Annual leave

[Clohow]

Hi, I have been offered a role which is perfect except the annual leave. I was told that I’d have 28 days leave, that the office closes for two weeks over Christmas, I’d have to use 10 days for that and have 18 days annual leave left for the year.

How do I politely broach this or do I accept and go with it?

It sounds pretty clear what their arrangements are. You could ask is there ever and flexibility around annual leave but I wouldn't expect them to say yes. Unless maybe your role is wfh and you would have work to do when everyone else is off, sounds like they shut down for 2 weeks though. Can you buy extra leave or accrue extra leave, is there a policy around carer leave or emergency leave?

That's perfectly legal I'm afraid.

28 days is the English minimum annual leave. What are the other t&C's like?

I wouldn’t take the job. I’ve never worked anywhere that made you take anything more than 3 days at Christmas.

I work with this arrangement too. Our company allows us to use unpaid leave or TOIL for when they're closed at Christmas if we wish. Would this be an option for you?

Does that include bank holidays? So would it be 28 days plus 8 bhs? In which case you would use 7 days annual leave at Xmas (plus 3 bank holidays)
if not then they are offering the bare minimum legal amount.

Would you get flexi time? Does it increase with continuous employment?
i have to take 27-31 dec off as we are closed but I get 7 weeks plus bank hols
i wouldn’t be happy with 18 days.

28 days! Does that include Bank Holdays?

If not it’s almost 6 weeks which is very generous. I work in a sector thought to be cushy but we get only 20 days + bank holidays. At one university I worked at, we were required to count Monday Bank Holidays (other than Easter and Christmas) as ordinary working days.

I wouldn’t take the job as that wouldn’t work for me.

Why don't you ask if you can have an additional 10 days holiday (unpaid) and they taje the money out across the year.?

If you have kids you could always book unpaid parental leave.

Including bank hols

So they offer the minimum legal annual leave. They're unlikely to give you a better allowance than existing staff, it would cause uproar if your colleagues found out. Although you could ask about taking unpaid leave.

What are the other advantages, pay, location, hours, type of work/career development? You need to consider the whole package. If the job is otherwise good, you could take it and then encourage your new colleagues to collectively bargain, with or without a union, for better T&Cs, more annual leave and a more flexible way to use it.

Plus an office closing for 2 whole weeks at Christmas, at the cost of employees' annual leave could be seen as indirect discrimination against people who practice faiths other than Christianity as it restricts the leave they can take for other religious festivals. If they at least only closed between Christmas and New Year, it would give back 3 days that could be used at other times of year.

Would you normally take Christmas off anyway? Good opportunity for some winter sun.

Mine and my husband's works have Christmas off (for me the 3 days is a freebie, for him the 3 days is annual leave) and we're going away for a 4 weeks

They've offered the legal amount. If it doesn't work for you dont take it.

Ten days?? I get 25 days plus bank holidays, so 33 days. They usually give us an extra day over Christmas, so only 2 days usually comes out of AL for being closed from 25th to 1st. I might decide to take another couple of days off around that but it's our choice.

You could ask if you could work on the bank holidays and get some leave back that way.

Can you buy more?
Our basic offer for early careers is 25 days plus bank hols ( they have to work some so its credited) plus they can buy (or sell) up to 5.
Like others, your offer would mean a decline from me.

That’s crap. I get 25 days plus bank holidays and don’t have to set aside any days for Christmas. And that’s been pretty much the same wherever I’ve worked.

Walk away.

It’s legal but it shows that they don’t really care about their staff. Benefits are usually a good indicator of the type of company they are.

Thanks everyone

I’ll see what I can negotiate re holiday - hours are great, five mins door to door

Would be the employer and myself so no other staff

20 days annual leave is pretty standard though. Ie 4 weeks.

On the plus side, you never have to fight to take Christmas off (I’m having the bank holidays plus 2 days this year - but not on call which I have been previously). So while I get more leave, there’s always a flip side. Can you make 10 days at Christmas work for you is the question if everything else will give you a good work life balance?

We close over Christmas, work Christmas eve then usually go back 2nd January unless it's a weekend. Staff have to use holiday entitlement, usually works out between 3-5 days they need to use. No one has complained about it, they still have another 5 weeks to take across the year and sometimes I'm chasing them to use it!

ETA they get 28 pro rata which includes bhs but we're open on most bank hols anyway so they can take it whenever they like

I work for a tiny company and we get

25 days annual leave plus bank holidays
our birthday off
4 well being days ( we have to take a day off each quarter) supposed to be used for doing something nice/relaxing and not childcare or chores!

so a total of 38 days - 9 of those being fixed dates across the year leaving 29 days to take when we want

I negotiated 5 extra days at the start, they offered me the job with the extra leave for same pay

This would be a massive red flag for me. I've worked in two places that gave the legal minimum leave (and legal minimum breaks) and they were both, predictably, awful places to work. It's a very clear sign that they don't value employees and will get away with the worst conditions they can legally impose.

There are 8 bank holiday

so 3 at Xmas - where you need to take another 7 days

then that leaves you 5 bank holidays Easter Good Friday and Monday, May Day, whitsun and August

and 13 days to choose

obviously 🙄 f you choose to holiday at Easter you’d get those days but Easter is school holidays so more expensive

whining is half turn so again more expensive

id try and get an extra 3 days or even unpaid leave at Xmas