Soldato
- Joined
- 8 Mar 2007
- Posts
- 10,938
A friend I have once used his entire holiday to take every Friday off for 26 weeks. Half a year of working four days weeks 
Booking Holidays at work.
- Thread starter Traffic_Warden
- Start date
A friend I have once used his entire holiday to take every Friday off for 26 weeks. Half a year of working four days weeks
I would rather take the Monday off.
I guess their workplace, their rules when it comes to this.
Ultimately, yes, but there's nothing to be lost by going back to them and making your case again, asking politely. If they say no, they say no and you're no worse off.
If one of my team requested 3 weeks off which ran into The companies Christmas shut down I would most likely decline it. The same would go for someone requesting the whole summer school holidays or every bank holiday.
I can only have a certain number of people off at any given time and certain times of the year are quite popular, so one individual can't monopolise these popular times of the year.
I can only have a certain number of people off at any given time and certain times of the year are quite popular, so one individual can't monopolise these popular times of the year.
It's pretty normal, don't feel hard done to man. You being on holiday means other members have to work much harder to cover, asking for them to survive for 3 weeks is kinda harsh. Not to mention its December so things might be more busy depending on what you work as.
You shouldnt plan things before getting the holidays approved.
You shouldnt plan things before getting the holidays approved.
Same here, Fridays are half days at my work, but still cost you a full days holiday. Where I work is pretty decent for booking holidays, can book one day before mostly, even ring up some mornings to book holidays for that day, and can chose to put a half day in on the same day if I want, very rarely get turned down.
Soldato
- Joined
- 10 May 2004
- Posts
- 13,079
- Location
- Sunny Stafford
A friend I have once used his entire holiday to take every Friday off for 26 weeks. Half a year of working four days weeks
Yeah deffo the Monday off for me as well. I've worked in both tech support and customer services, and the 2 days are like this:
Mondays - phones never stop ringing. Put the phone down, but no, phone rings again before you even get the chance to write up your previous call
Eat your sandwich at the desk (coz there's no time to go out for lunch). Nope, 1st bite, phone rings, repeat.Fridays - phones are quiet. Bacon buttie off the breakfast trolly at 09:30, eaten undisturbed. Get the chance to make a few cups of coffee no probs. Lunch time is undisturbed. Have a bit of a banter with colleagues. Have time to sort out reports that were meant to be completed 3 days ago.
Waiting until September before attempting to book 75% of your holiday allowance in one big block which is likely to be a popular time of year for others to be booking holiday? The key problems as I see it are:
-15 days is a long time. Where I work anything over 10 days holiday has to (allegedly) be approved by senior management.
-You've left it pretty late in the year to get such a big request in. The only time I've ever booked more than 2 weeks was for my honeymoon which was done many months prior. If I wanted that sort of time off I'd be trying to book it very early before others could be booking the same dates and to allow for future planning around it (my boss booked 4 weeks mid-Dec to Mid-Jan, but he did this early in the year).
-You've chosen a block of time close to a major holiday which means there is a fair chance of others wanting time off around then as well. Giving you 3 weeks off could mean others being denied. Not your fault but as I say a big block of time plus relatively short notice makes it trickier if others have got their request in first.
As mentioned above, December is a very popular time for people to spend with the family. By allowing you to have all of December off they are pretty much writing off a lot of peoples ability to do the same, so it is all in the interest of fairness.
My place is pretty laid back when it comes to holidays, I can phone my supervisor at 7am, book three days off starting that day with a shift that starts at 8am and he wouldn't mind a bit; A. Because he knows we have enough common sense not to do it when we have a large amount of work on and B. Because he is of the opinion that these are our holidays to use as we please and he can not dictate when we use them.
All this being said, if i approached him for 15 days in December coinciding with the statutory holiday we have during this time as well he would ask me if i was taking the ****. Any company that has a down time in place over any holiday season will experience high work loads leading up to this in preparation, what you are asking would cause not only a larger work load on your fellow employees but quite a headache for your employers covering an increased amount of work.
It's quite reasonable to expect you to not drop them in the **** when they need you the most for anything other than a family emergency.
My place is pretty laid back when it comes to holidays, I can phone my supervisor at 7am, book three days off starting that day with a shift that starts at 8am and he wouldn't mind a bit; A. Because he knows we have enough common sense not to do it when we have a large amount of work on and B. Because he is of the opinion that these are our holidays to use as we please and he can not dictate when we use them.
