Zero notice of annual leave at work

[Perimenoanti]

It happens frequently that I am supposed to cover for a couple of co-workers during their annual leave but I would have no notice of it. I would find out on their first day of leave for example that I am supposed to step in. It has also happened that I was waiting for a piece of work, then chase it in the afternoon and I get 'sorry I am off today, will send over later today'. No out of office notification and it would be for work that's due on that day and could not wait.

A few times I raised it with my boss and she acts like I am the problem. Tbh she is one of the culprits too. She'd be on a business trip Mo-Fri, but will tell me Thursday night or Friday morning to cover for her on the Friday as she will be mid-air. She would have known at the start of the week or even weeks before and could have given me heads up. This is important as I am busy myself, some work can wait and other work cannot and I would plan work differently had I known.

I also feel totally disrespected when they do that and it stresses me out as it's like a bomb is dropping and something urgent is popping up that doesn't need to be urgent.

Maybe. I don't currently have the confidence as my boss is not backing me up.

I work in care and have to give 4 weeks notice of annual leave. I have to request leave which may be declined. LNo leave allowed in December and January. If I'm very lucky someone may swap a shift if I have an emergency. Some people don't think of anyone else.

How do you log your holidays…isn’t there a central file or intranet page? Even just sharing the dates on outlook so that people know what is what would work surely

@Boreded there is a system where you request it and can see other people's absences. But I often request time off and it would be approved by my boss some time later when I'm already back at work. There is no guarantee that it's up to date.

Ah ok, so I think that maybe just make the suggestion that they send a diary invite when they have holidays.

When I look in my Outlook calendar it shows along the top above all of the meetings in my diary, and I can see who is off. You just notify the people who need to know, and if you get notified but don’t think it is relevant you just decline the appointments so they don’t show.

then it is really easy to click quickly through a couple of weeks at a time to see what is showing. If they don’t send at that point then that’s on them and you can politely advise them to jog on as you don’t have the capacity to support

@Boreded it's a good idea as someone already said they do that too. I will do that once my confidence is back up.