Can some people get more annual leave than others?

[thekidsadabhand]

Hello

I work in the private sector and get minimal annual leave. It works out as just under 6 weeks (been there five years so increased then), of which we automatically lose a week after taking the 25/26th dec and 1st/2nd jan off. Not great, but doable. It's quite an emotional/high intensity role, and I'm desperate for a week off. But I need to save my annual leave for school holidays (no one's issue but mines I know).

A colleague has highlighted to me that the managers, of which there are 5- we are a very small team- all seem to be getting between 8-10 weeks if the annual leave is counted up. Two of these managers started after me, and seems to have slipped In to the old "legacy contracts" that I believe two of the managers that were there when I started were on.

Basically, can anyone advise if this is legal and am I going to open a can of worms by raising it? It feels like a real slap in the face, as I'm front line and working long and hard hours, whereas only some of the managers are doing this, others are desk facing and always seem to be finished on time.

Thanks

Yes it’s normally legal and not unusual to have more annual leave for more senior staff.

It could be illegal if they were treating part time employees less favourable or giving less annual leave depending on your sex.

I negotiated extra holiday when I started my role. I would ask for another week if I were you.

You do get parental leave it is a legal requirement. Check the link someone posted above which explains what you are entitled to and how to request it.

Are all bank holidays considered leave? You have no choice when to take them. Maybe you could negotiate the leave you get now but add bank Holidays as extra not part of it.

When I approached them that's what I asked for, for public holidays to not be incorporated into leave allowance. I don't feel it's asking for too much.

Can buy additional leave in my work and also can transfer leave over from the previous year or borrow from the next year.

I've worked in several places where leave entitlement was dependent on pay grade and also increased with service length.

Take it as unpaid.

My co worker has easily had 5 weeks of annual leave in a short space of time - we were only ever entitled to 7 ish days in the whole duration of being in place but so long as their is someone else in place to cover... they are also paid the same salary for 2 and a half hours less per week.

I think it's dishonest to pretend that public holidays and premises closures are part of the leave entitlement. What's next, pretending that weekends are leave?

I would welcome legislation that required leave to be stated as "X days of annual leave plus bank holidays and business closure from 25th Dec to 1st Jan". Substitute "TOIL for bank holidays" if the business needs that role to work BHs.

I'm on a management contract. I get more AL than front line colleagues.

I'm sure that it appears I've got it easy and it's unfair.

However, I've done my time as frontline and worked my way up to this position. I work office hours, but also do a lot of evenings, weekends, bank holidays. I'm a key holder so share responsibility if the building alarm goes off in the middle of the night. I do evening meetings. I pick things up on my way in and after work. If the shit hits the fan, I am expected to step up and muck in wherever needed. If there were ever a crisis while I was on AL, my CEO would call me on my personal phone.

I'm not saying I work harder or are more important than anyone else. Far from it.

But I'm trying to show that the role is different and my time isn't as freely mine as if I were were working in a purely M-F 9-5 role that allowed me to switch off at the end of the shift.

AL is one of those flexible perks that can be used as an incentive for senior staff recruitment and to encourage career progression.

Double check parental leave OP. You say it isn't offered at your workplace, but it is a right that you can apply for.

It's legal for different employees to have different leave entitlements, it depends what's in your contract. At my firm the administration staff used to get 5 days less leave than the lawyers which I thought was appalling. Fortunately that was levelled (up not down!)

I get more leave than newer staff because we earn an extra day for every 5 years and I've been there 15 years.

Then they introduced two discretionary days so we could also have our birthday off and a "wellbeing day" once a year. Then we merged with another firm last year and the staff from the other firm get the wb day but not bd. At the moment we still get the bd leave as we are still on a separate HR system but when we get moved into the main one we will lose our bd leave because it's discretionary. If it was a contractual entitlement employer would not be able to remove it even if the others did not get it.

Surprisingly Bank Holidays can be counted into the statutory minimum of annual leave though most employers (especially office based professions) will count BH as extra. It's more likely to crop us in retail/service industry roles which operate every day of the year.

6 weeks isn't minimal though - it's pretty standard for a full time role. So they are getting more than average rather than you getting less.

It's very hard to manage school holidays and work full time. That's true for everyone. So some people work in low paid jobs in schools, or as teachers working exceptionally long hours in term time, to give them the holidays off. Others use family or buy in holiday care. There's no easy solution for anyone, really.

