Timing of holidays

Employers can make rules about the timing of holidays:

However, it has recently been suggested by the Supreme Court that the entitlement to annual leave is measured in weeks, not days. This would mean that while the worker can choose to take all or part of the holiday entitlement in individual days off if they want to, the employer cannot force a worker to take holiday on individual days (Russell v Transocean International Resources Limited [2011] UKSC 57).

The issue is important because otherwise (based on the Sumsion case above) employers could undermine the health and safety objective of the Working Time Directive by designating Saturday as a working day and then forcing workers to take their holiday on consecutive Saturdays. The Supreme Court did not have to make a decision on this issue in order to decide the Transocean case and this means that their observations, while important, are not binding.

An employer has the right to ask for leave to be deferred, provided it tells the employee in advance, giving notice which is at least as long as the leave requested. Shorter notice can be given where a “relevant agreement” allows this. A clause in the contract stating that the employee can be required to take holiday during the notice period can be a “relevant agreement” for this purpose (Industry & Commerce Maintenance v Briffa UKEAT/0215/08/CEA).

Workers in the first year of their employment must accrue statutory holiday on a month by month basis before they are entitled to take it.