do I need to be worried that my new boss can cancel my pre-booked holiday ?

[AshleyWilkes]

DH and I have booked a month off in the spring to go abroad to see family.
The company I work for allows "career breaks" as long as its requested in writing to the boss and he approves it.
Last March I did so and the boss approved it (verbally) and left to up to our supervisor to organize. Because it was a year in advance she's put it on her mental shelf to do later, but is aware of it still. (I've been chatting to her about it, how excited we are etc, flights are all booked etc).

Now, 8 months on, we have a new boss as the last one resigned. He is a nice chap, but has already started "making his mark" by changing things, pulling people up on sometimes questionable behaviour that the last boss had become lazy with.

Last week he requested a copy of the letter I previously brought in regarding my holiday. As his predecessor had lost the original.

I might be worrying about nothing but could he cancel my holiday ? Nothing has happened yet but I suffer with anxiety and I'm stressing about it.
What are my rights ?
Thanks for reading...

Last week he requested a copy of the letter I previously brought in regarding my holiday. As his predecessor had lost the original umm I think we are in 21st century aren't we? Computer records surely don't get "lost" like old fashioned originals. Not a pop at you, but your HR person or administrator surely needs to do better than that

Can you show all your flight and hotel bookings as proof you would stand to lose a lot of money if this holiday sabbatical is refused.

Don't you have any email correspondence you can provide as an audit trail about quite a significant chunk of annual leave being granted. Lesson for the future keep your own personal records of agreements!

Also, surely the new manager needs to allow for pre existing agreements

Do you book your annual leave into a computer based system or even a dept spreadsheet that you can evidence process was followed?

Do you only have verbal approval? Do you have any proof at all that approval was given?

As regards rights, I would suggest you try and produce any evidence to show the request followed protocol. Without that, the company are within their rights to reconsider your leave as it was booked a long time ago and business scenarios change. They would however need to come up with a very good business reason to dig their heals in though.

I would be cooperative and factual about how the leave was approved and hope the new manager is professional enough to honour his predecessor's decision to approve your holiday.

Pottering, I have to admit I'm aghast if it was all done only on a verbal!

I have kept a copy of the letter I gave them last spring and I have several witnesses who were there and heard my supervisor say to me it was approved, arranging to use certain holiday allowance etc.

Other than that there is no paper trail, as it was a year in advance like I said so was too early to put on the rota etc, she obviously put it to the back of her mind until it was nearer the time..

Why did you send a letter and not email?

Sorry if that sounds harsh but surely your policy isn't so backwards that you need to send "in writing" requests via letter?

If there's no record of approval they can't cancel, as there's nothing to cancel iyswim. So you'll need to have it reapproved I'd imagine.

Last year we booked a trip to NZ for a month. All approved by work. Flights booked etc. Towards the end of the year I resigned and was told to cancel my holiday. As no holidays allowed during notice period.

I refused. They cancelled. I asked them to reimburse me for the £0000's spent on flights (to NZ at christmas...not cheap). They refused. Apparently I should have thought about this before I booked. After a huge argument with HR We still went.

Re-write your letter. Send it via email as well as hard copy. Talk to new boss and supervisor. Check your insurance just in case you have to cancel I hope you don't but just to be sure you will be reimbursed

The company policy is to hand it in writing (hard copy) to the manager.

We won't be cancelling, DH has said sod them if they're going to be difficult, hand your notice in and look for another job when we get back.

I'm just anxious about it