Holiday Entitlement - Opinion on this situation

Not sure the OP and his father value their employees. "They should be glad to have a job in this climate" so I am guessing decent holiday entitlement isn't a priority.

They probably don't, I can't imagine they're especially hard to replace. They'll only really care if all the experienced guys were to leave in one hit which is unlikely to happen.
 
I've always found 4 weeks + BH perfectly adequate, honestly an extra weeks holiday a year would make absolutely zero difference to my life and it amazes me people would get so hung up on it that they'd refuse what might otherwise be a brilliant job because they're getting 'the minimum' and it just isn't good enough and somehow constitutes an insult to your worth.

I'm pretty sure your opinion isn't representative, but you seem to expect that it is.
 
And in what way does that make it unreasonable?

If it was unreasonable, the legal minimum would be more.

It surely depends on the job, doesn't it? The minimum wage is not unreasonable for somebody working part time in Sainsburys, but would be considered unreasonable for somebody working as a design engineer, for example. Apply the same logic to holiday entitlement. The OP appears to pay circa £30k so it's hardly a bunch of unskilled labourers he's employing.
 
I'm pretty sure your opinion isn't representative, but you seem to expect that it is.

Well the opinion that 4 weeks plus BH is a reasonable amount of holiday time would seem to representative enough that it constitutes the legal minimum, otherwise it would surely be higher.

The notion that you shouldn't employ people at all unless you can give them more than this is laughable IMO.
 
I've always found 4 weeks + BH perfectly adequate, honestly an extra weeks holiday a year would make absolutely zero difference to my life and it amazes me people would get so hung up on it that they'd refuse what might otherwise be a brilliant job because they're getting 'the minimum' and it just isn't good enough and somehow constitutes an insult to your worth.

A 'brilliant' job doesn't tend to provide minimum of anything really. That extra week for me (and countless others) is an extra week with their family.

What price losing that week with my wife, and son? Thankfully I get loads of time off and the wife now gets 10 weeks (school work, baby!)

Priceless.
 
Well the opinion that 4 weeks plus BH is a reasonable amount of holiday time would seem to representative enough that it constitutes the legal minimum, otherwise it would surely be higher.

The notion that you shouldn't employ people at all unless you can give them more than this is laughable IMO.

What is reasonable depends entirely on the job. One size (of conditions) does not fit all, just like one wage does not fit all.

Do you think we should just pay everyone minimum wage?
 
Well the opinion that 4 weeks plus BH is a reasonable amount of holiday time would seem to representative enough that it constitutes the legal minimum, otherwise it would surely be higher.

So therefore you must also agree that the £6.19 an hour is a reasonable rate of pay and is representative enough that it constitutes the legal minimum, otherwise it would surely be higher.

Given this, presumably you'd be happy and feel valued if your employer paid you that?

The notion that you shouldn't employ people at all unless you can give them more than this is laughable IMO.

I'm not sure thats the point he was making. If it is, I disagree with it.
 
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What is reasonable depends entirely on the job. One size (of conditions) does not fit all, just like one wage does not fit all.

Do you think we should just pay everyone minimum wage?

Yes, definitely, that's absolutely a directly and completely comparable metric.

Do you think someone on £100k per year should only work 4 weeks and have 48 weeks of holiday?
 
[TW]Fox;23793584 said:
So therefore you must also agree that the £6.19 an hour is a reasonable rate of pay and is represenative enough that it consisutes the legal minimum, otherwise it would surely be higher.

Given this, presumably you'd be happy and feel valued if your employer paid you that?

As above to Burnsey, it's hardly a directly comparable metric otherwise by that logic people earning loads should be working a matter of a few weeks a year too.

[TW]Fox;23793584 said:
I'm not sure thats the point he was making. If it is, I disagree with it.

"If you can't employ somebody and give them reasonable leave then don't bother."

To which I argue 4 weeks + BH is reasonable.
 
As above to Burnsey, it's hardly a directly comparable metric otherwise by that logic people earning loads should be working a matter of a few weeks a year too.

The point I am making is that you cannot claim that it's a 'reasonable' amount of holiday for a semi skilled experienced worker to be receiving simply because 'well its the legal minimum so it must be reasonable'.

That is the purposes of the wage comparison, another area where there is a legal minimum. Nobody has implied that it should scale in the same way so I'm not sure why you are going down that route.
 
"If you can't employ somebody and give them reasonable leave then don't bother."

To which I argue 4 weeks + BH is reasonable.

Giving the legal minimum to semi-skilled and skilled workers isn't reasonable. Hence why I said the line you enjoy quoting.

[TW]Fox;23793622 said:
The point I am making is that you cannot claim that it's a 'reasonable' amount of holiday for a semi skilled experienced worker to be receiving simply because 'well its the legal minimum so it must be reasonable'.

That is the purposes of the wage comparison, another area where there is a legal minimum. Nobody has implied that it should scale in the same way so I'm not sure why you are going down that route.

Exactly. The two metrics aren't comparable.
 
[TW]Fox;23793622 said:
Nobody has implied that it should scale in the same way so I'm not sure why you are going down that route.

Indeed. I do think it would be ridiculous to earn £100k but only have the legal minimum holidays.
 
[TW]Fox;23793622 said:
The point I am making is that you cannot claim that it's a 'reasonable' amount of holiday for a semi skilled experienced worker to be receiving simply because 'well its the legal minimum so it must be reasonable'.

That is the purposes of the wage comparison, another area where there is a legal minimum. Nobody has implied that it should scale in the same way so I'm not sure why you are going down that route.

I'm going down that route because it is the natural extension of the premise that they are directly comparable in regards the point that I was making. They either are or they aren't.

They can't only be directly comparable to suit the argument that pay scales up so holiday is unreasonable if it doesn't but not beyond that comparison, otherwise you're effectively having your cake and eating it.
 
If somewhere else is offering more holidays and the guy is leaving for that reason then obviously he considers the legal minimum unreasonable.

He's seemingly also completely stupid given he's jumped at 8 days extra holiday in return for working an additional 40+ Saturdays.
 
I'm going down that route because it is the natural extension of the premise that they are directly comparable in regards the point that I was making. They either are or they aren't.

They are directly comparable, but the don't scale linearly.
 
Giving the legal minimum to semi-skilled and skilled workers isn't reasonable. Hence why I said the line you enjoy quoting

Where as I would stand by the statement that it is, especially when we're in the context of small businesses where this discussion started.

I still stand by the notion that within a small business the lack of holiday is often less of an attitude problem and more of a financial one, they just can't afford to throw away another 2 weeks per person every year, both directly financially and in terms of covering the work during that period.

I would have no doubts that many of them really do operate on margins small enough that effectively losing a couple of months (maybe more depending on employee numbers) worth of working time over the business is just not feasible for them to entertain.

I completely disagree that an inability to provide more holiday constitutes them being unreasonable and thus they shouldn't be employing people. If they're trying to get away with only giving people a week off, then sure that's wholly unreasonable and they shouldn't be employing people. Minimum amounts might not be attractive and it might not be the best offer on the table for prospective employees but I don't think it constitutes unreasonable behaviour frankly.
 
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