Employer asking all non furloughed staff to book AL now

[somewhereovertherainbutt]

My company (non key workers) have requested that we all ensure we book at least 65% of our annual leave to be taken by the end of September (14 days if we have a 21 day allocation) and book in our remaining leave to the end of the year. Sorry for random bold (cut and paste)!

home.kpmg/uk/en/home/insights/2020/04/ec-covid19-annual-leave-carry-over-rules-to-be-relaxed.html

I thought that the govt had amended the legislation and we were allowed to carry over the allowance?

What are people's thoughts?

You are allowed to carry over up to 20 days but employers do have the right to tell employees when to take their leave.

Thanks @SunbathingDragon so that means it's up to the employer?

Unfortunately so. The new legislation protects people whose companies cannot support them taking their full leave entitlement by enabling them to spread it over a longer period of time.

Do you think you will need the additional leave in your next leave year? If so, perhaps if you believe you will have childcare difficulties with another wave of coronavirus etc, then you could contact your HR to justify carrying it over and hope they agree.

You are allowed to carry it over if you cannot take it due to coronavirus. If your employer is asking you to book it, that doesn't suggest you can't take it.

What's your concern with booking it?

My employer is asking us to do similar. They don’t want all the work force off on leave when things start to return to normal. Also if people are quiet right now they would rather we use leave and are then available to work when things get busier.

I’d also note the the legislation about carrying leave over Is to protect those that cannot take annual leave (e.g. key workers who have leave cancelled right now) so they don’t loose it. It isn’t for those of us who just want to carry over leave to use once we can actually go on holiday again. There does seem to be some misconceptions around this. There is nothing preventing me from taking annual leave as normal this year so the legislation doesn’t apply.

Thanks all, that's helpful.

Perfectly entitled to tell you to do that as long as it’s not more than pro rata.

We're the same. To be fair they want a scenario where all staff returning at the end of the summer have their entire holiday allowance remaining

Tbh, from a business perspective end of September is 75% of the annual leave year gone if Jan to Jan. So for most years and employees I imagine they'd have taken this.
I don't think that it's unreasonable of them as they're still giving free rein, to take as you like between month 5 and 10 in effect.
I get its not ideal timing if we're going to be in and out of lockdown or not able to actually go anywhere, but I think expecting that you add your days to next leave is totally unreasonable and would be a double whammy to employers already hit negatively this year.

Agreed, @SoloMummy. It's been good to get perspective.

We've all been told to take a week by end of June and another by end September.

Praying the lockdown will be sufficient

..tly lifted that we can travel somewhere else by then as otherwise it's a waste.

We were told the same. However, I was relying on grandparents helping out with the three weeks of half days when my youngest starts school in September, which they can no longer do as two out of three have serious underlying health conditions, and they understandably don't want to go near a school, even if they're told it's safe to go out. So my employers are ok with me saving it until then.

This is interesting. I am currently "on leave" for a week in my garden...making a huge change from the last month!! It really does feel like a waste of leave but backing it all up until the end of the year is not feasible. I have mentioned this to staff at our weekly zoom meeting but it didnt get a great response as you can imagine. I didnt know it was enforceable

Our leave year ends 30th Sept, we have 20-25 days of choice and the only concession is that we can now carry up to 5 instead of up to 3 days over.

Everything is taking so much longer WFH, really behind on work do not sure when I can actually take leave without then being under more pressure

We're the same - I have a team of 40, and no one's booked leave since February, and a lot of what was booked has been cancelled (we've no furloughs, all WFH). They can only carry over 5 days into next year so we're left with a glut of PTO that people are going to loose if they don't book it.

So we're telling people to book the time now, because if they leave it last minute we won't be able to accomodate too many at the one time

"This is interesting. I am currently "on leave" for a week in my garden...making a huge change from the last month!! It really does feel like a waste of leave but backing it all up until the end of the year is not feasible. I have mentioned this to staff at our weekly zoom meeting but it didn't get a great response as you can imagine. I didn't know it was enforceable"

Enforcing it is the fairest thing to do. If everyone is told they have to take, say, a week, then everyone 'loses' a week out of their holiday entitlement in terms of not being able to go to the Canaries or whatever they'd want to do normally. If it's only being 'encouraged' or similar, then some will and others will drag their feet hoping for their holiday to be able to be used for what they like, or whatever. Best thing to do in my view is deal with it now to prevent arguments and backlog later.