To think I shouldn't feel guilty for taking annual leave over New Years?

[repittlian]

I work in a professional services role. Due to various work projects, I have not been able to take time off during the school holidays this year.

We want to go away as a family to celebrate my father's 70th birthday. My sister is a teacher so can only go during school hols. I have no kids yet.

Last Christmas, I didn't take any annual leave and worked up until the evening of Christmas Eve etc.

So we have decided we will all jet off for some winter sun this new years, flying out on the 28th of December. I will be working up until Christmas Eve again, partly so that those with children can have time off.

I requested the annual leave from my manager who said that "we all want time off over Christmas so yes you can take annual leave but be aware you may have to work remotely if something crops up". I think essentially guilting me for taking annual leave over New Years. AIBU?

It’s not annual leave if you are expected to be on call.

Take your annual leave and make sure you leave your laptop in the office for security and safe keeping. Put it away in a drawer on your last day and enjoy your time off.

Take your leave and have a lovely time.

Annual leave isn't the same as being on call. Take the leave and one anger the phone but I'm sure they won't actually call you.

If the leave has been agreed, then I wouldn't feel guilty.

Make sure they know you are "abroad" but don't go into too much detail about it. Its your choice to leave your phone on or turn it off while you are there. I would probably go with turning it off at the start and turning it back on a day or so before the end. If they have been trying to contact you, then "oh dear, there isn't much signal away from the hotel and we have been out and about most days"

You do not have to work remotely. I was in professional services for a decade, and yes I often worked remotely but also I took holidays and did not, it has to go both ways. Send a thorough email to the team about key project status and who to contact about what, that covers your butt, and put your OOO on. If you want to play the game and miss a call, call them back and pretend you can’t hear. That’s completely ethical when you have a bad manager, you have to save yourself. I would never say that to anyone in my teams about working remotely over new years, without significant context re a key project stage, and if that’s the case the manager should have communicated to everyone that leave would have to be managed over Christmas/ new year and what they would offer.

It’s not annual leave if you’re on call.

You could negotiate. Perhaps one day on call when you’ll be reachable in theory and this day will not be taken as annual leave. But you really shouldn’t have to do this!

Remember that if you dropped dead tomorrow, they’d simply divide up your tasks and although colleagues would undoubtedly be sad, the company would manage perfectly fine without you and it would be like you were never there. So, it can manage without you over New Year too!

where I work everyone can have time off over Xmas and news years Eve and it’s split out between us so for one person to take a whole week that would mean others couldn’t be off.

how many people can be off at a time?

buy your manager needs to decide if they are approving your leave or not

If you’re abroad and don’t have the right to work in that country ( ie passport of that country or working visa) you’d be breaking the law by working there.

And your employer cannot ask you to break the law.

Really depends how holidays / AL work in your organisation. If it’s first in first approved or because you didn’t take it last year you’re first in line this year then no, YANBU to expect to not have to keep an eye on stuff as others in the team should be covering. If however multiple people are already off, then I can see from the managers point of view that this wouldn’t work unless some/all of you are checking emails for anything urgent. As a manager I encourage my team to take leave at different times but if there are multiple people insisting they need to be off at the same time eg Christmas, NY, half terms etc then yes, I expect them to check emails and log on if there’s anything urgent and if they don’t agree then I’ll decide who doesn’t get to take their leave as fairly as possible. And having kids or not has absolutely nothing to do with it so I won’t prioritise parents for school holidays etc despite being a parent myself (so I understand the stresses of childcare etc. but it’s not fair to child free colleagues to prioritise parents).

I don't think that a working visa is needed to work remotely abroad, your work contract will be based in Britain and subject to British laws not the laws of the country you visit.

You have given plenty of notice. U should not work remotely. Enjoy the winter sun- the best type surely. 😁

Ex-colleague of mine works for a UK based firm who stopped all remote working done outside the UK recently. Potential tax/insurance/data security considerations were cited if I recall correctly.
Also they had some people with family overseas who were basically using remote working to top up annual leave and we’re not contactable during core hours when they were needed for UK customers and suppliers. Leaving the UK based colleagues to pick up the slack.

If you were doing this every year, I would consider it unreasonable. However you are not and worked around Christmas last year, and maybe others beforehand.

I am reminded of the thread where someone was asked to log on early on Boxing Day by her manager who had two weeks off over Christmas and made the request about five minutes before leaving on her last day at work.

If it’s a job where it needs covering over the Christmas period, then the boss either has to block someone’s leave, cancel whole blocks of leave last minute, or manage expectations about remote working and cancelling small amounts of leave.

The latter is a common approach as it generally means everyone gets what they want.

Point out you normally don’t take leave in school holidays, you normally work throughout Xmas and it’s very unreasonable of them to put conditions on this one off!

Well, in future take the AL you want to take, before AND after Christmas if that’s what you want.

know that they will never prioritise you, don’t compromise your family life for work. Ever.

@pinkyredrose Im afraid you’re wrong. Whatever a U.K. employment contract says is only relevant between employer and employee. Separately, each country has its own laws and the vast majority of countries - probably all - do have national laws which naturally enough apply to all persons in that country at the time, regardless of their nationality. Naturally enough they prohibit foreigners from working in that country unless they fall within certain categories and pay tax in that country etc. That’s why there are such things as foreign worker and remote working visas and double tax treaties!

I didn't know that. I thought if you were registered for tax in the UK then working remotely whilst on holiday wouldn't count as working abroad. Happy to stand corrected!

I think there is some leeway in some jurisdictions for eg incidental short term things like the odd telephone call, but that’s it. There have been a few posts on here about this topic.

I seem to remember a news story recently about a poor guy going to speak at a conference in the USA for which he was being paid and he was detained by US immigration for not having the right visa.

It wasn’t an issue for most Brits pre Brexit when travelling in Europe as all EU citizens had the right to work anywhere in the EU I believe - but tax was still a bit complicated.