To think this is unfairly restrictive?

[Sharkirasharkira]

We have just been told that all our holiday for next year - the whole of 2019 - needs to be booked in advance by the end of this year. Basically? If it isn't booked and approved by the end of the year, you won't get it. We're not even allowed to reserve a few days in case of emergencies, it has to be 100%.

We have also been told that there are certain months we aren't allowed to book holiday at all because the business is too busy and we will not get holiday approved - namely the summer (July & August) and Christmas (December). Because we are quite a small team we also aren't allowed to have more than one person off on holiday at a time.

Aibu to think that these restrictions are unfair? That basically means that we have to guess months ahead of time when we will need holiday time, and every member of staff is fighting to get their holiday in the same 9 months of the year - obviously certain months will be more popular than others because of the weather so realistically we are going to have maybe 5 months of the year for all of use to book the vast majority of our holiday entitlement. It just so happens that one of the months I NEED holiday is in one of the 'not allowed' months - but that is when my dc's are off! We go on a trip every year in the holidays and I cant change the date!

Yes it is fucking unfair and unreasonable.

Unfortunately a lot of outfits seem to operate this way now.

My company do this. Holiday lists go around in January and you have to pick your two weeks annual leave and a third winter week as they call it. I’m just so used to it now. We have preference depending on our years of service so if two of us want the same weeks then I would get it over my colleague because I have been there longer.

Agh if I couldn’t get leave during school holidays I’d resign

I’m guessing most of the team haven’t taken all their holidays yet and the knock on effect is that there will be more than one person off at a time from January to March?

This happened at my last company & we were also only allowed one person off at a time so it became compulsory to book all leave a year in advance however we were then allowed to change the dates as the year progressed (providing no one else had those dates off) or swap leave.

I don't think the actual terms are unduly restrictive depending on the size of the team (if there's a lot of people then the no overlapping leave would be), but telling you now, with just three weeks to make plans for 2019 is unfair. They needed to give you a lot more notice before making that sort of change.

Not paid for holiday you havnt taken?

Surely that's illegal?

I work in retail and all of next years holiday had to be booked by Nov 1st and we won't have any holiday booked over Easter, Nov or Dec. I think it's standard for some industries

I work in in a school time nursery and not supposed to have holiday out side of term

But my boss is nice enough to release life doesn't all ways run to a time table. And if had time off. All though unpaid. (Which I expected)

How can it be legal to just tell people they can't have any annual leave if they don't book it?
I would have thought they could just assign weeks to people who don't book so that it fits round those who do, but not actually remove their entitlement.

As for unions, not everyone has one. I don't. Thankfully, I work for a company that treats me like an adult and allows me to book my leave to suit my life/kids/workload.

All of the team have taken holiday for this year, we were all forced to rush it through before December

Even the new staff who have only been there for a few weeks have had to take their small allowance.

This would be why then OP, if they had not forced the issue they probably would have had multiple people off during one of the busiest times of year. I’m assuming the new system is to avoid this possibly happening again.

Once holiday is in the system though they might let you change it if the dates you want are free or allow you to swap with someone else.

Not the way to get the best from your staff. I’d encourage staff to think about when they want leave and book some throughout the year but would strongly advise them to keep at least a week in hand. Then again we allow carry over and buy back options too.

How is this normal? I don’t know anyone who works like this.

It seems ridiculous to me, but I have a different issue, to take holiday I have to get ahead of my work then catch up on my return as I'm the only one who does my job (only 4 employees, not for profit). I would love a team to be honest! I love that I can take odd days I admit

This is so ridiculous, life isn't that predictable! What if a friend or relative plans a wedding and only gives 6 months notice or a baby happens to be born sooner than expected. Can you not amend your days? I'd look for another job as soon as January comes!

Ours is pre-assigned, though we are allowed to swap by mutual agreement. I was given two weeks in August which I categorically do NOT want (no DC and don’t want to pay inflated prices when I have no need to), thankfully I’ve swapped for a week in June and one in October (fingers crossed it’s not half term).

Each place is different. My emoyer just like to kniw in advanced if you're taking big blocks off like a whole week not every single day.

At least you can pick. My dad gets handed his shift pattern which includes annual leave . His entire company are not allowed book time off, they have set blocks of time off.

I work in the NHS. My leave is similar. I am currently planning my April 19-march 2020 full leave year. All requests have to be in by end of Dec to be looked at along side everyone elses. All the leave is dished out then, so if you don't get it in, you get what is left over. One year my holiday request form was lost in the internal mail. I got not one single holiday requested that year. I was furious. Even more furious when 2 months later my original request form was sent back to me in the internal mail!
Our leave is restricted even further in that we can only take 2 weeks in each quarter. So 2 weeks in apr/may/jun, 2 weeks in jul/aug/Sep, 2 weeks in Oct/nov/dec and 2 weeks jan/feb/mar. No leave allowed at Christmas and New year.
I've done the same role in a different trust and annual leave was not dictated in this way. I agree it's restrictive and annoying. But I need my job...sooooo....

This post is blowing my mind - I have never heard of anyone having to book all their holiday for the following year! What if you have a last minute thing you need a day off for?

There have been more and more threads like this one popping up on MN over the last few months. Having the rule in your contract is fair enough, when you take the job you know what you are agreeing to. Springing a massive negative change with almost no notice is really taking the piss.

Is it me, or employers getting far worse in the way they treat their staff?

We get days cancelled elsewhere if you need to take emergency leave. E.g.. I have Feb half term booked off, but after my son was air lifted to hospital recently, and I needed a day off, they took that off my Feb week. Which is very difficult. Because I employ a nanny (necessity not choice!) and now I'm stuck with no childcare for that day (I work 2 x 12.5 hour shifts a week, so each days leave is half a weeks leave for me) as I have to give the nanny that holiday by law.

lol @MissCharleyP I work along side the military now & had that problem this year, they "closed" the office in August for 2.5/3 weeks as it was leave time/TOIL time after a 3 week course. It would have come out of my holiday total as I'm not forces so not the same as them with lots of leave. I refused to go because I have no dc, dp couldn't get matching time off at short notice & it cost ££££ to book anything when I was told this in mid July.

I’m shocked at how bad things have got in the workplace.

I despair for outlet children!!

Our children!!!!