Annual leave (when place of work closed over xmas)

[thekatsatonthematt]

How much notice should an employer give re office closures over Christmas (or any time of year).

DH works in an office based environment with the bare minimum holiday entitlement with the holiday year running Jan-Dec.

If his employer is closing the office over Christmas and expecting dh to have enough annual leave to cover this, how much notice is reasonable?

Thanks!

Hmm not sure if they actually give notice - does this usually happen or has the employer just decided on it this year and expecting everyone to have saved enough leave?

This is quite normal, I've had to do it at several jobs. Most times this happened to me it was stated in a contract or employee handbook under how much annual leave you get.

TBH I much much prefer a good break over xmas rather than just the bank hols and having to in on the 27th then off again 1st Jan.

Our leave year runs Jan to Dec, and our annual leave is docked as soon as business reopens with that years shutdown, and we are informed the week before Christmas with what the next years dates of shutdown will be.
Otherwise, I would expect 6 months notice

Ok, the gov website says an employer must give notice of at least twice as long as the period.

So what happens if the office is closed for more days than dh has left in his leave entitlement? We have to just suck it up and take unpaid leave?

He'd already taken a weeks paternity leave before they informed him he wasn't entitled to it, so he had to use annual leave for that.

Its double the amount of leave that has to be taking. ie if they want him to use two days of leave then they must give him four working days notice.

An employer can make you take leave at any time subject to giving this notice.

If he has none left the norm is to take it unpaid.

why was he not entitled to paternity leave?

could he speak to them and ask if they'd allow him to take the extra leave out of next years allowance?

they will only do that if he gets more than statutory leave (28 days per annum which includes the eight bank holidays if he works full time). otherwise they can't allow him to do that.

He hadn't been working there long enough. Our fault. We should have checked thw entitlement. But to be told a week after you've taken a week off is a bit

And now we don't know whether he has any days left over once we take Christmas into account.

Ho hum. He's just going to have to pin his bos down.

Thanks all.

Sorry for the typos!

In light of the circumstances I'd be asking if I could use up some of the next years holiday entitlement.

Not ideal of course, but I would prefer that to a 'short' month in December of January iyswim.