So yes, worth trying to get more, but you're in the same position as most other people.

I work in HR

-parental leave is a legal right, they can’t blanket refuse.

-we have people on contracts from companies we bought on 30 days AL a year

-long service people are now on 30 days a year after 20 years service

-senior people negotiate it in their contracts

So it’s entirely possible.

https://www.gov.uk/parental-leave

Haven’t read the full thread but unpaid parental leave is an employment right, they can’t refuse it, only ask you to take it at an alternative time.

Yes very normal, we were allowed to buy leave in my last place, in some companies leave increases with service or more recent contracts are stingier (not just in terms of leave but pension and other important benefits). I worked with a senior person who had huge amounts of leave in his previous job due to service and negotiated to have the same allowance in his new contract.

All very normal.

Focus on your own benefits, not other people's.

My company made redundant a whole level of management a few years ago. So that level either took the redundancy or demotion. Those demoted kept the same pay for 6 months and an extra 2 weeks paid holiday each year. I'm the same level now as those that are demoted so have colleagues on same grade/pay but with extra holidays.

I think you will be banging your head against the wall if you try to persuade them it’s not fair.

Formally request to take unpaid leave/buy annual leave (largely the same thing) for a week or two. If they refuse this then look for another job.

I can roll five days, buy five days and have ten extra days for long service. So four weeks more than someone just starting

That's just silly. For starters, weekends are leave - for those people who don't work at weekends. Just becaise something is not called "annual leave" or "holiday leave" doesn't mean it isn't leave. And for those who work weekends then they do actually have to book them as annual leave.

Not everyone closes from 25th December to 1st January, nor does everyone get public holidays. For some people these are the busiest times for them. And why just Christmas anyway - if you would like to modernise, let's also have leave for Eids, Yom Kippur and the Chinese New Year. In fact, let's not bother turning up to work at all - they should be grateful for just paying us.

Everyone in the UK is entitled to a minimum of 28 days holiday. You can argue angels on a pinhead about whether this is enough or should be more. But no matter what every employer has the right to dictate exactly when every single one of those days is. The fact that they do not all exercise that right is good fortune for the majority, but it is never going to change, and there will never be legislation to remove that right. It would make more sense to remove all public holidays because they are all historical anachronisms that don't really have much relevance to modern society or working patterns; and then just have a set minimum holiday leave entitlement.

We can buy and sell leave , can you do that ? Or maybe they have negotiated that ?

And for those who work weekends then they do actually have to book them as annual leave.

No they don't, they have a shift pattern that gives them time off on weekdays instead of weekends. It's illegal in most jobs not to give an average of one day off in seven.

You've fundamentally misunderstood my point. When an employer says "28 days leave" in a job advert, most people will interpret that as "28 days, most or all of which I can ask to take at a time that suits me". In 2024, people would be very surprised if the 28 days looked like xmas closure, BHs, and "factory fortnight". I would regard failure to disclose such a restrictive leave policy in the advert as a form of dishonesty. It would be clearer and more honest for an employer to state in the job advert what proportion of the leave can be taken on request with due regard to the needs of the business and what portion is taken when the employer dictates. This would not in any way stop an employer from restricting when leave is taken, it would simply mean that they would have to be upfront at hiring time about doing so.

It's no different in principle from countries that have legislated that salary ranges have to be put in the job advert. It's about stopping employers from using unethical recruitment practices such as "bait and switch and exploiting the framing effect and applicants' commitment bias to shaft workers.

We used to have flexi-time where if you worked extra hours you could take extra days leave corresponding to the extra hours worked over a period. Also unpaid leave could be arranged if someone else could cover. And entitlement to leave increased with duration of employment.

If a Company closes for Christmas it's usual that staff have to take leave at that time. On the other hand for people like nurses it can be really difficult to take leave at Christmas because so many want to.

DH in public sector gets 33 days plus bank holidays.

Yes this the case for everyone in the NHS after ten years.

My last two jobs, the leave was stated as X days plus BHs and a Xmas closure. Staff who need to work over Xmas and on BHs, e.g. security, get TOIL to make up the days.

In retail, not only did I get no leave in December, I was also rotaed six days per week that month, which meant patterns of over a week without leave then one or two days off to get an average of one day off in seven for that month.

Literally no one is saying that the company can't specify when you take leave. I'm saying that they should be forced to be honest about it when hiring.