Having to book holiday leave by Jan 31st each year?

[Doomsdayiscoming]

Told this week that our new system will be that you have to book your holiday by 31st Jan each year for rest of the calendar year.

I immediately didn’t understand the email because to me this is utterly crazy. Company taken over last May by European company. We were also forced to take all our 2020 allowance by the end of 2020, no carry over (historically 8 days). All seems very controlling to me. Legally they couldn’t force the carry over thing as yet they haven’t bothered to give us new contracts.

Anyone have anything similar to this??

My dh has to submit holiday requests in November for the following April to April year! It’s not fun planning it out. My employer is good and allows me to match his time off when needed

Yes and I hate it
We have in December 20 to book our holidays until the end of March 22 😱 if we don’t the company slots them in wherever they feel like it
It’s hard work especially as I have to plan around school holidays and my ex’s holidays as well

What do you do if you have an unexpected inset day or you can't get a holiday club space for the days you need?

I can understand it with 2 week holidays but in terms of the odd day here and there? I think they're asking for it in terms of people throwing sickies. I'm not saying it's justified, but they will. People don't have their whole year mapped out by the end of January.

I worked 20 years in the legal profession though and no firm allowed you to carry leave over.

I would hate that. I would want to know at interview because it would put me off taking the job.

@supercatlady

I worked for a bank in the 90s and we had to book all leave in November - every single day - no holding any back for emergencies. We also had to say which was our “main holiday - Christmas/summer etc. They then had a big list in order of length of service. If you got your main holiday you were highly unlikely to get any other “peak “ dates. In my current role we book as we go but we can’t carry forward any leave.

I think I work for a subsidiary of that particular bank.

The length of service thing is why my start date is etched in my memory.

There’s no ‘main two weeks’ requirement now, that went last year, and it’s all done online.

They ask you to book at least 2 weeks out of six in the September (Jan to Jan holiday year). But most people do 3.

This year they’ve let people carry over upto a week which is unheard of! It’s saved me buying a week, which was my plan as my eldest is now at school. It’s got to be taken by the 31st March though. They’ve let mine through as it starts on the 1st April!

It’s not too bad, adhoc holiday is allowed, last minute changes too. It’s not particularly onerous from a management approval point of view either. You submit the request electronically and it sends them an email which they approve or decline. Takes seconds.

One of my parents worked in finance and this was standard for them. They hated it. Especially hard when we were small children.

My current work I just check the diary and give at least a weeks notice.

DH has been issued with his school holiday leave for the next 5 years. He has 2 weeks in the summer hols & Feb half term this year. Can’t remember the following years! I think you always get 2 weeks of the school holidays off in the summer & then another week elsewhere in the year. You can try to swap with colleagues.

Totally normal in many firms, especially big ones.

My annual leave is rostered. A week in spring. 2 weeks in summer. And a week in winter. The periods change every year. Sometimes you get good ones, the next year rubbish ones.

We do get 8 floating days to book at any time though.

I had similar at a few places I worked. One was a large multinational where we simply merged with another division and after a few months post merger, they “equalised” the staff. Some staff “lost” things abd some “gained”. Part of this was carrying over holiday time. We never carried over, other part carried over up to 5 days so the compromise was 2 days carried over and had to be used by end of February, for the next year. After that, no carry over for any staff.

One company I worked for, no holiday at quarter end (finance company). As Christmas/new year is quarter end, it was taken in turns who could have time off during that period. Everyone was treated equal so didn’t matter if you had kids or not. This was an office so closed bank holidays so there’s no more requirement than anyone else to have off if you had kids. I always chose to work right up to Xmas because I knew they close the office mid day on 24th abd tgat half day didn’t count as taking holiday.

I see no problem with this if it helps the company ensure proper staffing throughout the year particularly helps to cope with unexpected events of bereavement leave or sickness if there is a managed staff level

When DH was a tube driver, he got allocated leave, no choice at all. Now he works as a signaller he has to book leave a year in advance but can cancel and change and save a few days to book short notice

My NHS leave is far more flexible.

