Take it or leave it: How to balance holiday requests

Employees are legally entitled under the Holidays Act 2003 to four weeks of annual leave after 12 months of continuous employment, which is four weeks of their normal working week. Many employers allow employees to use leave as it accrues during the year rather than making employees wait until they have accrued enough leave to cover their time away from work.

Some employment agreements have more generous entitlements, so you should check the terms for each employee. Under the Primary Health Care Multi-Employer Collective Agreement, entitlements increase after six years of continuous employment.

Annual leave should be taken by mutual agreement between the employer and the employee, and you are entitled to consider the needs of the business before granting leave. You are not allowed to deny requests unreasonably, but there will be times when there are good reasons why you need to turn them down.

If you allow your staff to use their leave as it accrues or as soon as it is entitled, you will have done so by agreement as above, and your employees are entitled to do so. What you may need to consider is how to handle the requests for leave without pay.

There is no entitlement to leave without pay (this does not apply to sick leave without pay), and you have no obligation to grant these leave requests. As with annual leave, you would take the needs of the business into account when making decisions, what has happened historically, and you would need to be consistent in your choices. You should consider these requests case by case and in good faith.

It is essential to have a formal leave policy for your practice to ensure that you and your staff are clear about your rights and responsibilities. This policy will set out what everyone can expect, such as the process for requesting leave, when leave requests might be turned down, and whether employees are allowed to take leave in advance of it being accrued.

Leave requests should be made in writing, and staff should know they must wait for their leave to be approved before they book holidays. Many practices now use an online leave programme that is part of their payroll system. This also allows fair allocation of leave, particularly around Christmas and Easter.

If you’re willing to let your staff use their leave before it has fully accrued, you must be prepared for situations where an employee resigns after taking leave in advance. In these situations, it’s good to discuss this with your staff and get their written agreement for the practice to recoup the cost of any leave taken in advance before granting the leave.

Employees have no legal entitlement to leave without pay, and you may decide to expressly exclude this form of leave in your leave policy unless there are extraordinary circumstances.

Under the Holidays Act, you must keep accurate leave records, which should be available to employees.

Fiona Mines is a HealthyPractice adviser/administrator, MAS