Timing of holidays



Employers can make rules about the timing of holidays. For example, there can be a rule requiring unused annual leave to be taken during an employee’s notice period or requiring leave to be taken during a Christmas “shut down”. However, as statutory annual leave is measured in weeks, not days, it has been suggested (by the Supreme Court in the case of Russell v Transocean International Resources Limited [2011] UKSC 57) that an employer probably cannot force a worker to take their holiday on individual days (as opposed to weeks) if the worker does not want to do this.



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” (Industry & Commerce Maintenance v Briffa UKEAT/0215/08/CEA).



The ECJ decided that a payment for accrued but untaken annual leave should be made despite the death of a worker (Bollacke v K & K Klass & Kock BV & Co KG Case C-118/13 ECJ).
 


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.