Furlough and annual leave

[HunterHearstHelmsley]

During the first two lockdowns, my workplace furloughed for childcare reasons. There was more than enough work, and we are key workers. It was a good will gesture from my employers.

We are just finalising summer annual leave. As a 'carrot', those not furloughed have been given annual leave priority for the next 2 years.

The shit is starting to hit the fan. I have 2.5 weeks book in the summer, October half term and Christmas - New Year booked. Its fairly similar across the board for others with priority. Parents are now insisting that our leave be cancelled so they can take the time. Unions are being involved and management are having conversations.

Am I correct in thinking that our leave cannot be cancelled in order for someone else to take it? I understand leave can be cancelled with double the amount of notice. Is this for only business critical reasons or can it be to give someone else the leave?

Currently I am only away for 1.5 weeks of the time I have booked (it's mainly to spend time with family children). I would consider swapping the time I have off, but I would want either extra pay or leave to do so.

@Inanun2
When did I say that. Personally my conscience wouldn't allow me to take time off in the school holidays if I knew this would be detrimental to a child. Prior to having children I had absolutely no issue whatsoever with allowing my colleagues with kids to have the priority, I'd presumed this would be the case in most work places. Clearly not.
Everything the OP has said indicates that they are resentful of colleagues having some sort of jolly during furlough. I'm amazed more people aren't coming on to say that home schooling was absolute hell and not a holiday. It is quite obvious that there is an element of spiteful ness in booking the leave over the school holidays, which I think is far more selfish than parents wanting to do the best by their children who have had an awful time over the last year.

Everyone seems to be taking the piss in your team and the managers seem out of their depth.

If you were all keyworkers, no one should have been put on furlough unless in exceptional circumstances. Ie. grand parents normally looking after the children and nurseries not offering places to new children. If people use excuses to have months off with their kids without having to pay for childcare, then that's very poor attitude.

However, booking almost all holiday off during school holidays when you don't have children seems very spiteful. The fact you are prepared to not do so for extra money/days off says it all. It is not essential to you.

There is clearly little respect and balance in your organisation and your managers are clearly overwhelmed dealing with it. They need new managers who are firmer but also think twice of the consequences of the promises they make.

[quote DancingQueen85]@Inanun2
When did I say that. Personally my conscience wouldn't allow me to take time off in the school holidays if I knew this would be detrimental to a child. Prior to having children I had absolutely no issue whatsoever with allowing my colleagues with kids to have the priority, I'd presumed this would be the case in most work places. Clearly not.
Everything the OP has said indicates that they are resentful of colleagues having some sort of jolly during furlough. I'm amazed more people aren't coming on to say that home schooling was absolute hell and not a holiday. It is quite obvious that there is an element of spiteful ness in booking the leave over the school holidays, which I think is far more selfish than parents wanting to do the best by their children who have had an awful time over the last year. [/quote]
@DancingQueen85 - Okay, we will have to agree to differ.

I think most larger employers will guarantee parents to have some time off in school holidays (normally a min of 2 weeks) and colleagues would not dispute that. But it can not be that all school holidays only go to parents. What about couples who have a teacher, factory shut down partner etc they have no choice of their holidays.
I have children myself, now teens but remember the problems all too well with no family near enough to support my DH and I shared hols between us and used holiday clubs, I do not consider that our children were disadvantaged or that it was detrimental to them, that’s life with 2 working parents.

At no point did I feel I was entitled to use all my leave in school holiday time and that others should be banned. No one is saying that schooling from home was easy, working parents who worked and schooled younger children have my respect but that is off topic and nothing to do with allocating holidays this year.

