Always on annual leave

[Abitboring]

I have a relatively new hire (but not direct report) who has been in the job since January. She took annual leave in February, April, May and June. Always about a week and always a 'holiday', so not family stuff etc. It made her training slow and difficult as there was only one full month she worked in her first five months of employment. There's been a bit of 'sorry, just got back from annual leave' as an excuse for one thing or another. It also made me wonder whether she's going to do this every year now and will effectively work part time a few months in a row.

I wouldn't mind as much if she was fully competent in her role, but she isn't. I find her a slow worker and I need to remind her about a lot of things, which I feel I shouldn't have to do if she just kept a list or something to remind herself what needs done when and how.

AIBU to be annoyed?

No. Its the managers job.
You're not doing her a favour. She doesn't owe anyone.

Speak to her manager.
Send an email, so there’s a paper trail, stating that her constant annual leave has massively disrupted her training, and she is not working at an acceptable level. Then it’s up to them. And email every time you have a problem with booking her training etc. She sounds a pain and not exactly an asset to the workplace.

So you only just retaliated it’s an issue, but expect her to have known earlier that it was an issue for you?

It might be common courtesy where you work to tell colleagues you are off but. But she clearly doesn’t realise that. She still won’t if you don’t tell her.

Unless it’s a policy she isn’t forced to do something because you believe it’s a common courtesy. Speak up!

If you're training her, and need to know when she's off, just ask her to send you a calendar invite for 'Mary on AL' when she has time off approved. That would be very reasonable, I've done it before with colleagues where we need to know if the other is on leave.

If that shows she's booked off more on the future to a disruptive degree then approach her manager.

Her colleagues need to book leave earlier of she's stopping them taking leave they'd normally take.

She can't have much left, so hopefully that's a problem that's resolved itself. Do you have a shutdown at Xmas or anything, has she left enough leave for that / remaining bank hols do you think?

Yes, but I honestly don't go in every week to find out if I need to do her job as well the following week. It's just adding to the things for me to keep track of because people can't think beyond their own little world. I already need to remind her about all sorts of things she should be doing which is exhausting and not fair on me.

You’re being annoyed at the wrong person.
She’s entitled to take her leave, and if it’s been authorised correctly then it’s nothing to do with you.

Speak with your own manager if you’re having issues getting her through her training.

Absolutely petty and ridiculous of you to be annoyed at someone taking their leave, which presumably they’re entitled to.

I assume you share a line manager but are senior to her?
Have a conversation with your line manager about the issues it's causing - particularly the "I've not been that I've been on annual leave" attitude.

If she can afford loads of holidays, keep your fingers crossed that she isn't going to request tons of unpaid family leave the rest of the year.

It’s up to her manager to decide who does what parts of her role whilst she is off. Not her, not her colleagues.

Your organisation doesn’t sound very professional to be honest. The reporting structure seems odd.

No that's the managers job, if there isn't sufficient cover and a leave policy is in place then manager declines the leave. Otherwise can't see what she is doing wrong, surely she has the same amount of leave as everyone else? Also the fact it's for a holiday is irrelevant, using leave for "family" time doesn't trump a "holiday", people are entitled to use leave as they wish (and you you don't really know how she spends it anyway).

If you are training her, then it’s part of your job to give feed back to her or her manager (depending on set up) and discuss these things

That's a really good idea but I couldn't rely on her to do it. Not sure why. If she forgets or thinks whatever I tell her is optional.

She isn't doing anything wrong, and so far in this thread you've made a point, someone has said yabu, so you've made another, same thing, and another...

You WANT her to be wrong, but that doesn't make it so.

She's entitled to take leave.

Her manager approved it.

She doesn't have to tell you.

It's a "first come, first served" leave situation - it's not her fault noone else booked in advance.

I'm a training manager - people take holiday, we work around it. She's been there five months, taken four weeks off, so has been in training four months but you still haven't finished training her? Unless it's a highly complex role I'd be questioning whether you're the best person to train others.

Just to clarify, you are annoyed she is taking the annual
leave that she is entitled too, which is the same amount of annual leave that you are also entitled to, and will also take?

Sounds like you have a shit manager.

Staff member isn’t doing anything wrong that I can see.

Do you not use your annual leave entitlement?

