Work forcing you to take holiday

[SidewinderINC]

Hi all,

Quick query on holiday and what your workplace are allowed to do.

I know it's not even April yet, but my company has given out a notice about Christmas holiday.

As Christmas eve falls on a Monday they have decided to close the site on that day for various reasons.

They have said "you must book this day as holiday"

Are they allowed to do this? I was planning on working as I live pretty close to work so it wouldn't make a difference to me and I was going to use my holiday at other times.

Any info or experience of this situation would be great :)

Cheers

Matt.

[Mark]

Yes, an employer is entitled to tell you when you can (or must) take your holiday. Office shutdowns over Christmas are commonplace (my place has done exactly the same for a few years now).

Often you'll find that there's a defined leave/holiday policy, but they don't have to.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/Timeoffandholidays/DG_10029788

[Kitten]

Yes, as Mark said, they certainly are. I wish they'd do that to me, I'm never allowed to take Christmas Eve as holiday and it's my FRIGGING BIRTHDAY!

[Knipples]

We have to keep holiday for Christmas because they shut the project down over all the bank holidays etc.

[vix]

Yeah our place has just announced it will be closed from Xmas eve.

[Kitten]

Most annoying thing is that the business we support shuts down entirely. However they pay us to support them, so we have to be there regardless!

[SidewinderINC]

Thanks all :( they've announced a full shut down it seems. Annoying because I really don't mind working over Christmas.

[Zirax]

Thanks all :( they've announced a full shut down it seems. Annoying because I really don't mind working over Christmas.

Quite a few do this. I'll be trying to come in the 24th, 27th and 28th. No managers, nothing to do, but it is all for cover for the business over xmas ;)

[jmc41]

Our policy is 20+3 days with 3 being the "xmas shut down".

That said last time it fell on a Monday they gave everyone the day off; not too sure the same thing will follow this time though :s

I normally do the on-call thing, it's great, no work and I get lieu time!

[divine]

I lose about 8 days a year of my holiday via enforced shutdown periods, usually xmas and then also things like the week in July this year (i think it's July) where you can get a week off using 3 days holiday due to helpfully placed bank holidays so they just shut down rather than have everyone fight over who gets to take it off.

[Mark]

It's June! :)

(4th and 5th are public holidays for the Jubilee).

[SidewinderINC]

Yeah, I've abused that one :D

[lostkat]

Just be thankful you don't work in the manufacturing industry. It's pretty common for companies to have an enforced shutdown for 2 weeks during the summer. Ouch! Some of my suppliers shut down for a week during summer too. I suppose it helps them to plan their business better if they're shutting down the whole factory rather than having to cover various hols.

We have our standard allowance of 20 days plus 6 days of fixed holiday on top which are 3 days at Christmas (they give us 4 if it falls funny), Easter Tuesday, Spring Bank Tuesday and another one (Maybe Aug bank hol Tues). It works well because the 6 days have already been taken out of our holidays so we don't have to save them.

What's even better is that we also get 6 days lieu a year for some bizarre reason (think we're officially supposed to work 12 mins extra each day to accrue it, but they don't monitor it and you end up doing that anyway), so I end up with 32 days hol plus bank hols. Hurrah!

[Kitten]

They sound like privilege days Kate, hangover from the old days, mostly found in public sector, Tuesdays following a bank hol,and Christmas/NYE. sounds like your lieu days are for the extra fixed hols...good that they still allow it!

[Belmit]

We're bloody lucky in that the uni closes between Christmas Day and New Year's Day so we get those days free, plus all bank holidays and an extra day after the August bank holiday Monday, as mentioned. Considering I already get 29 days off a year for various reasons it adds up to a decent amount each year! In fact, I've just booked June off. :D

[lostkat]

They sound like privilege days Kate, hangover from the old days, mostly found in public sector, Tuesdays following a bank hol,and Christmas/NYE. sounds like your lieu days are for the extra fixed hols...good that they still allow it!
It's very heavily unionised so probably something that goes way back, yeah.

The lieu we can take whenever we like, so we get 32 days, 6 of which are fixed, plus bank hols. Pretty pleased with that :-)