holiday requests

[beanieb]

I have worked for the same company for 10 years. We used to have 3 members of staff in my area but redundancies meant that we were reduced to 2. This means that if I or my work colleague wants to take holiday we have to first check that there are other members of staff from other areas who can cover.

I have just put in a request for holiday in June 2010. It is quite far in advance but there is a precedent set as other people have booked off holiday this far ahead.

I was asked by my boss to check with the three members of staff who are trained up to work here and have had the following replies

1. I'm not sure so far ahead. I'll probably want to book some leave as my 1st wedding anniversary is on the 26th and me and Kim would like to go away.

1. You can put me down provisionally but as its so far ahead I can't be sure what my plans will be next June- or indeed if our contracts will be extended or if I'll be here! My contract expires next March.

1. I can't say this far ahead as like Dean and Andrew my contract ends on March 31st so it will all depend on whether or not our contracts are renewed.

Also, my brother is getting married on June 27th next year so I will want to take some leave around that time myself.

So..... Am I wrong to be thinking that, as I am the only one who has actually put a request in so far, my request should be accepted and they should work around my plans rather than me having to put any firm plans I might have on hold just incase they need the holiday time?

FFS.

With a bit of luck I will get pregnant really soon and I will be on Maternity leave anyway.

If you were my member of staff, and those were the responses, I'd tell you to book it and the others would just have to work round you. Or rather, person 1 would not be allowed to take leave at the same time if there was a risk the contractors might no longer be there.

Actually, I wouldn't have made you check if person 1 hadn't booked leave at that date by now, I'd say "first come first served" for a holiday any time other than Xmas/New Year where we all have to compromise most years.

exactly, don't you think?!

I have asked my boss to clarify if I should put my holiday requests on hold so other people can finalise plans they have not properly made yet - obviously not in a facetious way.

Is your boss refusing to grant your request on the basis that those replies aren't firm enough then?

Obviously people whose contracts run out prior to your holiday are not in a position to guarantee they'll be around, so presumably your boss realises that?

Other than that, if your boss isn't prepared to book those dates for you on the basis that your colleague's wife might want to go away, then that is a bit rubbish yes.

no - she's not refused. She asked me to check that the cover would be there.

Actually her words were "fine by me, before you put the request into (work holiday thing) can you please confirm who will be covering so I can note it in the diary?"

So I am guessing I can take that as her approving it really?

thanks Flowerybeanbag. Basically we are going to have a situation where there will be no guarantee that the colleague with the anniversary will be allowed to book time off to celebrate his anniversary - he just doesn't seem to realise that it works like that.

Agree. Tis rubbish. I have written a leave policy to avoid exactly this. What if one of them says, yes I want that time off. Who will get it?

First come first served is the only fair way.

Oh if she just asked you to confirm about cover, then I'd take the responses to mean "No-one else has already booked this time off" and go ahead and book it yourself.

Person 1 will have to cope with that when the time comes - vague thoughts that you might want some time off but haven't got any plans count for nothing.

trouble is that I am not sure if it's my esponsibility to tell him this. I am not his line manager.

Oh and the person who is having the anniversary is also on contract so would have the same concerns about if he will be here or not.

I wouldn't worry about telling anyone else anything, it's not your responsibility as you say. I don't think any reasonable person could be too outraged to discover that as someone else has already booked holiday on a certain date that means they can't have it off themselves.

I would put it in the holiday diary and just send your boss an email with the various responses, along the lines of 'no one's got any firm plans'. Then as and when everyone else actually gets round to making their own plans, they will see that those dates are no good because you've already booked them.

Not your responsibility at all. You've done your bit by checking no-one else has firm plans, so there will be cover. If/when others want to ask for leave, the line manager will get them to check what is already in the planner and whether any cover is available - it's up to the line manager to tell them at that point if they can't have it.