Company not allowing holidays and not paying for them

Soldato
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A friend of mine works for a pub chain, staff are told that they have to take their years holiday allocation before April. They have 10 days holiday left to take and have asked for the time off before April.

This has been rejected by management as to many staff already have holidays during the month of march. Management have also said that they can not pay out the holiday money instead. So my friend will lost 2 weeks worth of holiday and also not receive the pay for those holiday days instead.

How is that allowed?
 
I do not believe they can legally deny the holiday post April anyway. It could be corporate policy to state they cannot honour it, but I think they would be forced to if this was questioned.

That management are saying they can't have the leave, but can't carry it over or claim money for it, is complete rubbish.
 
NO, as long as he requests it before the cut off point (April) they gave to honour it. He is legally entitled to 4 weeks paid holiday per year.

That is what I figured, I am fairly sure the notice is something like 2 weeks and this falls before April. I cannot see how management can both, deny holidays or pay them for the holiday time working.
 
Large retailers are just as bad when it comes to holidays. A relative of mine was denied her holiday because too many staff were already off trying to take their holiday before April instead of losing it.
 
By law, they must give it off.
It's their fault for not chasing up when the employee was to take holiday if they're saying they can't have it off in March.

Get them to put it in writing, wait for the refusal by writing, then take them to court.

NO, as long as he requests it before the cut off point (April) they gave to honour it. He is legally entitled to 4 weeks paid holiday per year.

It's 5.6 weeks now including bank holidays. However, your employer may allow you to carry over any untaken holiday from one leave year to the next.

You must take all of your statutory minimum holiday entitlement each year. Only holiday on top of this can be carried over, and only if your employer gives you permission or it is allowed by your employment contract.
 
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direct.gov said:
You must give your employer advance notice that you want to take holiday. This notice should be at least twice as long as the amount of holiday you want to take. For example, you should give two weeks' notice for one week's holiday.

Your employer can refuse permission for your holiday as long as they give you notice which is at least as long as the holiday requested. So to refuse a request for a week's leave, they would have to tell you a week in advance.

Your contract may set out other rules about when you can take your holiday. This is allowed so long as the rules don't effectively prevent you from taking holiday at all.
They are completely within their rights to refuse the holiday, and they are by no means obliged to pay the £ for it instead. It isn't clear whether they'd have to let you take it over into the next year or not. I know it's reasonably common policy that you can't take holidays at x time and you can't carry holiday over, whether that's legal or not I don't know. I think the problem here may be that your friend has had the whole year to take the holiday, and so the company aren't stopping them taking any holiday at all, that is their own fault.
 
That is what I figured, I am fairly sure the notice is something like 2 weeks and this falls before April. I cannot see how management can both, deny holidays or pay them for the holiday time working.

The employee would have to take the time as holiday, he cannot be paid in lieu of it. I expect the employer is trying to pull a fast one. Bottom line is what he is entitled to is 4 weeks statutory holiday whether the employer likes it or not.
Within my firm, we require at least two weeks notice of holiday, but normally everyone fills in a sheet in october for the following year. The employer can allocate his holiday to him, but he cannot remove it.
 
By law, they must give it off.
It's their fault for not chasing up when the employee was to take holiday if they're saying they can't have it off in March.

Get them to put it in writing, wait for the refusal by writing, then take them to court.
They don't have to give it off, they are entitled to deny any request for leave so long as they give sufficient notice. they do have to allow 5.6 working weeks leave per year, but I don't think that translates to them being forced to approve leave requests in the run up to year end.
 
They are completely within their rights to refuse the holiday, and they are by no means obliged to pay the £ for it instead. It isn't clear whether they'd have to let you take it over into the next year or not. I know it's reasonably common policy that you can't take holidays at x time and you can't carry holiday over, whether that's legal or not I don't know. I think the problem here may be that your friend has had the whole year to take the holiday, and so the company aren't stopping them taking any holiday at all, that is their own fault.

Well if the notice is 2 weeks, and they have refused the holiday time. Then infact yes, the company is denying them their holiday...
 
