We should get more legal annual leave.

[Theworried2]

Even though we currently get 5.6 weeks leave as a minimum for full time employees plus weekends, this still means we spend 64% of days in our working lives in work.

Surely to ensure better mental and physical health, this amount should be raised (perhaps closer to the 13 weeks children get at school).
it doesn’t make sense that as soon as you leave education, your free time dramatically reduces.

At the very least, to reduce additional costs for employers, everyone should have a legal minimum weeks (e.g.5 per annum) of unpaid leave if they want it. This shouldn’t just be confined to parents.

if people are properly rested, productivity may rise which could help solve the UK’s productivity puzzle.

Sounds great!

How will businesses continue to function though?

The amount of work a FTE needs to do in a year to justify their package won't change and unless you're currently bone idle no amount of efficiency will mean you can make up the 8 weeks of work over the 29 weeks you'll be at work.

😂😂😂😂

Ok maybe paid leave would be a problem as businesses would not be able to afford it easily but surely unpaid leave should be a right, so people do not burn out.

It is a bit like being able to sell your annual leave but instead of this being a perk, it is a right.

Sorry I mean buy extra leave

I agree, the best part of my job (Teacher) is the annual leave. However, how would businesses function with all their employees wanting to take time off? Flexible working is the answer.

I don't know that I really want to take 13 weeks of holiday with my 4 year old a year. I quite like my job.

Perhaps you are right with the paid leave. But maybe flexible working should be a legal right automatically rather than simply being a legal right to ask for flexible working.

As someone who doesn't get close to 5.6 weeks (LMAO) I agree we should all get 6-8 weeks to allow for medical appointments (for self and DCs), days when kids are sent home from nursery, days when your car is in the garage and they can't get a part for a day or two, etc.
I have 2 days of AL left and we are not having a holiday, single day off or even staycation this year, it's all gone on crap from the list above, mostly medical appointments.
It would really take the pressure off. If my DCs are sent home from nursery two more times IDK what I'm supposed to do as far as work goes, I'm absolutely screwed, and there are 5 more months left of the year.

We actually do well compared to some countries eg the US where there is no entitlement to paid leave at all but people generally get around 10 days paid depending on the employer. Our legal entitlement is 28 days FTE.

Sorry that was to @LondonQueen

I'm already cracking under the pressure of school holidays and trying to figure out how to maximise the value of my holiday time as I leave my child to her own devices. It's too much, honestly.

Absolutely. For me it's not about the money, it's that I just need that time to sort shit out!

yes but….it’s already tedious having to cover colleagues work when they are off.

I don't think bank holidays should be included in holiday entitlement. So it should be 5.6 weeks plus bank holidays.

That may work in some roles but in corporate roles that take an age to recruit for and time to train people it would be a nightmare to manage. Who would cover the missing workload? Do you just leave clients or projects without key personel for a significant part of the year?

I would like to see fewer hours per week as the norm.

You already have the right to parental leave.

There aren't enough people to cover the full time equivalents if everyone gets more leave. NHS, shops, restaurants, hotels, how would they function 24/7? They would have to close some days a week, and then you would have nowhere to go and nothing to do on your days off!

It's not a race to the bottom where we have to be grateful to our employers and tug our forelocks that they and our government deigned to grant us plebs a few days off out of our working life because some other country is more capitalistic and exploitative of workers.

I wouldn't need that time as a childless woman.

I would absolutely support extra paid leave for carers (including of school age children). We only seem to have this in emergency situations at the moment?

But I suspect that better subsidies for childcare would be more helpful to people trying to build careers. Very hard not to lose opportunities otherwise.

The fact of the matter is that most people's pay relates to 35 hours pw for about 45 weeks worked.

If people want to work, say, 38 weeks that's equivalent to about 0.833 of a full-time contract and would extrapolate to 0.833 of the full-time salary. I support staff to do this.

One thing I would say, is that I worked part-time when dd was 6/7. I went back full time because I was doing as much work.as the full-timers for 40% less pay.

I feel really lucky that I get 35 days plus bank holidays plus the days off between Christmas and new year and still it’s a juggling act to cover school holidays! Fortunately mine are now grown up enough that it’s not so much of an issue but the youngest is 11 (older ones are 18 and 19) and I’m still trying to organise things for him to do so he’s not sat on his own for endless hours on his switch or laptop etc which I don’t think is fair or healthy!! Very grateful that I have options but it’s still a fine art, trying to cover everything.

I get 34 days, plus bank holidays and weekends off. Six and a half weeks, It seems enough, plus I work full time over 4 days and can flex which day I have off with decent notice. Send reasonable, I think the answer lies in flexible working rather than more leave

Crazy thought. They would hire more staff. Most places aren't short staffed because Debra on checkouts is on holiday or working part time, they're short staffed because the managers aren't spending money on salaries while the CEOs become millionaires or billionaires (alongside systemic recruitment and retention issues in some sectors caused by erosion of real-terms pay and degenerating working conditions and lack of feeling valued/able to progress).
The 4 day work week is working in some countries. That's about 52 extra days off a year per person. Their services aren't grinding to a halt.