Colleague taking holiday

[WorkWalk]

Our holiday year end finishes at the end of March. I work as part of a two person team, which means that we can’t both be off at the same time as the other has to pick up the work.

My dear colleague who I actually like very much has left it so they haven’t used any of their annual leave. It now transpires that they will be taking three and a half out of the next four weeks off plus two weeks carried over to Easter in About pril.

We work in the public sector and the colleague has used flexi leave so far this year.

I’m very frustrated that it has been left to the last minute to use all the holiday and I am annoyed that for the next two months I can’t take holiday for most of the time and that I’m
going to be doing the work of two people for the next month.

Plus I’m moving house in the next few weeks and could do without this!

AIBU to think my colleague could/should have managed their holidays better? I hope I’m not being a non team player.

Your manager might be lovely but she hasn't managed the situation well at all. It's simply not fair on you to allow your counterpart to be off so for long at short notice. Is there any plan for cover/work management, or is the plan that you don't say anything and suck it up?

I have a couple of leave hoarders in my new team. I told them they'd better make a plan for how they're going to use their leave through the year as I won't be authorising long, last minute absences purely to use up leave. It's simply not fair for everyone else.

Going forward you need to co-operate so you both get to take your holidays more evenly throughout the year so you don't end up in this mess again.

If either of you have booked holidays, you need to book the leave and then plan how the rest is going to be taken, ensuring that neither of you leave so much so late - like many others have said, this is a line management issue. They should be checking throughout the year that you have a plan to use up your leave and not risk service delivery and unfair workload by being off for an extended period.

I would also wonder about the amount of flexitime she has been able to take. That should only build up to so many days off if you are overworked, so are you? Do you both take similar amounts of flexi time?

Do you just work in the office or do you have to travel to other sites at all? That's where I gain most of my flexitime, doing 12-14 hour days because I have to drive to a city 200 miles away and do just about a full working day when I get there. Does that sound like the sort of thing she needs to do or does she just spend more time in the office than she needs to to earn more days off - plenty of people do this if you let them get away with it, another management issue.

YANBU. My colleague has done the same and March is is a huge month for us work wise so it’s very annoying

She is within her rights to do this if work agree. Nothing selfish about it.

If you feel you will struggle speak to the manager about prioritising the work load. If you haven't booked anytime off for your move them this is your problem.

Companies have different rules about how and what you can book and none are comparable. If it works for them that is all that matters. When it does not they will review it. You are being selfish, not her, because it has affected your plans that you never got around to booking.

Do all those who are saying that the colleague will have covered for the OP over the year really not think there's a difference between covering for a week or two and having to shoulder someone's workload for an entire month? Just wondering what kinds of jobs there are where there would be no discernible difference between the two?

100% management issue.

We can't take more than 2 weeks in one go without approval.

In your scenario it makes the managers lack of management of holidays in a team of two where cover is a must even worse. It's poor to expect someone to do the job of two for that long.

Just to echo what previous posters have said - management should be dealing with this. It is the same amount of time you've had off (assuming you've taken your holidays this year and next) but a lot of firms have a limit on how much you can book off at a time, which can be negotiated. Similarly, there is often a limit - if at all - as to how much you can carry over. Again, all management's job to monitor and implement.

There are people who don't use their holidays, it's not unusual IME (former HR) I've known people forgo quite a bit of holiday time!

I agree it's unfair but was there a reason that she hasn't taken her annual leave throughout the year , I mean did she say I'm going to save it up for the end of the year ? ,
As a business point of view that shouldn't be allowed I mean what if you both hadn't used any holidays and you both wanted to use all leave up at the end. ?
It happens often I've seen it where I work but usually it's a few days and a manager like mine would say you have so many days when are you booking these ? .
I had a colleague once who didn't take any holidays all year than went on holiday at the end of the annual leave year, came back 3 weeks before the end of the year but still had 2 weeks to take and I had to cover for her . I was fuming at that because that was a month annual leave in a very short time it should be spread out unless you absolutely need it for something specific and that must be agreed by a manager . You need to raise it with your manager say it's not on she needs to plan her annual leave better .

Public sector here too - leave of more than 2 weeks has to be booked at least 3 months in advance, and if you have more than a third of your leave left past Christmas, you will be spoken to about your holiday planning. This is bad management.

Your manager is the one at fault. Your colleague can take their annual leave in whatever way suits them best, as long as their plans are approved. She should have been monitoring annual leave through the year in order to prevent this kind of situation. Hopefully, she will learn from this and do things differently in the future.

