Holiday restrictions - is this reasonable or even legal?

[Cosette]

Seen an internal memo, which states that people in my role (lowly manager) are no longer allowed to take holiday during the months of March, June, September and December, due to business requirements.

I think this is a knee-jerk reaction to too many people taking time off at Easter, but if they do decide to enforce it rigidly, is it legal?

My feeling is that it discriminates more against female employees as they are likely to have childcare responsibilities. Am I right?

my DH has the same restirctions on when he can take holiday so i dont think its a man/woman thing.
MY DH works in retail so is not allowed holidays in OCT/NOV/DEC/JAN or AUG because these are the buisiest times, problem is he is always last to book his hols so we never get good times IYKWIM.

My DH can't take holiday from mid March-start of June as they get really busy then.

It's probably partly peak business time and partly a reaction to lots of people using their holiday at the same time and causing staffing issues.

A lot of people probably try for June and September in particular as the prices are lower than July/August and the resorts are quieter.

If it was really discriminating against people with childcare responsibilities, surely it would include the summer holidays.

I think it was more the "any holiday" ie not even half a day. I had a quick look and the Sex Discrimination Act does say that an employment policy that disadvantages women more than men can be illegal, but not if there's a genuine business reason.

I don't think there is a genuine business reason, and it feels like management bullying to be honest. This won't cause my male colleagues many problems, but it's likely to cause me some.

I appreciate there are many industries where holiday is restricted for good reasons, and don't actually have a problem with them saying not the last week of those months - which is the current situation.

My gut feeling is that it won't be enforced, so hope to carry on as usual!

I thought it was legal for an employer to actually tell you exactly when you can have your holidays ie no chioce.

It is perfectly legal for an employer to completely dictate all your holiday dates, the only legal thing is that they have to make sure you get them.

Having said that, if they want to change your terms and conditions, there are hoops they need to jump through, see here.

Why do you think it's not a genuine business reason? Why else would they do it, by which I mean what would be the point, what would they be gaining?

I personally think you'd struggle to say this was indirect sex discrimination tbh - it's not as if they are suddenly saying everyone must work full time or anything, and men are parents as well. Are none of your male colleagues parents?

You may well be right, it might not be enforced properly or at all anyway, because all it means is all those people will be taking holiday at the same time outside of those times, so I expect they might find they have to relax it a bit anyway.

flowery thanks - I do actually work for a fairly enlightened very large employer - who have lots of good policies - flexible working etc. The problem comes lower down sometimes and we do sometimes get fairly spurious dictats , which seem to be a way of enforcing authority rather than for any genuine need.

I do work in a very male-dominated industry, and yes, although most of my male colleagues have children, the vast majority also have wives with the main responsibility for dealing with them.

So on one hand senior management is actually trying to encourage women to progress, and on the other hand obstacles are put up. Ironically in the same email there is a statement to the effect that managers need to do more to encourage and demonstrate work/life balance!

If they rigidly enforce this, then I will probably look for another role/job - still in the same organisation, but another part.

I think it will be tricky to enforce this, particularly if it's not something which is organisation-wide, and against the general 'culture' of the organisation as well.

It's not discrimination - the fact that your male colleagues and their wives have a personal arrangement whereby their wives take all the responsibility for this type of things isn't really relevant. They could perfectly easily argue that it affects them equally as they have equal responsibility for their children during holidays as you do during yours. Irritating but there it is.

Check out what your terms and conditions say about holiday and restrictions on it, with reference to the link I posted about changes to t&cs. If they try to enforce it, you could either challenge it or, as you say, look to transfer elsewhere in the organisation - that's a good opportunity if you might have it so might be worth considering anyway if you feel it might be a better atmosphere generally somewhere else.

thanks for the info, it's useful. Will sit tight for the timebeing and see what happens - have a few potential options coming up, but I do enjoy this job on the whole so not especially keen to move, but will if things get too restrictive.

I'm not allowed to take leave at the end of July or the start of September due to the nature of my job. And there are also limits on how many people can be off at any one time so you can't necessarily get Christmas/Easter/summer off if other people have already booked it.

it's a PITA but understandable.