We recognise that the practicalities of managing holiday requests as the situation continues to change may not be straight forward, so we thought the following Q&A’s might be a useful resource.
Employee required to quarantine on return from foreign holiday
Q What can I do if an employee could end up being required to self-isolate for up to 10 days on their return to the UK from a trip abroad.
A Depending on the role and type of work, it may be that you could arrange for the employee to work remotely during the self-isolation period, which could be working from home or even working from a quarantine hotel. Another possibility is that the employee has sufficient annual leave to take the self-isolation period as holiday, as long as you can accommodate this length of leave.
Consider other types of leave – for example a one-off period of unpaid leave.
If the reason for travelling is to deal with a family emergency, the employee may be able to take some or all of the additional time off as compassionate leave.
Ultimately, you can refuse an annual leave request if you cannot accommodate the length of the employee’s absence, or the employee has insufficient annual leave to cover the whole period if they were required to self-isolate on return from holiday.
Statutory sick pay is not available where a healthy employee cannot work because they are required to self-isolate on their return from a foreign trip.
You receive a spike in holiday requests as coronavirus restrictions ease
Q As coronavirus restrictions are lifted over the summer, you may see a significant number of holiday requests over a short period of time. Requests may involve relatively short notice, with operational needs meaning that they cannot all be accommodated.
A To pre-empt potential problems with competing requests, it is important that your rules on requesting holiday are set out clearly to your employees.
Reminding employees of the process for requesting holiday as set out in the holiday policy could be helpful. Also, manage expectations by reminding employees that requests can be turned down if:
- they cannot be accommodated for operational reasons
- the employee has provided insufficient notice e.g. the employee must give notice equal to at least twice as many days as the number of days they wish to take.
Employers can give counter notice requiring that the leave not be taken, as long as the counter notice is equivalent to the length of the holiday requested.
Employee unable to go on holiday wishes to cancel annual leave
Q This summer, many employees will continue to be affected by travel restrictions and flight cancellations. What are the employer’s options if an employee asks to cancel annual leave that they have already booked?
A You do not have to agree to an employee’s request to cancel holiday already booked, unless the employee has the right to cancel annual leave under their contract of employment or another relevant agreement. In deciding whether to agree to a cancellation request, you should take into account the needs of the business, and the employee’s personal circumstances. It may be good employee relations to be flexible with annual leave requests in these uncertain times
Q Employee is required to self-isolate and cannot take their holiday as arrange so wishes to cancel
A i) If the employee themselves are ill, there is a statutory right to cancel holiday and take it at another time, so check whether this applies. The employee would be required to follow the Company’s sickness absence procedure in full and provide sickness certificates where appropriate.
- ii) You do not have to agree to an employee’s request to cancel holiday already booked, unless the employee has the right to cancel annual leave under their contract of employment or another relevant agreement. In deciding whether to agree to a cancellation request, you should take into account the needs of the business, and the employee’s personal circumstances. It may be good employee relations to be flexible with annual leave requests in these uncertain times
School holidays: employees with children struggle with work-life balance
Q The school summer holidays are traditionally a time when many employees with children struggle to balance their childcare responsibilities with work. They may seek increased flexibility with their working patterns over school holiday periods and, during the summer holidays, employers may even be faced with requests from parents to be furloughed during this period.
A It is good practice for employers to allow employees with childcare responsibilities to make use of flexible working to cope during the summer holidays. This summer, some employers may still have their workforce mostly working from home, in which case it may help homeworkers to be flexible with working hours.
Some employees will continue to make flexible working requests and, as long as it suits the employer’s operational needs, there is no reason why an employer cannot agree to additional flexible working requests, on a temporary or permanent basis, to help employees with their personal circumstances.
However, if an employee comes to you asking to be furloughed for the summer months, you should remember that there is no obligation to accede to an employee’s request to be furloughed. The government’s guidance on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme makes clear that furlough is an option when an employee has childcare problems. However, the decision to furlough is ultimately one for the employer
Be aware that employees also have a statutory right to take time off to deal with emergencies. This could include a lack of childcare e.g. where a childminder closes to take their own holiday, even where they have given notice to the employee of their intentions ET has ruled that this may be covered by this statutory right if the employer refused to grant holiday to the employee.
Workforce building up substantial untaken annual leave
Q You may find that employees are reluctant to take holiday. Ongoing international travel restrictions, nervousness about travelling, the poor UK weather and carry-over of leave from 2020
A Line managers should ensure that they encourage staff to take a portion of their leave over the summer, if at all possible. You could take a stricter approach and require employees to take leave on specified dates or to book a certain amount of leave during a particular period. This approach would work particularly well if you know that the summer months are quieter for your business. Your business may suit a summer shutdown, whereby all or most employees are required to take leave at the same time over the summer. Employers can designate specific periods as annual leave, as long as they give the correct notice to employees. This is notice that is at least twice the number of working days that you are requiring employees to take. To see our template letter please subscribe to our Advice Line service.
The Government has amended the Working Time Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/1833) to allow workers to carry over up to four weeks’ annual leave into the next two holiday years, where it has not been reasonably practicable for them to take it as a result of the effects of coronavirus (COVID-19) although this may cause additional challenges in coming years so should be carefully considered before being granted.
