Job Share response to hol request

[Stargazer75]

I'm fairly new to my jobshare with another lady (I've been there 1 year). She's older, single and no DC.
She loves her cruises and goes on around 3 a year, I cover the days she is absent.

As yet, she hasn't booked any days off this year, but as I have a husband, grandchild, elderly Mum etc, occasionally I book things in advance as have a busy life outside of work.

The other day I asked my jobshare if she could please cover 2 days for me in September as I would like to book annual leave.

She went all red in the face and said 'I just don't know if I'll be available, I don't know when I'm going on my cruises yet'. I could tell she was very annoyed at me asking! She asked if I needed to actually book something such as travel or accommodation etc? I don't personally think its any of her business what I plan to do on annual leave and I think 7 months notice is pretty decent. In the end, in a huff, she just said 'well, you may as well go ahead and book then and I'll let you know closer to'.

My DH needs to book his annual leave to coincide - and we were hoping to visit friends in London who would also book annual leave, but obviously if she changes her mind closer to it will mess everything up 😬

I guess she's pretty much saying 'I'll cover if I don't book a cruise' in effect saying her holiday plans trump mine (unless I'm getting it wrong)

I put my holiday form in to HR, but how would you address this going forward?

I'm not just going to sit back each year, wait for her to book the days she wants, then have the crumbs that are left.

Anyone else jobshare and how do you navigate?

No. I’m just saying your attitude towards her stinks.

I'm not saying that. This isn't the point.

My point is, I can't surely be expected to book no annual leave just incase my job share decides she would maybe like that week off down the line.
If dates are available and not already booked, surely it should be on a first come first served basis.
If she's lucky enough to be able to do things spontaneously that's great for her - but not so great for me who needs to plan a bit and have commitments outside of work.

Well she does if she needs the colleague to pick up her rota days. If she always works Tuesdays and her colleague has tennis lessons on a Tuesday but now needs to work for example to cover the leave.

It’s really your employers that need their heads shaking if you HAVE to cover each others holidays. It basically means you get no holiday time as you end up doing extra (although I know obviously you’ll get paid more for that).
Your holiday shouldn’t necessarily rely on each other, only that you can’t both take holiday at the same time.
Of course if this is what you have both agreed to with this job then yes, you both need to sort out your time between you, and your manager needs to speak to her about not making a fuss about it. But mostly a job share shouldn’t necessarily mean you NEED to cover the other persons shifts.

Out of interest has she ever not been able to take leave because you have been unable to cover for her because you need to plan in advance?

But this works both ways.
I've always covered her annual leave, even swapped shifts to accommodate her late flights etc.
It's give and take, but woks both ways. I'm not purely there to accommodate her private lifestyle.
I'm asking for 2 days in September and can't get a concrete confirmation if she will cover.
I have a wedding next year of a close family member. What do I do? Book off then just hope she obliges? Life doesn't work that way.

No. I've always covered her holiday requests, bar 1 day when I was booked to go away on my days off and was non refundable - so for this 1 occasion they managed.

This doesn't make sense unless you're paid overtime when you cover each others leave. Otherwise you technically don't get any annual leave, you just swap days around between each other.

That would be illegal as it's mandatory to provide annual leave in the UK

Why are you even talking to her about this? Tell your line manager the days you want and then it's up to him/her to check it works for the team and then approve it.

OP you aren't listening (or acknowledging at least) what so many posters are telling you.
If you have to cover all her holidays, then you effectively get no annual leave at all. And your employer has seriously done a number on both of you! Are you content with this?

I am paid overtime for any extra shifts I cover.

This did make me laugh!

I don’t understand why it’s OPs responsibility. She isn’t the manager.

It is management responsibility to allocate resources to tasks and ensure cover.

OP books holiday and informs colleague as a courtesy. If colleague can’t do overtime that week she takes that up with management and THEY (not OP and not colleague) have to find a solution.

Even if you are paid for the extra hours, it still means (1) not only do you get no annual leave, (2)you should have EVEN MORE of annual leave to factor in the additional hours you work in a year (holiday entitlement on the over time)

OP you are infuriating! Because you are failing to see this isn’t a job share issue- this is a management issue. Again, if you worked full time without a job share doing your other days, do you think you’d never be allowed a day off ? Think about this carefully, then you’ll see you don’t have a job share issue - you have a shit management issue.

so start again, go to your line manager and ask how you request time off. It is your line manger or HR’s job to find cover for you, be that asking for your job share to do overtime or someone else in the company doing overtime or hiring an external agency cover.

before you worked there, they will have had to cover people having leave.

If your manager will not approve leave unless you arrange cover, then you should start looking for another job, any employer who is so shit about giving you leave is not worth your loyalty. I repeat- it is a management problem not a job share problem.

Lol... in my workplace the solution would always be to rescind the leave.

Then they would have to reimburse OP for cancellation of holiday and associated costs, depending on notice given.

It really isn’t normal practice to operate like this, and yes, I spent many years in retail.

Well this is an issue for line management surely your colleague doesn't decide annual leave policy. It sounds like a ridiculous set up tbh, if you weren't sharing then no one would be in when you're off anyway. Does your contract actually stipulate that you must cover each others leave or are management just being cheeky? Do you get paid overtime for covering?

I've had 4 job share jobs.
I have always been expected to cover holidays where possible and be paid. Pretty standard from my experience.
I work 3 mornings and so occasionally cover the odd extra mornings to cover annual leave.

This is an overtime issue, not a holiday issue.

OP needs to book her holiday, get it approved by management in usual way. It would be nice if she gives her colleague a heads up of the dates, but it’s down to her manager to decide what cover needs to be arranged and to organise that.

If colleague says sorry, I can’t come in on Tuesdays because I look after my grandchild/father/do Pilates/work my second job that day, employer cannot make her come in on her day off. They need to sort an alternative, same as they would if an employee was off sick.

Sounds like a shit place to work.

Just book your time off!

It might have been custom, or even contractual, but this is not how employment laws work. You cannot have zero annual leave. You cannot receive pro rate annual leave entitlement if you are effectively FTE.
Think about it. If you were to instead receive full statutory annual leave entitlement to correct the mis match, then your job share would (have to in your scenario) covers those extra days? And so on and so on and so on and so on.
I worked in legal in HR for years. Blows my mind what employers will try to get away with given half a chance.

The way it works for us.
A: my OH told me last night that his sister is planning to get married 19th September. Wed like to make it a week holiday. Do you have anything planned then?

B: Oh I don't know, that's a long time away. We were talking about doing a cruise around that time.

A: oh that's lovely, you love your cruises. I will need to know soon though as we'd like to book our flights as soon as possible. When do you think you might be able to look into it?

B: Well I need to check the dates for cruises in Alaska as that's the one we'd planned. Can I let you know in a weeks time?

A: yes, that's fine.

Then if dates clashes (unlikely), you look at going earlier or later, or other options. If you make sacrifices, she gets to make them the next time.

You put your leave request in and assuming it's approved your JS needs to work around that. If pushed just say you have plans. I would let her know by email just for info, not for her approval. As you say 7 months is plenty of notice.

Why does she need to cover your work though if you job share? Would your company not let a full timer take any time off as there wouldn’t be anyone to cover? Your holidays plans should not really affect hers and vice versa.

I don’t understand why she thinks her possibility of taking a cruise trumps your plans. I fully agree it should be first come first served. She seems to be thinking that her holidays are more important than yours, for some reason, when actually you both have the same right to take leave.