Holiday policy - does this sound ok?

[nocampinghere]

I'm sitting on a contract for a new job, close to accepting but i have a niggle about the holiday policy.
Annual allowance is 6 weeks - great! Though offset by a long 8-6 working day.
Also the policy says (and they mentioned it at interview), that holiday dates need to be agreed before any holiday is booked and time taken off has to be sensitive to the "needs of the business". They want a long break taken over christmas & NY, 2 (or even 3) weeks in the quiet July/August summer months.
Does this sound reasonable? Seems a bit prescriptive to me but would appreciate your thoughts. TIA.

I don't think the leave entitlement is that generous considering your longer day. Do you get bank holidays in addition to the 6 weeks?
I wouldn't like to take my holidays in large chunks like that but I don't think you can really do much about it.

8-6pm. I know there are some that say that’s nothing... but to me that’s exhaustion and burn out when it’s in your contract. No way does 30 days holiday compensate for no life/energy for 44 weeks of the year.

Audit and compliance as mentioned by hundred above is the main reason I know for min 2 week breaks.

I would also consider this job in terms of pay per hour - if you assume a 37.5hr week is normal then you will be working between 45 and 47.5 hrs per week. That's an extra 7.5-10hrs a week or 1.5 hrs a day, so 20%+ on your working day. Are you gonna get that much of a benefit? Does the holiday give enough compensating value (especially if they dictate when you take it?)

bank holidays are extra.
6 weeks holiday, 30 days + bank holidays

This seems very reasonable.

Surely it would be unreasonable for an employee to book leave at a time that wasn’t sensitive to business needs??

So bleeding obvious that it shouldn’t need saying.

New ideas - it's reasonable I think, but that lack of flexibility may reduce its value to the op, in which case it might not be better than her current job, especially if she's working 20% extra hours every week.

That's an extra 330+ (Min, assuming it's only a 45 he working week) hours a year or more than 8 extra weeks of a 37.5 hour job!

So bleeding obvious that it shouldn’t need saying.

really?
i have never encountered this before! Obviously if the whole team is off together that's a problem but it usually works out fine.

I'll probe a bit more into the 8-6 office hours... I'm sure when i was in for my interview people were leaving as i was leaving at 5.30ish.

So bleeding obvious that it shouldn’t need saying

really?
i have never encountered this before! Obviously if the whole team is off together that's a problem but it usually works out fine

I have been working for 35 years in many different jobs and with many different teams and without exception you would always be expected to have your leave authorized befire making your own holiday plans. It could be for many reasons, eg for the manager to plan who is around when, if everyone wanted the same week off it would cause chaos, of if we were in mandatory training or there was a special event going on etc.
However despite these potential restrictions ive only had a couple of days refused in all that time so it's not usually a problem.

I tend to work out the hourly rate for the job to get a clear perspective. So, as an example....

If your salary was £25k and you worked a standard 37.5 hour week with 25 days holiday and 8 days bank holiday you would earn £14.68 per hour.

If your salary was £25k and you worked 45 hours per week (8am to 6pm) with 30 days holiday and 8 days bank holiday you would earn £12.51 per hour.

I wouldn't work 8am to 6pm frankly as I like to have some sort of life outside work.

We get 6 weeks holiday (plus bank holidays plus 4 closure days over Christmas) on a 35 hour working week. Whilst I have done 8am-6pm (even longer) in peak periods, I wouldn't fancy it day in day out every working day.