[quote DancingQueen85]@Inanun2
When did I say that. Personally my conscience wouldn't allow me to take time off in the school holidays if I knew this would be detrimental to a child. Prior to having children I had absolutely no issue whatsoever with allowing my colleagues with kids to have the priority, I'd presumed this would be the case in most work places. Clearly not.
Everything the OP has said indicates that they are resentful of colleagues having some sort of jolly during furlough. I'm amazed more people aren't coming on to say that home schooling was absolute hell and not a holiday. It is quite obvious that there is an element of spiteful ness in booking the leave over the school holidays, which I think is far more selfish than parents wanting to do the best by their children who have had an awful time over the last year. [/quote]
There is no spitefulness at all. I'm astounded that you think I should prioritise my workmates children over the children in my family. They've had a shit year too, they deserve a holiday too. I deserve to spend time with them.

Its not spiteful to put your own needs first when you haven't been able to for a long time. What's spiteful is to expect others to bend over backwards to accommodate.

I'm not going to be mad to feel guilty for prioritising my family. That's exactly what other people are doing, their wants and needs are not more important than mine.

It's been a hard slog but knowing I'll get some decent breaks, and being able to spend quality time with school age family members has helped me persevere.

@HunterHearstHelmsley
This is all about you. I doubt it has anything to do with the children in your family, who I'm sure happiness does not depend on spending time with their Aunt. The children of your colleagues rely on their parents in a way that your nieces and nephews do not rely on you. Their need is far greater than yours and I'm astounded that you can't see this.
You haven't even tried to hide the fact that your deeply resentful of the fact that your colleagues were furloughed and have shown absolutely no understanding of how tough this period was for parents. I can categorically tell you that it was not the relaxing break you think it was and they are just as in need of some down time as you are.

There is no spitefulness at all. I'm astounded that you think I should prioritise my workmates children over the children in my family. They've had a shit year too, they deserve a holiday too. I deserve to spend time with them.
I'm still finding difficulty balancing the fact that you keep saying that, but also keep saying that you'd be willing to give it all up for extra pay or holiday at another time. Sorry, but your fallback position doesn't doesn't jive with the other things you are saying.

Op isn’t taking 2 weeks tho she’s taking 22 days which by my book is over 4 weeks in school hols

So potentially

Oct
Feb
Whit week
Week in summer

Summer ain’t too bad as there’s other weeks but in many workplaces that would stop parents having any of the other half terms

So yes it’s a dick move and I hope her colleagues resent her for it

For record I don’t think what leave you ah e booked should be cancelled but this policy would be thrown out by union

It’s simply not allowed it’s illegal in same way race discrimination and victimisation are

[quote DancingQueen85]@HunterHearstHelmsley
This is all about you. I doubt it has anything to do with the children in your family, who I'm sure happiness does not depend on spending time with their Aunt. The children of your colleagues rely on their parents in a way that your nieces and nephews do not rely on you. Their need is far greater than yours and I'm astounded that you can't see this.
You haven't even tried to hide the fact that your deeply resentful of the fact that your colleagues were furloughed and have shown absolutely no understanding of how tough this period was for parents. I can categorically tell you that it was not the relaxing break you think it was and they are just as in need of some down time as you are.
[/quote]
Where have I shown any resentment? That's absolute rubbish.

Their need is not greater than mine. Its ridiculous to say so. They may consider their needs to be greater but that does not make it a fact.

I enjoy spending time with my nieces and nephews. They enjoy spending time with me. If I am not off at the same time as them then it's unlikely they will get a holiday away as I am the driver. They deserve their family around them as much as my colleagues.

@Watapalava

Op isn’t taking 2 weeks tho she’s taking 22 days which by my book is over 4 weeks in school hols

So potentially

Oct
Feb
Whit week
Week in summer

Summer ain’t too bad as there’s other weeks but in many workplaces that would stop parents having any of the other half terms

So yes it’s a dick move and I hope her colleagues resent her for it

For record I don’t think what leave you ah e booked should be cancelled but this policy would be thrown out by union

It’s simply not allowed it’s illegal in same way race discrimination and victimisation are

2.5 weeks in the summer, October half term and Christmas. With another 8(ish) weeks booked outside of term time. Only one third of my leave is booked in the school holiday period.

