AIBU to think work is BU about annual leave

[FirTree31]

Single parent to two primary school (just) boys. Our team has taken on extra work as someone has been asked to leave and they have not hired any one to replace him. One of my colleagues is also a parent (soon to be single) and I have in the last two days been declined two sets of annual leave, one for October and one for Easter holidays 2020 as she has already requested them. That means that when either one fo us books AL around school term we will be pitted against each other.
AIBU to think this is unfair and unsustainable. We are both master's students in our first entry level role, my issue is obviously not with my colleague, but with my line manager for pitting us lien this.

Unfortunately fist come first served seems to be the norm and it becomes dog eat dog.

I may be over-tired from heat induced sleepless nights, but I don't understand why her leave impacts you financially?
Surely you just take different days/weeks during school holidays?
If you get 5 weeks annual leave, then you need to pay for roughly 8 weeks childcare, regardless whether it's Easter, October, summer, February etc.

I work in a small team, two of us are parents to school aged children. We've always been trusted to work our holidays between us so that we don't overlap. Because we've done this with minimum fuss and disruption, our manager does his best to accommodate on the odd occasion when we'd both really like to be off (once or twice a year, max).

I run my own business and have a small staff. First come first served is the only way I can manage annual leave, otherwise I'd end up stuck in the middle of arguments about why it's more important for one person to have time off than another person. I have rejected leave when I've had too many people off in one go and have rejected leave for busy times. Business reasons are a real thing.

At my workplace (18 staff in my depot), block leave weeks are allocated on rotation. I.e. if your summer fortnight was in block one, next year it will be in block five. You can move between blocks either by mutual agreement or if there is a vacant block you can move into it.

Three people are guaranteed their annual leave on any given day. Usually this will be two people on block leave and one using ad hoc leave days. Anyone else who puts their name in the ad hoc book for that day will be told three days before whether or not they can be spared, prioritised by the order in which their name went in.

For the three most desirable days (Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day), a draw is held in the autumn. If you got it off last year, you won't be entered for this year.

It seems to work.

I think people with partners who are teachers and those with school age children should get priority as they are very restricted in when they can take time off.

That's discriminatory to those of us without kids. We're not allowed certain times of the year off because we don't have kids? My previous job tried that and most of the people without kids ended up leaving. The parents who remained couldn't do last minute overtime, didn't want to work weekends or evenings and they ended up scrapping it.

All of us work longer and very often through lunch. We have Flexi, but although I worked longer this week, I was told not to come in any extra days (Thursday and Friday I don't work atm) as they couldn't cope with me taking time back.
That's a sign of a department that's poorly managed with no strategic oversight on staffing.

The unionised side of me thinks you should all take your lunch to the dot, refuse to work during lunch, arrive and leave on time. At the moment they're able to turn a blind eye to their own poor staffing decisions because you're all picking up the slack and the they have the nerve to not have a system for annual leave.

I wonder if the manager will be suddenly putting all the extra hours in to cover the work of the missing colleague? Or will something magically get done at that point?

If they've booked half term and Easter that's 3 weeks, so they won't have much more to book. You can book either the other two half terms,. Christmas and Summer.
Or if they've only booked one week at Easter, then you can book the other week.
I suspect they think they've been kind booking the less popular holidays and leaving the Summer/Christmas as well as the Summer half term.

So the problem is basically that your employers have decided not to replace the person they sacked but to divide that person's workload up amongst the rest of you. Are you all getting extra pay?

Thought not.

I think people with partners who are teachers and those with school age children should get priority as they are very restricted in when they can take time off.

What a crock of shit. There are plenty of other people who are allocated leave and are thus restricted to when they can take it off, there are also people who have family who are restricted to school holidays, people who happen to want a holiday in the summer (not me, but plenty of people do) and a huge proportion of the UK population want some of Christmas off. Not to mention that if you get an entire team who have kids you're fucked if you work it by your method.

I understand the rationale behind those with children having priority around term times, but I don't expect it at all, because it is in itself discriminatory, and those without children as PP said, those without children are less likely to book holiday around term times, so we wouldn't have the same issue of consistently asking for the same dates. I just think we need to look at our AL and how we will cope with it going forward.
Who says you can't have it all!

You work in HR the business has changed the A/L policy for the needs of the bussiness surely you can see the logic behind this.
Also you seem to instantly discount any of your other colleagues wanting these holiday periods . It's just a 2 horse race because you 2 have children . You say you don't want special treatment .