I disagree

Yes, of course the manager is at fault - but I would expect better from colleagues in a small team

Our manager requests we take 2/3 of our holidays between April and December, and 1/3 from January to March, to avoid situations like this. Any that had not been booked by the end of January will be allocated by him on weeks that nobody else from your team is off.

When I worked in the public sector we were only allowed to carry 5 days over to the new holiday period and our managers would start nagging us in November to use annual leave if we had a lot left to take.
It’s bad management.

Very poor from your manager but also very poor of your colleague to not have flagged this many weeks ago that she wanted to do this.
This usually has to be specifically requested.

Your manager will need to sort it as she has allowed it to occur.

Does your colleague know that you are moving, and still didn't flag her plans with you?

Terribly poor communication in such a small team.

If your manager allows it, she has to sort it.

Your manager and colleague are both at fault.

I have a different and better terms and conditions in my contract than colleagues that joined the business after me. I can take 3 days flexi days in a four week period and can carry over 9 days. Any carry over can be taken at any time.

I take three bank holiday weeks with one days leave. I do this is complete liaison with my work peer. They have much younger DC than I do and I always work Christmas. Before I take time off I complete work so that my colleague only provides me a skeleton cover.

I once took over manager responsibilities for someone at the end of their leave year. They hadn't taken any leave. I agreed to carry forward more than nine days on the proviso that no more than nine days would be carried over the following year. Their excuse was the team was busy but they were not busier than anyone else. They didn't want to take time off unless they were going abroad on holiday. The rest of us all managed our time better and took leave.

When I worked in the private sector we were discouraged from taking leave between September and January and had to take two weeks off between July and August. We had to book all annual leave in February and manage sufficient cover during school holidays. It was an absolute nightmare. Expecting people to take annual leave isn't a big ask.

Your colleague is selfish.

Your manager needs to agree your workload so that you aren't pushed beyond your capacity. You can't manage the work of two full time people for a month. I would specifically your manager for help to prioritise your main tasks. They need to support you with regular, weekly keep in touch meetings so that you can ask for help and get feedback.

As part of a two person team it doesn’t appear onerous for the two of you to have ongoing adult discussions about this.

Colleagues slightly at fault.

Manager massively at fault!

We had someone do this every year at my workplace. Management changed the rules to say it had to be spread out more evenly to stop it happening again. We go Jan - Dec so she was having loads of time at Christmas meaning no one else could! Annoying

They can’t deny you a day off at least to move house..... surely not??!!

My husband did this saving up all his holiday so when I was having our second he would be around for 6 weeks while I recovered from the csection. Boss was not happy when he realised but he did have to allow it. It was stressful though for us both to do as he literally had no time off right up until the day off my csection. Boss then tried to make him conference call in the morning of my csection and couldn't understand why that wasn't going to happen.

I would talk to your manager about the work load issue though. It is a long time to be solo and a good manager will get in some assistance or you'll just burn out and have you both off.

You should book your moving days now as non-negotiable, and request that your manager deals with the inevitable lack of staff over this period. Surely you should allocate holiday allowance face-to-face and with agreement?

You have piss-poor managers to have allowed this to have happened. I don't understand why they can't make an allowance for your colleague to carry it forward to spread it out. How can it be right to only have one person in all that time?
We have to have special permission from the managers above our managers if we want more than 2 weeks off in succession

Op is it a particularly busy or nasty time of year for you - is she also doing it because it means she conveniently gets to avoid doing stuff she doesn’t like doing? In most workplaces the tasks that need doing tend to ebb and flow - if you are having your breaks across the year (and for shorter times) then chances are she’s never going to have to spend a long time covering a really busy time. But if she is off for a long time over a big busy time that’s very different from her having to cover a week here or there knowing you are back shortly too.

Also have you ever wanted to book holiday around bank holidays and not been able to because she has got there first? Or is it just the way her days fall? Because it sounds like she is savvy enough to get those booked in to her advantage.

Maybe the boss should say that she can carry a bit more over rather than use it in one stretch but with the proviso she has to use it in in the next three months.

Public sector here and we can only accumulate 1 flex day per month. If flex isnt taken within a certain time we lose it.

We also have to take leave before flex if we have too much leave.

I would check your leave policy and if your colleague has broken these bring it up and how this is now going to make things difficult for you over the next month

You are not allowed to carry any statutory leave over it has to be taken in the appropriate year ..do you you have more then statutory leave?

Even so this should have been managed better