I'm not sure that I'd be able to book it all without using some school holidays. There's busy periods and others pre booked leave also. One of my colleagues is having a summer of festivals ☺

@HunterHearstHelmsley

When you stated the following it showed plenty of resentment and a complete lack of understanding about what lockdown was like for parents;

"Social media posts of them having a great time on full pay whilst you're slogging your guts out doesn't create much goodwill."

As an adult I would always ( within reason) put the needs of children before my own. I thought this was a fairly basic principle within society.
And yes I would say it is fact that a child's need to spend time with their parent trumps the need of a child to spend time with their Aunt/ uncle.

Fair enough if you wanted to take a week off during the summer but 2.5 weeks and then October half term is taking the absolute piss. I'm not surprised your colleagues are taking action against this.

She’s entitled to take whatever time off during the year that she wants and does not have to justify it at all.
Even if her reason for the timing was to screw over her colleagues she’s still entitled to book that time off. It’s not the OP that has caused this. Though if that was her reason why not use more of the holiday during the school holidays

@HunterHearstHelmsley it's your annual leave and you should take it as you want. I'm sick of people with younger children automatically thinking they should get summer holidays off, they decided to have children so childcare is their problem not yours. It's exactly the same in my workplace, because mine are teenagers my colleagues think they can look after themselves and they should get the school holidays off. Never mind that the best weather is in the summer holidays, everyone else must work around them. Don't get me started on the furlough thing, I worked right through and yes people were out and about last summer having a good time when the essential workers were stuck in work.

I have DC and you have my full support OP. This situation is entirely of your employers' own making. They should have been monitoring your leave throughout last year to ensure you were taking it to avoid you having a "glut" to use up now, and also for your own well-being. They didn't as it suited their purposes at the time because they'd been shortsighted about the management and implementation of the furlough scheme.

Your colleagues (and some on this thread) are unreasonable to expect you to avoid school holidays when you have such a vast amount to take. If you want to spend some of your leave with your neices and nephews this year after shouldering the load when I was on furlough, I'd say good luck to you and find alternative childcare. Some people always stay childless, and never see the benefit of the often-mooted holiday trade off between parents and child free colleagues. It's not fair to encourage a workplace culture where it's not seen as acceptable for them at any stage in their career to request leave when parents "might" want it.

Your employer has handled this very badly. Regardless of the furlough arrangements, all employees should be treated equally when taking holidays. Employees with children don’t legally or morally have any greater right to take time off during the school holidays. Peoples individual circumstances are irrelevant.

I'm sure home schooling during lockdown wasn't easy. Neither was working all hours to cover furloughed colleagues as op has done.
This crap about parents being entitled to school hols off over non parents is not helping employers to see parents as a good bet to hire.

I say take your holidays, make some fantastic memories and enjoy your family time OP.
And yes the colleagues who were furloughed from my work place had a blast last summer.

It's her annual leave to take whenever she wants
I'm never having children, should I never take time off in school holidays then?
Someone tried that guilt trip on me at my last job when I had worked 6 Christmas days in a row, and said I shouldn't be able to have Christmas Day off

The problem is, these lockdowns have been utterly crap for just about everyone, people who worked through and people who were furloughed.
There's always been an undercurrent of competition as to who had it worse, well the reality is you can't really compare because each situation is different.

Your employer handled this badly from the start, possibly with the best of intentions, by trading on the goodwill of those who could get childcare and expecting the rest to pick up the slack, and by creating the illusion that it was the staff left at works responsibility to do that and the furloughed staffs responsibility to pay that back.
None of that is staff responsibility, it's management's responsibility to ensure there were enough staff to cover the workload in the first place, and to do something like hiring more that could be available, short term if childcare was an issue, instead of playing on goodwill during the pandemic and the "We're all this together and everyone that can should do their bit" bollocks to get more work done by less people, while the government paid 80% of the furloughed staffs wages, which if workload increased, has saved them a fair amount of money.

