Urgent DH refused Annual Leave for next 2 weeks.

[booboo57]

Works starts on house on Monday. Two weeks leave requested over a month ago. Just got message that next week is full so cant have it off. Make a fuss or just call in sick?
He a trainer but since Covid he's been working nights which he hates. He was in tears with the stress of it all. Dont know what to advise.

@AldiAisleofCrap

@ *@booboo57*HGV 1 s are like gold dust round here. Could probably walk into job tomorrow. Company has 3 vacancies at moment. Something being “like gold dust” means it is rare , so the opposite of what you said.

I think that poster meant HGV1 license holders are like gold dust, so they can walk into another job easily.

@AldiAisleofCrap OP does mean HGV1 s are rare she just means HGV1 drivers not HGV1 jobs - the people to fill the jobs are like gold dust, therefore there are lots of vacancies / is an abundance of jobs.

Ahh that makes sense.

Don’t call in sick when he isn’t. It is probably gross misconduct and a sackable matter. So he will lose his job and have that on his record. If he really has to have the time off and is confident of finding another job then it’s better to quit as at least he won’t be seeking new employment having been sacked. If he is absolutely certain he would rather quit than lose the AL then he could at least talk to his manager first and tell him he will quit if the holiday is not approved. Some people won’t react well to this approach, but he has little to lose if the holiday is absolutely non-negotiable.

@Ellisandra

He has been asking them for a month- they have let him do extra unpaid work and then told him no at the very last possibly moment- they should have been honest up front. That’s not the behaviour of a professional employer- if there was a block on leave they should have communicated this at the earliest possible opportunity in order to manage employees’ expectations.

Stressed to the point of crying sounds like genuine mental ill health and like he needs a break. If the employer can’t facilitate a break then yes he should go off sick- driving is dangerous job and his employers have a duty of care to their employees and other road users.

But he doesn’t want HGV1 driver work including long nights.
He wants a day time driver trainer position.

With those roles come different expectations - like being salaried and sometimes doing some unpaid shunting to keep the operation moving.

To those who haven’t worked on a warehouse yard - you can grind to a halt in the warehouse loading bays, for want of a shunter to shift some trailers around.

Regular unpaid extra hours - employer taking the piss.

Occasional request in exceptionally difficult times by a usually fair company? Fine.

So yes he can got get a driver job easily - but that’s not the position he wants.

Covid is shit for everyone. He needs to talk to his manager. Even this thread is unclear - does he need time off to supervise building work (when OP is WFH) or because he can’t sleep during building work, or because he’s at breaking point, and needs time off? If he goes to his manager about building work that he booked without approved leave, he may get a less helpful reaction than if he says he needs the break.

My workplace has to respond to AL requests in 24 hours.. so I'd question that you were unable to plan otherwise due to lack of notice.

@gindaddyreflux where I work it's between 8-10 weeks and rotas cannot be changed once out.
You can try and swap.
OP would he be able to swap some AL ?

Phoning in sick would be highly suspicious

@CiderJolly how is the last possible moment to tell him yesterday that he can’t have leave from next week? That’s a week! (happy to be corrected if I’m reading OP wrong!)

You may be absolutely right - they may be an unprofessionally shower of shite. But we don’t know that, as OP wasn’t clear - and was holding back the info that the leave was never approved.

It’s all about communication and expectations - I agree with you there - and we don’t know what those were.

If they told him they couldn’t approve the leave, but would do everything they could to still accommodate it - but final decision could only be made 7 days before - then they’ve done nothing wrong.

Again, totally agree with you that he needs the time off, he’s not well. But do they know that?

how is the last possible moment to tell him yesterday that he can’t have leave from next week? That’s a week! (happy to be corrected if I’m reading OP wrong!)

Ellisandra The leave was never approved, so OP’s DH should have assumed he was working unless told otherwise.

@heartsonacake I’m with you! Though it does sound like he had reason to think it would be approved as OP said they (his manager or not, I don’t know) we’re referring to “after his holiday.”

I was replying to another poster who says the employer left telling him to the last possible minute. Whether you think employer is right or wrong, you can’t call a full week before the “last possible minute”!

[quote Ellisandra]@heartsonacake I’m with you! Though it does sound like he had reason to think it would be approved as OP said they (his manager or not, I don’t know) we’re referring to “after his holiday.”

I was replying to another poster who says the employer left telling him to the last possible minute. Whether you think employer is right or wrong, you can’t call a full week before the “last possible minute”![/quote]
Ahh sorry, I see what you mean now

It also depends what the usual practice is at the company. If it's usually that you hand in your request and that's the last you ever hear, it would be fair to assume that handing a request in = getting leave approved.

