Holidays are a joy to anticipate and many employees plan on taking timeout of the stressful work environment to rest and enjoy time abroad in the sun or rest at home. The employer therefore must balance the needs of the business and the employees statutory right to annual leave.
The Working Time Regulations 1998
The amount of notice to be given by the employee to the employer can be agreed by the contract of employment. The default statutory position under the Working Time Regulations 1998 is that the notice period to request annual leave from the employee or worker to the employer must be at least twice the period of leave requested. Employers have the right to decline the holiday request by serving on the employee or worker the notice equivalent to the period of annual leave requested by the employee or worker.
Duty of care
Employers have a duty to fairly consider the request and should as best practice endeavour to provide a reason for the refusal of the annual leave. The situation may be affected by business needs and staff shortages. The reasons for turning down a request should be explained to the employee to demonstrate the employer’s reasonableness and good faith. Holidays will have to be allocated to the employee at a later period suitable to the employer and employee.
Some employees may request carrying forward holidays to the next holiday year. The Working Time Regulations 1998 provide the employee 5.6 weeks leave. Four weeks of that is provided by regulations 13 and cannot not generally carried forward. Exception being allowed for pregnant employees and those on long terms sickness. The 1.6 weeks leave granted by regulation 13A can be carried forward to the next leave year. This is usually agreed in writing by the employer and employee. Employees must be allowed the paid leave and an employee cannot be paid in lieu of untaken holidays.
The Working Time (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020
The Working Time Regulations 1998 were amended due to the Covid 19 crisis by the Working Time (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020. Where employees or workers cannot take annual leave this year, this reform will allow employees to carry over the 4 weeks leave granted by regulation 13 to the next two years. The 1.6 weeks regulations granted by regulation 13A will not be covered and hence any carry forward for these leave days must be agreed by the employer and the employee.
The above is a guideline of the legislation. If you are facing difficult decisions in relation on the granting of annual leave, please contact the Quest HR team for advice on 01455 852028.
