Peter Woodhouse quoted by Personnel Today

The issue of when employees can take leave following the Government’s ‘roadmap’ announcement was the topic for an article by Personnel Today.

Peter Woodhouse, Head of Business Sector and Employment Team explained the rights for both employees and employers.

He said:

“Employers normally carefully manage holiday to service client expectations and to avoid suffering an accrued holiday tax hit at the end of financial year.”

“When calculating how much holiday a worker can carry forwards, employers must give workers the opportunity to take any leave that they cannot carry forward before the end of the leave year,” he said.

“Employees have two basic types of holiday being the statutory minimum holiday of 5.6 weeks and any extra contractual holiday. In relation to contractual holiday, the position is fairly straightforward – you follow the contract. Thus, if a right to take leave at a particular time requires employer approval, the employer can exercise its right not to approve.”

“For statutory holiday it gets more complex but it seems generally to be accepted that the right to take holiday at a particular time is subject to the requirements of the business. A worker must give notice if they wish to take statutory holiday and the notice must be at least twice the period of leave that they are requesting.”

The article was also published by HR Today and can be read in full here.