I THINK PEOPLE WITH PARTNERS WHO ARE TEACHERS AND THOSE WITH SCHOOL AGE CHILDREN SHOULD GET PRIORITY AS THEY ARE VERY RESTRICTED IN WHEN THEY CAN TAKE TIME OFF.
can't believe how entitled some people are . Why should other peoples personal circumstances dictate my holidays . We are all equal at work .Years ago me and a colleague were both called into to the office presented with a year planner and school holidays .Christmas and new year all blacked out as we didn't have kids . When I had school aged kids never expected priority my kids my problem not works or my colleagues .

I think people with partners who are teachers and those with school age children should get priority as they are very restricted in when they can take time off.

Thankfully in my experience in the NHS this absolute rubbish isn't adhered to.

What about factory workers who have shut downs and have holidays at certain times of the year? They don't get time off together with their spouse because they don't have children?

Don't be so ridiculous - having school aged children does not give you priority over annual leave.

Can I just reiterate that I do not expect preferential treatment because I have bred. I really like my team, and wouldn't want to be the cause of upset to any of them over AL. we all work really hard, we all deserve time off, I just thought there should be a faired and more sustainable system in place..

What do you want to happen .as a team of 4 you would only let 1 member off at once.

rwalker Fri 26-Jul-19 23:06:31
What do you want to happen .as a team of 4 you would only let 1 member off at once.

Sorry to butt in but in my team it's so small only one team player can be let off at once.

It shouldn't be first come first served as some of us can't plan what we'll be doing in December in April.

This is why it's fair that we sort AL out amongst ourselves and any disagreements - whoever had that week off the previous year isn't granted leave

So the extra workload sounds like a big problem..... but I just don't get the "picking up a hefty bill" comment. Surely you will have to pay for some childcare over the year in any case?

In the meantime, the good thing is that there is at least the long Easter weekend, so your childcare will be a bit cheaper, presumably, and you'll still get some time off at the same time as your kids.

Do you get Easter weekends off or Christmas Day or public holidays in general? I don’t get public holidays in my work and I thought that was quite common these days. But it’s a big advantage if you get them because it means you know you definitely get those days off.

No I don't expect to cover all holidays, my children are both in camps this summer. I'd just like more time to save up for camps.

You're not making sense, you need more time to save up for camps for easter 2020 but further down thread you booked a holiday. Does the few months difference matter so much? If it's difficult for you financially maybe you can skip a holiday and use that money as a buffer? You will have to pay for a lot of extra childcare during school vacations for years to come.

Your colleague sounds normal, you didn't discuss your plans with her first either so why should she? You just sound resentful that she was two days earlier than you.

You're right, overall it won't cost anymore, as I can take more during Summer holiday. However, I only two months to save up for holiday camp for October. Easter I have more time, but I will definitely try and discuss the holiday so I can at least have a few days.
This was more about advice on the decision by LM to handle AL on this basis and this being an issue going forward.
Yes, we all get Christmas holiday, and Easter weekend.

My team are asked to submit their leave request and then its worked out on the basis of business needs (obviously) After that, there's a certain amount of horse trading so that everyone gets a bit of what they want.

Absolutely zero "first come, first serve" (as there are always people who'd book Christmas 5 years in advance if they could) and absolutely zero favouritism.

There are 13 weeks of school holidays and most people get 5 or maybe 6 weeks a year. So all it should come down to is how you divide that amongst two people.

Blocks for holidays where you are allocated and people can swap is OK for large groups, but I don't think works here. The one that might be fairest is that for a particular week or group (Easter let's say), the person who did not have that time off last year gets first choice. So in effect for two people you get a particular week one year in two.

It's really hard to balance childcare and work in the UK.

I have worked in places where I had to take some of my annual leave during term time because the whole team wanted to have their leave in the school holidays.

I’ve known organisations that allow leave booking in rounds, so round one everyone books one main holiday up to 2 weeks. Then round two the same. It stops one person getting all their requests in before anyone else has a chance to look.

However a system like this while this might suit you now it may not always. IME The more controls around annual leave the less flexibility there is for both employers and employees. Bottom line = work has to be covered and HR depts especially, should model good practice.

It's still summer, how about taking a week now and then you'll save that childcare money to spend in October week? It seems you've been very silly to have not considered this sooner when you can't afford one week of childcare. At least you can book February and extra time at Easter / next summer. Even if you'd been consulted about what you prefer, she might still have not October and not you. The only actual issue when it's all boiled down is that you don't have savings for October, rather than you being affected by an issue with the system. Do you have parents, siblings or a father for the children who can help you out for that one week?