Sounds like you need a holiday tracker so you can all see what days everyone has off.

I ticked YABU because if you're an Employer/Manager not sure why you are asking random people on MN about business protocol. It's pretty unprofessional, decisions are what you get paid for.

I'm glad I don't work with you lot that think's it's ok to take a week off every month for four months. Especially in a new job.
Although it is her manager that you need to have a word with if she's not up to scratch with her training.

Surely she's only
Got five weeks to take?

So you’re now saying it’s you who has to cover her if she’s on holiday? In that case, her/your manager should be informing you about planned absence and what extent they want you to cover.

It all sounds like a bit of a shitshow to be honest.

1. You aren’t doing her a favour by training her. It is literally your job as I presume a manager has asked you to do it. If her training isn’t ‘taking’ then it’s your fault. You need to work with her to ensure there’s a document trail evidencing when you complete training - maybe get her to confirm in writing that she understands important topics.
2. Mistakes in the first 6-12 mths are expected. Nobody expects a new starter to be high performing immediately. If they are then it’s a bad sign for existing employees and suggests their work is too easy.
3. People often learn by doing instead of you doing it for her. Eg Send her examples of past work you’ve completed, make templates and guides for her.

If she's not doing things she's been told to, that's a whole different kettle of fish.

Send her an email of her repeating tasks, all set out in a list, with instructions if you think she needs them. Ask her to tell you when she has leave approved.

If she doesn't so those things, then you have a paper trail to show she's not performing.

If you don't know she's on leave, and don't cover her tasks as a result, that's on her and her manager for not communicating. You have the email asking her to tell you when she's on leave, she's not done it, not your fault.

If she is new then she probably needs to be told that it is standard practise to tell the team of your planned leave, if it affects them, it’s not her fault that no one else booked leave and she took the time she could. I am sure if someone else had booked the time her leave would have been refused. The training issue might be something to raise, is she bad at the job or just not as quick as you think she should be by now?

So she is taking planned annual leave, and writing this is the approved calendar for everyone to see - the holiday tracker. Which you yourself have access to. When asked, she tells you she has a holiday.

Your problem isn't with this woman taking holiday. You have a problem with her, and apparently with being an arsehole.

You need to step back and evaluate yourself.

The whole thing sounds poorly organised/coordinated. If the system allows her to book that leave then she’s done nothing wrong.

Do you have any sort of team meeting? We have a weekly check in on a Monday and our team lead tells us who is off in the coming weeks so cover can be agreed. We are also required to write a short handover a few days before we go off.

Performance issues need to be addressed properly. Annual leave is a different issue.

Not in most places I've worked, either because we manage our own workloads independently so unless it's a manager that's off there's no need to know who else is, plus anywhere vaguely organised surely has a calendar so you can see who is off? Anywhere with a team over 5 or so chances are there will nearly always be someone off at some point so everyone going round telling everyone else whenever they have a day off would be distracting and a complete waste of time!

I don't know what you want from this poor woman. She's entitled to annual leave. You don't seem to work somewhere when leave dates are mandated, so she's allowed to take it whenever she wants. She seems to have gone through the correct process and had it signed off by her manager. You're suggesting her taking annual leave is somehow unfair on her colleagues because it means they can't take the same time off, and have to cover her work, but

a) you don't seem to do the same role as her so this doesn't actually effect you

b) none of her colleagues doing the same role have actually raised this as an issue, so sounds like you're making it up to justify your own irrational annoyance

c) the same would apply to them, as in when they are off she can't be, and she has to cover their work. If anything it seems she's at the disadvantage because as the newest person in they would have been given the opportunity to book those weeks off before her, if they had wanted them. tbh it seems like she's booked some of the more unpopular weeks off so will be covering most of the school holidays, which would make her very popular and a valued team player in most workplaces!
Perhaps she's only booked those weeks because everyone else has already booked the best weeks so she's having to use her leave up when she can?

Do you not want her to take leave at all?
Or do you only want her to take it at a time convenient for you?
Is leave only ok if it' for 'family reasons?'
Or just to tell you when she will be on leave? Only the last of these is the slightest bit reasonable, and can be easily solved by you being proactive and just asking her/her manager (although, again, why don't you have a joint calendar?)