Can Your Employer Stop You From Taking a Holiday?

*In this guest post, Lauren Hillier, an employment lawyer at Slater & Gordon Lawyers in the United Kingdom, discusses vacation policy in her country. This article provides information on the laws of the United Kingdom and should not be taken as a statement on the laws of the United States. The views expressed in this article are Ms. Hillier’s own. *

*Photo by Kevin Dinkel is licensed under CC 2.0. *

Can your employer stop you from taking a holiday?

Unfortunately, yes they probably can.

There might well be a provision in your employment contract or company handbook saying that your holiday dates are subject to approval. Have a look and see what it says.

Even if there is nothing in your contract, the default position under the Working Time Regulations – the source of much of the law on holiday entitlement – also allows your employer to prevent you from taking holiday. Under these rules, your boss can refuse any request for holiday, provided they give you enough notice. The amount of notice they have to give depends on the number of days holiday you’ve requested. If you want to take a week off, e.g. 5 days, your employer just has to give you 5 days’ notice before your holiday was due to start. As long as they give you enough notice, they are entitled to ask you not to take your holiday at that time.

However, your employer’s right to prevent your taking holiday will be trumped by the requirement that they allow you to take all your annual holiday entitlement within the relevant year, or at least the minimum amount of holiday guaranteed under the Working Time Regulations (currently 28 days including bank holidays for full-timers). So if you are getting towards the end of your holiday year, you must be allowed to make use of your minimum holiday entitlement. Your boss cannot require you to carry it forward to the next year if you don’t want to.

If the reason why you wanted to take annual leave was not because you had plans to head off somewhere sunny, but because there was an emergency at home that you had to deal with, then the position is different. In that scenario, you may well be able to claim unpaid leave to deal with an emergency affecting a family member, and your employer cannot prevent you from taking this.

If you find yourself in a situation where your holiday request has not been approved, the law is probably on your employer’s side. So, rather than threatening to bring a complaint about it, you might have more success if you approach your boss to ask them nicely to reconsider; explaining why it’s important that you’re able to take that particular day or week off, and what difficulties it would cause you if you aren’t allowed to do so.

The moral of the story is to make sure you confirm your holiday with your boss ***before ***you book your flights.

Author Bio

Lauren Hillier is an employment lawyer at Slater & Gordon Lawyers.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Garrett Ham is not licensed to practice law in the United Kingdom. Those in need of any legal advice regarding the laws of foreign countries should consult with a qualified attorney.

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