They don't have to give it off, they are entitled to deny any request for leave so long as they give sufficient notice. they do have to allow 5.6 working weeks leave per year, but I don't think that translates to them being forced to approve leave requests in the run up to year end.

The employer has a responsibility to ensure the employee takes off the statutory minimum time off per year.

An employer cannot give the excuse the employee didn't ask for it until too late, and it didn't fit in with the business needs. It's their responsibility more to ensure the employee has time off.

The employer has a large amount of control of when an employee has to take holiday. In this case however, they're in the wrong

It's good business practice especially so events like this doesn't come up where they're left to the last minute to ask for holiday when it doesn't suit the business.
 
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The employee would have to take the time as holiday, he cannot be paid in lieu of it. I expect the employer is trying to pull a fast one. Bottom line is what he is entitled to is 4 weeks statutory holiday whether the employer likes it or not.
Within my firm, we require at least two weeks notice of holiday, but normally everyone fills in a sheet in october for the following year. The employer can allocate his holiday to him, but he cannot remove it.
where are you getting your "facts" from? the employer can refuse a leave request so long as they give you as much notice as the length of leave requested. it's also 5.6 working weeks, but that can include bank holidays or any other closure times for the company.
 
They are completely within their rights to refuse the holiday, and they are by no means obliged to pay the £ for it instead. It isn't clear whether they'd have to let you take it over into the next year or not. I know it's reasonably common policy that you can't take holidays at x time and you can't carry holiday over, whether that's legal or not I don't know. I think the problem here may be that your friend has had the whole year to take the holiday, and so the company aren't stopping them taking any holiday at all, that is their own fault.


The employer cannot remove the holiday he is entitled to, they can refuse the date he wants to take it, but he has to be given it by the end of the companies holiday entitlement year, usually April.

The company are effectively removing his entitlement as they are not giving him the opportunity to take it, this is illegal. They are obliged to allocate the time for him to take his statutory holiday entiltlement.
 
The employer has a responsibility to ensure the employee takes off the statutory minimum time off per year.

An employer cannot give the excuse the employee didn't ask for it until too late, and it didn't fit in with the business needs. It's their responsibility more to ensure the employee has time off.

It's good business practice especially so events like this doesn't come up where they're left to the last minute to ask for holiday when it doesn't suit the business.
They can refuse the leave...
although this suggests that if they refuse the leave then they will have to pay for the holiday:
adviceguide.org.uk said:
If you cannot use up all your paid holiday because your employer will not let you take the holiday before the leave year ends, you should seek the help of an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. For details of your nearest CAB, including those that give advice by e-mail, click on (New window) nearest CAB. You should get help quickly as if you need to make a claim to an employment tribunal for the unpaid holiday pay, you must make a claim within three months of your employer refusing you holiday.
 
The employer cannot remove the holiday he is entitled to, they can refuse the date he wants to take it, but he has to be given it by the end of the companies holiday entitlement year, usually April.

The company are effectively removing his entitlement as they are not giving him the opportunity to take it, this is illegal. They are obliged to allocate the time for him to take his statutory holiday entiltlement.
They gave him a whole year to take it, they need to reimburse him if he's unable to take the leave, but they are not illegally preventing him from taking the leave.
 
They either have to allow your holiday or if they cannot allow you to take the holiday due to operational reasons then they have to pay you, that's the law in the UK.
 
They can refuse the leave...
although this suggests that if they refuse the leave then they will have to pay for the holiday:

No they can't! You now must take off the minimum statutory leave from work, payments in lieu are no longer allowed by the Working Time Regulations (only time ABOVE the stat min leave are allowed to be payable).

It changed in April 2009
 
where are you getting your "facts" from? the employer can refuse a leave request so long as they give you as much notice as the length of leave requested. it's also 5.6 working weeks, but that can include bank holidays or any other closure times for the company.


My Human resources manager...The employer can refuse the request, but cannot remove the entitlement. If the employee has not taken his full entitlement then the employer must allocate it. My mistake its now 28 days. We give more than this so hasn't affected us.
 
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