Annual leave and authorisation

[GaynorGoodwin]

I’ve booked a few days annual leave both this month and next. The process we follow is by then forwarding to our supervisor who authorises it and sends it back (or not as the case may be). The problem I have is that the supervisor is always busy and stressed whenever I seem to be booking leave and takes ages to send the form back to me. No-one else has this problem from what I can see.
It’s my annual leave and yet I have to wait why she catches up with her work. Any advice, it’s winding me up,

I feel your pain! It took my employers 6 months to authorise my 2 week holiday. More than annoying as I ended up booking it anyway as I needed to plan and budget to pay for it. Then I spent my time worrying that I had wasted my money and my leave would be rejected. I don't normally book trips/holidays without authorisation.

What does the company's annual leave policy state? Or local procedure if the policy is too general and high level?

If it isn't that formalised, then rule of thumb at my place of work is double the amount of time required for approval as the duration of leave. For 1 day's leave, 2 days notice, for 2 weeks leave, 4 weeks notice etc. This is aligned to ACAS good practice by the way.

You could try reminding them that annual leave is statutory and therefore by them failing to approve holiday for weeks and months, they are failing in their duty of care.

I would take a dim view of an employer who doesn't take stuff like that seriously, as it shows their priorities are not towards their workforce. It's a basic legal requirement.