MIL used to have this system before she retired, and they were not flexible about changing, she said it just resulted in a lot of sickness absence

I had to do this many years ago. The book would go around the first day we were back in work after Christmas. Whoever worked there the longest got first pick. It wasn't to bad for me as I was only 19 but would be a nightmare now because I'm married and have children.

We used to have a system where everyone had their own leave year, so if you started in October 1st your leave year ran from October 1st until 30th September, if you started June 4th your leave year ran June 4th to June 3rd. It meant you had no pile up of people taking leave they hadn't used at the end of the year (can only carry over in specific circumstances), but a few years ago the homogenised to everyone April to March. We're all being allowed to carry over at least 5 days this year as we've been all hands on deck and some leave has been cancelled. No deadline for booking but your line manager checks in on how much leave you've used during supervision, of I got 4/5 months in and one of my staff had booked no leave I'd be pushing them to unless they had a specific trip coming up later in the year. We get 33 days maximum plus bank holidays so it racks up if you don't take some regularly, but it's public sector so there's no cover and it feels like double the work before and after you go and there are no slow times of the year, so people put it off

We have similar, our holiday starts in April and we have to book all leave by 14th April. However all leave must be taken before xmas, you can’t carry any over so effectively annual leave is banned from January-early April.

Pretty common, most places allow you to keep 5 days back for odds and ends like kids events but the bulk need to be book to schedule them fairly

I work for a big European bank, we can carry over 5 days usually, but this year we've been allowed to carry over 15 days as everyone had so much untaken leave from 2020. Next year we'll be able to carry over 10 days, then it will revert back to 5. We can also buy an extra 5 days if we want to.

We can book holiday as and when we would like and we manage it within the team to ensure we have enough cover. Most people tend to book their main 2 weeks off early in the year so it's in the diary, but the rest we can book when we like. I'd hate to be forced to book an entire year's leave off by end of Jan.

That's normal where I work. YABU.

In my last place holiday book would open 2nd jan for that year and all holiday slots were usually gone by the 4th.
Our team had about 30 people, all with 20 days plus bank hols (usually worked so given in lieu). One person was allowed leave a week and had to take the full week (no single days apparently deducting eg 2 from 20 is too confusing) and no carry over.
You can imagine how that went down. Every bloody year. They seemed to forget that that many holidays do not fit into 50 weeks (none allowed over xmas and new year, god knows why it was our quietest time!) Then we would spend about 4 months short staffed doing the work of 3 people while the management panicked and started bullying people to accept whatever dates they saw fit
Also, we always seemed to end up having to book 2 weeks for a one week holiday if we couldn't fly out sat night as the week ran sun to sat and you would definitely be working the saturday and back in the following sunday if you were dareing to have a week off!
All for minimum wage too...

Wow this is strict. In Australia, or at least every job I've ever had, you can bank up to 8 weeks annual leave and I think 6 weeks long service leave. After that you are made to take some leave to get it under that limit. And you can apply for leave whenever, usually 4 weeks ahead of time, but some more laid back places could be only a week or few days notice. Only 5 days (or zero!) carry over is strict.

@LokihasafryingPan I wouldn't work there. Holidays are a basic entitlement. I'm not saying you should be able to take whatever you like, but if your employer makes you jump through those kind of hoops to take what you're entitled to by law, I think that shows a pretty poor attitude towards their staff.

@SnoozyLou the things I could tell you about that place, especially once I got pregnant! I stuck it out for 3 years (4 inc mat leave), the I think we all had some sort of weird Stockholm syndrome about the place, but once the first person left it snowballed!
My new place is much better (holidays, pay, culture, everything) I cant believe I put myself through that for so long

Yes. In a former job we had to book all leave by the end of January for that year. No carry overs and no odd days off allowed, only full weeks and no more than a fortnight. Holiday also had to be booked in seasons. So a week between jan and March. Another week between April and June. Two weeks between. July and October. Nothing in November and December.
As most employees were women and with kids ... you can imagine the bun fight that went on. You also lost at least three days due to the no odd days booking rule. Bank holidays were counted as normal working days.
It would be a deal breaker in any future job offers as it was just a pain.