In the majority of cases, employees and employers work together; staggering paid holidays to cause minimal impact to the business. Unfortunately, there are circumstances where the wishes of both parties clash. It therefore makes sense to know your legal position regarding when and how to take paid holidays.
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Simple holiday request procedure
In a perfect world, requesting a paid holiday should be fairly straightforward:-
- Consult your employment contract for the terms and conditions
- Apply to take a paid holiday, giving your employer the appropriate degree of notice
There will be occasions where you need to take an emergency holiday. In the majority of cases employers will be sympathetic and they will usually find a way to help.
Entitlement to paid holidays
To recap from our previous article on paid holiday entitlement, you are entitled to paid holidays as a worker. This term includes:-
- Employees
- Apprentices
- Casual workers
- Agency workers
- Zero hour contract workers
The situation regarding the self-employed is a little less clear. However, you may well be classed as a worker if:-
- You carry out the work personally, i.e. it is not passed to anyone else to do
- The work is not part of your self-employed business
It is also worth noting that when taking paid holiday, you should be paid 100% of your normal pay.
From 1 April 2024, specific rules apply to irregular-hours and part-year workers. These allow rolled-up holiday pay, provided it’s calculated correctly and shown separately on payslips.
When can you take your holiday?
There are two main factors to consider with regards to holiday periods:-
- When your employer’s “leave year” begins
- If you are restricted from taking holidays at certain times of the year
We will now take a look at these two issues in more detail as there are a number of factors to take into consideration.
When does your employer’s leave year begin?
Holidays are allocated on a rolling 12 month basis or part of if you start employment partway through the leave year period. There are three common leave year periods which include:-
- Tax year
- Calendar year
- Company financial year
While these are the three most common leave years, there are no restrictions over which 12 month period your employer uses.
Finding details of your employer’s leave year
In a perfect world, you’d expect details of your employer’s leave year to be included as part of your employment contract. However, this is not always the case. You should be able to find details of the leave year:-
- In your employment contract
- As part of your employer’s general employment conditions
- Within a specific document covering your employer’s holiday policy
If you have any difficulty finding details of your leave year, you should contact your HR Department or, with smaller employers, the individual in charge of employment terms and conditions.
On the rare occasion there are no specific details regarding your employer’s leave year, it will default to:-
- The 12 month period from the day you started work with your employer
- On 1 October if you started employment before 1 October 1998
It is very rare to default to any of these two scenarios as it can become complicated if all employees are on different leave years.
Carry over paid holidays
The default position is that workers should take their statutory paid holiday during the employer’s leave year. If you simply choose not to take your full holiday entitlement, your employer is not usually obliged to pay you for the unused holiday or allow you to carry it over, unless your contract or workplace policy says otherwise.
However, workers may be able to carry over statutory holiday if they could not take it because of sickness, maternity or other statutory family leave, or because their employer did not give them a reasonable opportunity to take it, failed to tell them they would lose it, or failed to pay rolled-up holiday pay correctly.
Where your employer has refused valid holiday requests, despite you giving the correct notice, you should raise this with them as soon as possible. If the issue cannot be resolved informally, you may need to raise a formal grievance or contact Acas for advice.
Unable to take full holiday allocation in leave year
There will be occasions where you have not been able to take your full holiday allocation within the company’s leave year. Some of the more common reasons include:-
- You were on sick leave
- You are on maternity leave
- Your employer refused your holiday requests
Thankfully employees have a degree of legal protection via employment regulations when it comes to carrying over unused holidays. It is important to be aware of your rights especially if your employer is refusing to accept your holiday requests.
Restrictions on holiday dates
At first glance, placing restrictions on periods when employees can take their holidays seems rather unfair. That said, some companies are extremely busy at certain times of the year and it may be detrimental to their business to reduce staff numbers due to holiday requests. These restrictions should be part of your employment contract (or part of other agreements relating to your employment) and therefore public knowledge.
There are also occasions when your employer will instruct you to take holidays such as:-
- School holidays if you’re in the teaching profession
- Periods when the business is closed, i.e. Christmas
- If you have not used your full allocation and the leave year end is approaching
Again, these conditions should be specified in your employment contract/related documentation so that everybody is aware of the situation.
There may be occasions where your employer is forced to close for a period of time, perhaps renovations or difficult trading conditions. In this scenario, your employer is legally obliged to give you notice of at least twice as long as the holiday period in question. So, if all employees are forced to take five days holiday, they should be given at least 10 days’ notice.
Requesting holiday leave
It is very important to be aware of process for requesting holiday leave when you join your new employer. This process tends to be defined within your employment contract or else part of the general employment conditions. These conditions supersede the default regulations which are as follows:-
- Giving holiday notice period, twice that of the holiday request. If you request one weeks holiday then you have to give two weeks’ notice
The majority of employers will specify that you fill in a formal holiday request form which creates a paper trail. Whether a formal form or some kind of communication such as email, it is important have the request is recorded in case there are any issues further down the line.
Can your employer refuse your holiday request?
While there are times when holiday dates cannot be changed, employees and employers will usually try to work together. Your employer can refuse a holiday request for valid business reasons, such as:-
- Being short-staffed
- The timing causing problems for the business
- You have already used your holiday entitlement
So, if you have requested one week’s holiday, your employer should normally give you at least one week’s notice if they want to refuse the request. If they fail to give the correct notice, you may have grounds to challenge the refusal. However, it is usually safer to raise the issue with them before taking the holiday, as going ahead without agreement could lead to a dispute.
If your employer gives you the correct notice refusing your holiday request, you should not take the holiday without agreement. Doing so could be treated as misconduct and may have serious consequences for your employment. Speak to your employer if you think the refusal is unfair or unreasonable!
Continued refusal of your holiday requests
On occasion, disagreements about holiday entitlement can involve people described as self-employed. In some cases, someone described as self-employed may legally be classed as a worker. If so, they may be entitled to paid holiday like other workers.
If the issue cannot be resolved informally, you may need to contact Acas for Early Conciliation. For many employment tribunal claims, you must contact Acas within three months less one day of the act you are complaining about. If Early Conciliation does not resolve the issue, and you have evidence to support your claim, you may be able to make an employment tribunal claim.
If you believe your holiday requests have been refused for a discriminatory reason, you may also be able to bring a discrimination claim.
Summary
While the process of requesting a holiday is fairly straightforward on the surface, if you dig a little deeper it does become a little more complicated. There are rules and regulations to protect employees and employers. Thankfully, by far and away the vast majority of issues are resolved on an amicable basis. However, where there are disagreements there are a number of statutory protections to take into account.