Most companies have some sort of rule that if it's not signed it's not approved and most people either follow up and badger the signer until they get it (or not) or accept that it's not approved.

At my old company the manager of your team had to sign and one team's manager almost never did until the last moment when it was too late to book anything affordable even though the company insisted the leave requests were mapped out for the year by the 2nd week of january. He, of course, always booked early enough to get a good price.

So eventually after some serious arguing with HR we managed to make a rule that if your leave wasn't rejected within 2 weeks of submission (clever people did it with a witness) it was approved automatically. Saved a lot of bother and argy-bargy.

@Brefugee he knew it wasn’t approved - OP said he’s been asking daily about it.

well, quite. What i mean is that once you've been working for more than a year you know all this.

OTOH if the OP's DH is about to have a MH episode, maybe it's better to warn his work then see the GP.

@GinDaddyRedux
As someone who had to authorise annual leave for six members of staff, I can assure you that the standard two weeks off over the summer school holidays were all requested months in advance. As they had to be or else half the team would have bene off at the same time
It would be highly unusual and very short notice to ask for two weeks off in this period a month beforehand. Also highly likely that it couldn’t be accommodated due to other people requesting some time before this

@booboo57 unless the Leave was authorised and recorded officially then you took a risk. If I was your husbands boss and he called in sick for the period he wanted Leave but didn’t get it, then it would be looked into. Not a good idea.

@LashesZ

My workplace has to respond to AL requests in 24 hours.. so I'd question that you were unable to plan otherwise due to lack of notice.

It doesn't have to. It may choose to have that as a policy, but that is of no relevance to the OP unless her DH's firm has the same policy.

It's often not as simple as managers being slow. If you work in an organisation that can only have a certain number of people in certain roles off at a time, things can get very complicated. You often have to try to juggle requests - so you may have to keep Person C (3rd person to request a particular week) waiting, because Person A & B have both requested it, and you're trying to work that out before you can consider letting anyone else take it.

It’s a shame but his leave wasn’t approved.

Sorry I posted,too soon.

So she should’ve assumed he was working

OP YABU

Your OH clearly knew the leave wasn't authorised and finalised as they kept asking about it, so you shouldnt have made plans based on your OH being off until the leave was confirmed.

Most companies have to approve AL and should have some sort of system set up for this and most companies have a clause saying that until leave is authorised a request is just that, it is not guaranteed.

I work in a major supermarket and we have a booking system but times like summer holidays and Easter are notoriously difficult to get holidays unless you book them well in advance. Add in Covid and colleagues being off shielding etc, holidays are even harder to book in as everyone who has been working is wanting time off because they need a break and we just can't accommodate every holiday request.

I have been off for 3 weeks as I book these weeks off every year about 10 months in advance as I have commitments abroad. Obviously this year I couldn't go abroad but kept the holiday time as I needed the break from work as I was averaging 50 hr weeks (I'm contracted to 27hrs). I have had requests every week to come in and cover odd shifts because they are so short handed with people going on their scheduled holidays and shielding colleagues not returning yet. If anyone had put holidays in in the last 4 weeks then we would have tried to accommodate it but it would have been very unlikely to have been approved, and since we can't disclose other colleague's information, we cant explain why other people have been given time off and you haven't, especially if it's not just because they booked the time off 6months ago.

I don't understand what the work on the house has to do with all this? Why would you have rescheduled it?

Is it because DH cannot sleep? Is there somewhere else he can sleep for a week?

He should hand in his resignation today, and get a different job on days as soon as his notice period is served. And let his bosses know that if they want to keep him, all they need to do is approve the leave, getting agency cover for the time he is off, and schedule him on day shifts. If they won't budge at the prospect of losing him then he has to follow through and actually leave.

Was he really crying over this??
I mean actual tears?
Lack of sleep.
Lack of being listened to
Lack of time with family
Lack of updates on holiday request
Lack of communication from management
Lack of anyone to talk to

I'd be fucking crying working nights and not having enough sleep for 4 months!
Your post is lacking in any sympathy or empathy.
Why can't he cry?
No wonder so many males commit suicide with this attitude!
They can't show feelings!??? You need to do some research into this and the mental health of males in our society!
Then rethink what you write!

The company sound like a pain in the backside to be honest.
Echoing other posters, I reckon there's something more going on and this was the final straw.

Unfortunately, if the AL wasn't signed off then he wasn't granted it. Even if they were making noises about changes to his shift pattern when back from AL.
Was he chasing up his request? Or has he just left it? I know you said he was working nights, and managers aren't available, but he should've still be on the phone when he could get hold of a manager to try and confirm things.

Getting signed off with stress may be an idea if he's on the verge of tears about it however I'd be getting a new job lined up while off.