To book a holiday before telling work?

[Buddythecat1]

Moot point as it is already booked.
Manager over heard me telling another colleague that I'd booked a family holiday and was told in no uncertain terms that I must request the time from work before ever booking something.

A bit taken abback because I've never heard of this and it's not in my contract either.

The holiday in question is 16 months away 😂 is my manager in the correct?

Well it depends if you’re ok risking not being able to go because you don’t get the holidays.

Technically yes. They don’t have to approve your leave and you don’t know if anyone else has already requested the same dates so you should always get it approved first.

I always book the time off in advance, I've never actually been turned down for leave but you never know!

How far in advance can you book annual leave?

No it’s not mandatory to tell them before you book anything but it is pretty stupid as they are wel within thier rights to turn down your leave request for any reason.

It’s usually the sensible thing to do, in case you can’t get the time off.

It’s a long way off and it’s probably fine. The hiccups might be if it’s a busy time so no one is allowed leave, if there’s a rota system or something for having time off in the summer, or if someone has been even more organised than you and already booked it.

Also I would never risk calling in sick if they said no after if booked a holiday, if word got out it's a stackable offence (seen it happen).

Depends on the wording of your contract.

That’s a risky strategy. Definitely check you can have the leave first! Highly likely it will be approved this far in advance but you don’t want to get to the time and find someone’s beaten you to it.

Your work have to approve your days off? Technically they could say no and you wouldn't be able to go. We usually have to give work a heads up when we are thinking of booking holiday to make sure dates seem ok before going ahead.

This happened to someone where I work so she just quit and went on the holiday. They had to re hire her because they couldn't find anyone good enough to replace her.

Completely standard in my profession to have to request holiday before booking. I have rejected holiday requests when someone else was off.

Always leave first and then a holiday unless you are willing to resign to go!!

It really depends on your work and contract. I let my employer know when I'm taking leave by completing the online process. Technically they then approve or decline, but that's because it's one system for the whole organisation but my role has more autonomy.

I usually try and give a heads up, but I have lots of regular deadlines in my role, and I need to be sure I'll either be able to do them or someone appropriate can cover me. I also got into a sticky situation with one boss who didn't want to give me the leave (I'd booked the holiday before telling them), so I've learnt from my mistake (I got the holiday, it was fine).

I would agree with this.

You can book whatever holidays you like but if you haven't got the time off agreed in advance then you may just end up having to cancel, but I don't expect it's a problem if you're ok with that.

Your leave can be cancelled by your employer

They don't have to approve your holiday

I dont know how they can get cross about you booking a holiday before you have booked the time off work.

I can't give them notice of it until after April

Wow, how thoughtless, they are within their rights to say no, you have no idea who else might be on leave or taking time off for an operation or anything really. How selfish of you to not check first, you are entitled to take time off of course but not just when it suits you
Be prepared for them to say no and you having to move your holiday

Technically shes wrong, you can book anything you like without requesting leave first.

But from a practical side shes right. She doesn't have to grant the leave just because you've booked it.

I've seen people book holidays last minute for summer/christmas/easter etc and then be adamant that the have to be allowed it off, even though others booked before them, because they booked something and will lose money.

But yeah if its 16 months off you should be fine, are you even able to request leave that far in advance?

Because my bugbear was a place I worked where you could only book in the current holiday year, they wouldnt let you book in the following holiday year. Fine in January at the start of the year, pants in December if you wanted a January holiday as you werent allowed to book the leave until the 1st Jan.

The law says that an employer can refuse / dictate holidays. So yes your manager is correct. Nobody is entitled to tell their employer that they are going on holiday and have that agreed. So you can book anything you like. But they could refuse to let you have annual leave.

I know they don't have to but I just assumed as its 16 months away, it would be more than OK
I put in a request for four days off today for next week and they've accepted that. I will obviously give them plenty of notice but ive never ever heard of them saying to tell them before making any bookings

Its 16 months out. do people really know they need to have an operation 16 months out?

Well if you can't book leave til Jan like some or need to ensure only one member of a team is away at any time then that would be stupid as you can get good deals booking ahead.

We've always had set holidays anyway but I know my sister has both issues above at her work.

Was it so hard to ask before booking the holiday? Especially as it's 16 months away.

Why would I ask? It's so far away, I didn't ever assume there would be an issue
It's not like I'm asking to go in a month