Work won’t let me cancel leave

[centregems]

I work on a small team and only a few can be off at any one time. As soon as the holiday booking period opened in January I booked next week off as for 4 days leave you get 10 days off. Others also booked up too to the max allowed off. I don’t want that leave now as my plans have changed. My colleague is grumbling as they are saying they would have booked a holiday if they could have had the leave but I got in first. He complained to our manager who says I can’t cancel as such short notice. Is this allowed?

Yep its allowed. They can actually dictate when you take holidays, cancel your holidays as long as they give notice.

Yes. Employers can actually stipulate when you take leave. You need to get your act together, booking prime time then thinking you can just canc3l.

This is common that people don't get their normal salary when they are on sick leave? I have never worked anywhere that we don't get paid as normal if off sick. That said I've also never worked anywhere that I can't cancel my annual leave at short notice either, but equally the team I work in is scattered across multiple countries so we are not all wanting the same school holidays weeks anyway.

Sick leave or compassionate leave (whether paid or unpaid) - these are quite the norm in most jobs.

IT does seem unreasonable that if you don't want the leave, and Jim does, that you can't swap it.
Obviously assuming you and Jim are more or less interchangeable-if you can do things/work hours he can't, then the manager might already have planned stuff. I do get that companies have policies as they don't like to be messed arounf regarding leave, but in this case, it seems harsh to me (mind you, I've had jobs where staff could just swap shifts/leave without the managers being involved).

The point as I understand it is that the colleague didn’t book next week off as they were unable to, due to OP having gotten in there first. Colleague may well be allowed to take leave now but we all know trying to get a good deal the week before Easter is difficult, if not impossible. So OP was quite selfish in booking prime holiday time so far in advance, thus depriving colleagues of the chance to book a reasonable holiday in advance. Even if colleague didn’t want to go on holiday but just make plans to see family etc, it may be too late. People will likely have their Easter plans sorted now, which OP should have known.

This is also against the law. If you are sick and unfit for work, you must take sick leave, regardless of whether that is fully paid or statutory.

But the other colleague doesn’t want to swap now. It’s too late for them to make plans. Might have been different if the OP had tried to cancel earlier - when a swap was possible.

Another ‘single post from the OP’ thread.

Yeah. I've never worked anywhere where there's either no occupational sick pay ever, or if there is OSP, it's only after a qualifying period (a year where I am currently). I think that's relatively typical private sector.

Not true: https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave

This specifically says that employees can ask to take holiday where, for instance, they don't qualify for paid sick leave (a fair way down the page):

An employee can ask to take their paid holiday for the time they’re off work sick. They might do this if they do not qualify for sick pay, for example. Any rules relating to sick leave will still apply.

Employers cannot force employees to take annual leave when they’re eligible for sick leave.

You just can't be forced to take it. It wouldn't make sense if you couldn't ask, but also didn't qualify for anything other than SSP (which had a 3 day waiting period until this month). The ethics of forcing somebody to take unpaid / very low paid sick leave are fairly dubious!

I think you were really selfish

and yes - employers can make you take AL

This is about using AL when they’re sick nothing to do with this situation as OP isn’t sick she just bagsy’d the prime leave so others couldn’t have it and has not changed her mind

We can change a week’s leave with a week’s notice but not all teams are like that. What’s the usual policy?

It's a side conversation. RTFT!

Where I work now is really flexible and as long as business is covered most of the team can be off, we just need to work it around our own projects.

However I can totally see that it would be unfair to book a prime week where only a certain number of people can be off and then cancel it at the last minute. Others will have made arrangements, family booked annual leave to match you, childcare booked and potentially paid for whic often isn’t changeable at the last minute.

Take the leave as you have too and be aware that if you are going to cancel it then next time you need to do it much much further in advance.

Agree with this

I can see why your manager has refused the cancellation, as other have pointed out above.

Its a bit selfish to book the "best weeks" annual leave just in case, leaving the not-so-prime-weeks for people who didn't get in quick enough, and then 2 days before deciding that because you didn't make any exciting enough plans, you don't want the leave any more.

Its probably too late for colleagues to plan anything for this time, and you cancelling would make more work for management, in them having to sort out the leave for when you wanted to take the days later in the year. They have already planned for you being off next week.

Just enjoy the time off work and make the best of it

Yes this is on you next week is too short notice for a number of reasons
but also if you did this and I worked with you rightly so I’d be well pissed off with you

Surely the colleague could've booked this week off if OP had booked next week? Sounds like they were just slow off the mark if they didn't manage to book one of the two short weeks off, tbh.

Both weeks give you 10 days off for 4 days (assuming Mon-Fri working pattern with BHs off) so she hadn't blocked them from benefiting from this.

Nope

And your employer can cancel your leave with twice the notice as the length - and they can tell you when to take it in the first place (UK)

But it was the OP who wanted the 10 for the price of 4 offer that Easter gives. The colleague might just have wanted next week, not this week.

This. If you were allowed to swap at this late notice you would want more leave later and that might deprive another colleague. You grabbed it now it's yours. Maybe you will let a colleague have Easter off next year.

I don’t know about the policy and I imagine if someone actually agreed to swap now then they’d allow it.

However, I can’t abide piss takers who grab the best slots “just in case” then think it’s ok to just cancel. We missed the opportunity for an amazing trip a couple of years ago thanks to DH’s colleague who had booked just 2 of the days for a stag weekend. Then decided he couldn’t be arsed and admitted he’d never really wanted to go anyway. Hate people like that, so yes, not surprised your colleague is “grumbling”.

This is what happens when we live in a world of social media lemmings who can't think for themselves.

Every year we get these "book these days off for maximum leave!" posts and people go "Wow! I get 10 WHOLE DAYS OFF if I just book 4" and do it to block others having them off.

If they actually stopped and engaged their brain then they'd realise that you already get 9 days off if you book 5 (presuming you work Mon - Fri anyway) so it's nowhere near as amazing as they think it is.