Notice period and annual leave

[LadyRivers1]

Looking for some advice on handing in my notice when I have annual leave booked in. Ideally, I'm hoping to have a job offer firmed up for Friday, when I would hand my 2 week notice in at my current role. However, I am due to go on leave the following Monday for a week. Is this really unprofessional of me, and would I still be entitled to take my weeks leave? Would be grateful for any advice anyone could give me on this!

I think in theory they could ask you to cancel your leave but I’m not sure.

Firstly, it will depend on if you have accrued the annual leave yet, if your annual leave year starts in April for example, it's unlikely you'll have accrued a week.m depending on if you have any rolled over etc.

Well either way you are entitled to holiday entitlement being paid.
You will have to ask.

We’ve both negotiated using up holiday entitlement as part of the notice period. Eg 4 weeks notice required, but had two weeks holiday owning, so worked two weeks and took two weeks paid holiday.

Thank you for the replies so far. Our holiday year runs from January and I haven't taken any yet, plus have a week rolled over from last year so I do have the entitlement. I've had this week booked in since January and would still have a week to work when I came back (if I am offered the job!) so I'm hoping it would be honoured. I also still have to work this Saturday so it's not like I'd be handing my notice in then going straight on to annual leave. I suppose I can only see what happens, it's all a bit hypothetical right now.

The employer can only cancel leave if they give the same amount of notice as the length of leave to be cancelled. So no, I didn’t see that legally they will be able to cancel your leave as they won’t have time.

Personally I think resigning then immediately going on holiday is unkind and a little unprofessional if you have a handover to do and this now means only one week in which to do it, but I don’t see an issue if there is no handover to be done.

Could you work an extra week or do you need to start the new role sooner than that?

The two are not connected. Its a coincidence as you booked leave in January and it just happens to fall in your notice period. As a manager I wouldn’t worry and would not consider it unprofessional.

Employers usually prefer employees who are leaving to take their annual leave before they go, as otherwise they have to pay for it with the last pay packet, don't they? So you work out how much annual leave you have brought forward plus accrued to the leaving date, and take that before you go. If there isn't time to do that, they will have to pay you in lieu. At least that's what I've always assumed.

They won’t be able to cancel it- there won’t be enough time.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Employers usually prefer employees who are leaving to take their annual leave before they go, as otherwise they have to pay for it with the last pay packet, don't they? So you work out how much annual leave you have brought forward plus accrued to the leaving date, and take that before you go. If there isn't time to do that, they will have to pay you in lieu. At least that's what I've always assumed.

Some will, some won’t. Unless the individual has no work or is disruptive, I would generally want people to work their leave for handover reasons.

Anyway as mentioned earlier, in the case the employer cannot legally cancel the leave.

I’ve seen it happen. At my last job my colleague had 4 weeks notice but had 2 weeks holiday booked for ages as she was going abroad. She worked two weeks then went on holiday and then started her new job.