All this being said, if i approached him for 15 days in December coinciding with the statutory holiday we have during this time as well he would ask me if i was taking the ****. Any company that has a down time in place over any holiday season will experience high work loads leading up to this in preparation, what you are asking would cause not only a larger work load on your fellow employees but quite a headache for your employers covering an increased amount of work.
It's quite reasonable to expect you to not drop them in the **** when they need you the most for anything other than a family emergency.
![[FnG]magnolia](/styles/overclockers/avatars/9.png){kind=avatar}
Caporegime
- Joined
- 29 Aug 2007
- Posts
- 28,770
- Location
- Auckland
I don't think this means what you think it means.
Soldato
- Joined
- 8 Mar 2007
- Posts
- 10,938
[FnG]magnolia;24905050 said:
It does mean what I think it means given it was used in a one-to-one with my boss' boss when we were talking about how I was the only specialist in the software my organisation use and how he was fighting IT to keep me onsite whilst they are trying to take me into their department (our IT department have an annoying policy that anyone they consider to be doing IT work should be whisked away to work for them off site).
'Single point of failure' when used in business is not the weakest link (which I assume you are implying about me), it means something/someone that the business rely on with little or no contingency plan if it were to be lost for some reason.
- Joined
- 15 Jan 2011
- Posts
- 1,435
- Location
- UK
Being Christmas time doesn't affect us really, It Isn't a "on demand" company. We work on consignments for months at a time at different depot's, and then they get shipped out. It's just like any other working day.
I wouldn't class 3 months as "short notice" for 15 days holiday, others may think otherwise though. I've spoke to a colleague yesterday and they said to him 2 weeks notice for _any_ holiday when he asked a few months ago for a few days off. Looks like every Monday off until Christmas though!
Current employer allows up to 6 weeks unpaid sabbatical leave depending on business requirement/approval. Otherwise it’s a standard paid 2 week maximum. Anything more than 2 weeks requires business approval and senior management sign-off.
Permabanned
- Joined
- 9 Aug 2008
- Posts
- 35,711
This is the same at our place but you can only take maximum of two weeks off at any one time on annual.
Do 5 days off, one day in, 5 days off then one day in then last 5 days off. They can't say anything then because you won't be off for any more than 5 days in a row
This is how we can get around the policies in our work place.
Do 5 days off, one day in, 5 days off then one day in then last 5 days off. They can't say anything then because you won't be off for any more than 5 days in a row
This is how we can get around the policies in our work place.
I think you misunderstood what I was getting at - irrespective of the significance of xmas to your company, it can be significant to the employees i.e. lots of people tend to want to take holiday around that time of year and they need to be wary of letting too many people with the same skillset be off at the same time. Also, if it's just like any other working day then arguably it makes things even more difficult for the employer because presumably they need to maintain normal staffing levels, compared to organisations that can get away with running a 'skeleton staff' during holiday periods.
To be fair under normal circumstances 3 months notice is probably not too bad but if it is a popular holiday period then typically one would want to get the requests in earlier before others do. I wouldn't be able to get even 3 days off for xmas now having left it so late and others booking the time off, never mind 3 weeks (and that period is typically quieter at my company, not business as usual).
Regarding the 2 weeks notice for "_any_" you were told 3rd hand it may be worth double checking with HR if there is any upper cap on the amount that can be taken as a block and/or if that affects the notice period. Generally speaking however I've never heard of a notice period needing to be more than double the length of holiday being booked.
Last edited:
Guys on our shop floor have 33 days annual leave (incl bank holidays) but 21 of them are set before the leave year as we are shutdown over Christmas and have a couple of shutdowns during the year. This is vital for production planning/budgeting. The shutdown weeks are generally where most of them used to have their holidays anyway. Beyond that they operate a buddy system where they can't be off at the same time as another person (doing the same job as them)
Office staff not as restricted as the office is generally open in the shutdowns but I doubt there is any way I would authorise any of my staff to have more than 2 weeks off without exceptional circumstances and plenty of notice - but then if they don't like that they shouldn't really be working in accounts in an SME and they are actually really good at discussing and organising their holidays to ensure cover and avoiding taking them at important times.
Office staff not as restricted as the office is generally open in the shutdowns but I doubt there is any way I would authorise any of my staff to have more than 2 weeks off without exceptional circumstances and plenty of notice - but then if they don't like that they shouldn't really be working in accounts in an SME and they are actually really good at discussing and organising their holidays to ensure cover and avoiding taking them at important times.