It was a management decision to sweeten the pot so that could happen, your furloughed colleagues had no choice over that, and likely if it was for genuine lack of childcare, no choice about not being able to work.

It looks like both sets of employees are going to be pissed off here, to some degree, and the company are going to be quids in still.

Personally I think your employer should be honouring what they've said, but not expecting furloughed colleagues to take the fall, if it leaves them short staffed then they need to put their hands in their pockets and get temporary staff to cover the times it'll be short - like they should have in the first place.

2.5 weeks of out 6 would block off half the summer holiday period in my workplace

With 30+ staff in my place only 5 have kids but only 2 off at same time so you’d be taking half holidays which is a lot sobyea selfishness to take 1/2 summer school holiday period

The 1/2 week will prevent the full week being taken

You booked 50% of summer period and think it’s ok?!

@HunterHearstHelmsley

You have an amazing amount of annual leave. Most people only get 5 weeks plus statutory! Have you had your requests signed off then rescinded or was it just informally agreed? Bad form from your employer if the former, but I can see your employers point of view, you received almost as much money for not having to work, those who did getting first pick of the holidays does seem fair. Personally I have sorted a system where everyone gets to request 2 weeks and only when all of those are allocated can they next 2 weeks be picked and the final 6 days (26 days al) cannot be allocated before June, means all the parents get a fair crack at the school hols

Your managers have really made a mess of this. You should get to take your leave if that was agreed. Franky doesn’t matter if you want to spend it with relatives, feel the weather is better in school holidays and want to sun bathe or are providing childcare.

I think that may cause issues for parents, potential discrimination, even if parents knew in advance. management should get temporary staff to cover. Hopefully if there has been more work and saving from furlough they should be able to do that this year at least.

I’d be pissed off as well OP. Personally, I give my a/l away if it’s in any of the school holidays (ours is pre-allocated) and my colleagues with young children are queuing up for it! I don’t have children and so can’t think of anything worse than going on holiday, paying more for the privilege and being surrounded by other people’s kids!

That said, I like you, have a DN and when I lived away, the only time they could visit was in school holidays. So yes, I did take some leave then, as I’m entitled to by law. It is not discriminatory; being a parent is not a protected characteristic AFAIK.

@Watapalava

2.5 weeks of out 6 would block off half the summer holiday period in my workplace

With 30+ staff in my place only 5 have kids but only 2 off at same time so you’d be taking half holidays which is a lot sobyea selfishness to take 1/2 summer school holiday period

The 1/2 week will prevent the full week being taken

You booked 50% of summer period and think it’s ok?!

@Watapalava your site can't possibly run 30+ staff with only 2 off at once. 30 staff with at least 5 weeks off can't be spread across 52 weeks with only 2 off at once. A minimum of 3 at once is needed and that involves spreading leave across every single week of the year.

All individuals are entitled to take reasonable annual leave in warm months, not just those with children.

In this instance the company has prevented the non furloughed staff taking leave last year and they have had to carry over leave into this year.

The company is either going to need to bring in additional support or accept reduced capacity in order to allow all of their staff to take their accrued leave.

It is not the people who worked their butts off last years fault that they have additional leave to take. And they must be allowed to take it, or recompensed for it. It is not selfish to want a summer holiday when you sacrificed your leave last year so that others could be home with their kids.

2 per team

By all means take the leave but why so much in school hols? The OP states she’d happily move it for money so seems ‘spending time with the young kids in her family’ is not as major as she makes out

If it was that important she wouldn’t offer it back at a price

It’s this but that makes her look bad

why so much in school hols?

When is she supposed to take it? OP has 62 days accrued. She can't take it in June /July due to business needs. People don't want her to take it in school holidays. What's left?