is in many workplaces.

I think that is fair enough, given you blocked prime leave time and it is too late now for colleagues to make plans in that time.

I think that’s fair especially at such short notice. The leave is no good to anyone else now and the schedule has been done for the year.

It's allowed and there is likely a clause in your contract to that effect.