Employer won't allow annual leave for holiday

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Hi all,

We've booked a few weeks abroad, I work for a local council and they're fine with this. My partner on the other hand works for a big university near Manchester and they've only allowed one of the two weeks as leave. It now looks like we're going to have to cancel our holiday. My partner overheard the same senior manager refusing a colleagues leave request to look after their kids saying and I quote "I don't give a shit about your childcare issues". Is this legal to grant only half your leave request when they know that this will mean you'll have to cancel your hol. I feel bad also for my partners colleague, surely you should be allowed leave to look after a dependent? Any thoughts will be useful

I thought it was common practice to ensure you had the AL approved before you book the holiday.. I can’t imagine booking a holiday without having the time off booked in!

How frustrating! But yes, most employment contracts give discretion to the employer to decide when annual leave can be taken. Lots of my contracts have said (in effect) that holidays etc shouldn't be booked and paid for before leave has been approved. What a pain for you!

You should always get your leave authorised before booking a holiday. You are entitled to leave but not entitled legally to take it when you want. Employers can dictate which weeks you take if they want as well as refuse certain weeks. Business needs come first and I assume other people have already booked that week.

That sounds rubbish but I can't imagine booking a holiday before booking leave

It depends on his contract. In many jobs, leave must be cleared with your line manager. Otherwise a workplace could end up with no staff for a week if say they all independently booked May half-term off.

Definitely best practice to ensure leave is granted prior to booking a holiday.

It is absolutely legal. Unfortunately he should have booked the leave first, rookie mistake

”Is this legal to grant only half your leave request when they know that this will mean you'll have to cancel your hol.“

Well of course. Otherwise everyone would book their actual holiday before asking for annual leave, if that was a way of guaranteeing the dates would be approved!

It can actually put managers in a horrible position if holidays are booked before leave is organised. You either put the team or business under pressure if you say yes or someone might miss out on a holiday if you say no. And whatever you do decide sets a precedent.

You're supposed to book your leave from work before booking your holiday I think. Although you do have my sympathies.

I’m afraid it’s always good practice to get annual leave approved before booking holidays. They could refuse for a number of reasons, other colleagues have it booked off already, special projects taking place etc eyc

Oh that sucks! Could you go and husband fly back earlier? Or rearrange holiday for one week instead of 2?

Legally they don't have to give it you when you ask. They can set it all for you if they want and just tell you when it is. That said, it's unusual in my experience working for a university not to generally give someone the time they ask for unless there's some very pressing reason (eg a big open day or something that everyone is needed for, and you would normally know about well in advance) Could DH ask for it to be reconsidered, or for an alternate two week slot to be given him? He needs to ask nicely though - they don't have to say yes. They don't have to say yes for childcare reasons either, unless it's an emergency (and that can be unpaid)

I approve people's leave at work and would expect them to book the leave first before they book a holiday.

You don't book a holiday befote having annual leave approved. Thats just stupid.

But he could take the weeks annual.leave and claim to be sick the 2nd week.

My workplace annual leave policy states that leave must be approved before booking holidays as they can't guarantee that you will get the dates you want.

They are also generally flexible around family matters but it's not they're place to worry about arranging your work around childcare, it's on the employee to sort childcare around work.

Why on earth would you book a holiday without having leave approved??

Another one that says unfortunately you should have booked AL before booking holiday. I’m not sure why you think it’s illegal to not approve holiday. Someone else in the team may already have leave that week. As long as he is able to take the holiday throughout the remainder of the year before new holiday allowance rolls over

You should book leave first but it’s not always possible. Dh’s work don’t release the leave year till January and we like to ski in February half term but we’re not wealthy so we need to book well in advance. The best deals for June ferries from Newcastle are in the November before too so we often risk booking our summer holiday too. I don’t think it’s fair to expect employees to always pay premium for booking in January.

Yes, they can dictate when you take holiday.
EG they could say to you if you've 25 days - I want you to take every Wednesday from the first week of January onward until you've used all your leave days.

I also believe that you can ask for holidays weeks, they can approve it, you go and book and pay for the hotels and flights and what not and they can then cancel your leave as long as they give you notice of equal length of your period of leave. So if you've booked 2 weeks to go away, they can cancel your leave as long as they give you 2 weeks' notice of the cancellation or more. Which could leave one quite up the spout.

My job is one where I'm the only one doing it for the whole company. When I am not there, the work doesn't get done.

So it's matters not a jot when I take my leave yet I still waited for approval before booking a holiday in mid December!

Hard lesson learned OP. Hopefully you can find some kind of compromise.

Why does this happen thar people book their holiday before having the leave authorised?

I had one staff member who did this 3 times! The first time she pleaded ignorance, the second time, I’m afraid to say I moved heaven and earth to swap the rota round and told her ‘never again’.

The third time when I declined her request she sent her union rep to me who looked embarrassed when I showed her a copy of a letter I sent her after the second time.

She rang me from the travel agents in tears telling me how much money she was going to lose like it was my fault!

Book your annual leave and change the dates of the holiday rather than cancel.

Of course it's not illegal Why would it be?

Lesson learned, book annual leave before holidays.

How old are you OP? Are you very young? How did you not know all of this?

Bit silly to book a holiday before agreeing dates with employer. Lesson learnt for next time.