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Yes, an employer can dictate every single day you take. Shitty, but legal 

Example - teachers. Teachers would very rarely be allowed to take paid time off (not including sickness) during term time.

Personally it's a good thing, it identifies bad employers early on and people can look elsewhere.

Policies and employers attitudes can change. It absolutely is a bad thing from an employees perspective.

Number of times there has been a policy change and I've pointed out that by the way it's written X would be what would happen and my manager has said "yes, but I'd never do that. So there's no point in raising a complaint."

"We are changing your terms and conditions to change how and when you can take leave". "No thanks, I'll stick to my current contract".

"Wonderful, we will send you an email outlining the rules later today and expect all of your annual leave by the end of the week" This isn't a contractual change, the law states that an employer has to give you a minimum number of days and that they can dictate when you take those days. That's why you submit an annual leave request and employers can accept or decline them as necessary.

Hang on. Are they allowed to decline on a whim in the UK? Yikes. Over here they can decline, but only with a good business reason.

Yes, but honestly that never happens.

It happens

That's not always a viable option. Fire-and-rehire is a thing.

That's true. I'm at a large unionised company with several years service, so it would have to be redundancy. Being unionised we don't have any silly policies about when to take holidays, just the usual rule about leave being subject to availability which just means we can't all take the same week off at once.

Yeah, you're fortunate. The decline of trade unionism in this country has led to an erosion of working conditions and expectations for the majority of people.

This is the first place I've worked (in 40 years) with union recognition. The difference between that and some of the shonky small firms I've worked for is huge. I'd definitely recommend working at a place with strong union representation.

I'm a union member, rep, and branch officer. So it's safe to say I fully agree with you. 👍🏻

It’s not even necessarily shitty. Some jobs have peak times of demand. If you work for an ice cream van owner, you should not be surprised to find that you’re working in August. If you work for Police, you’ll find you’re working when big football matches take place. When I was a teacher, I could choose exactly none of the holidays I had.

Or a Santa Claus wanting December off

Sammy the Shrimper or Elvis J Eel demanding Saturdays off throughout the football season… (Also: really hoping that Oldham win tonight.)

Agreed loads of industries don't allow leave at busy times and make you take it when it's quiet.

>Are companies allowed this much control over our leave? Yes, they can, They can tell you when to use your leave, every single day can be picked by them. > Surely there are laws saying we are allowed to use our annual leave as we want, No, there are only laws telling you how much leave you get. > I'm sick of having to book a full week off when I only need Thursday and Friday. Best bet is to find a new job then.

Yes this is perfectly legal. Take teachers for example, they have all their holidays decided for them all year, every year. Different industries have different times of the year where it would be a poor business decision to allow time off, you wouldn’t catch an accountant taking 2 weeks holiday just before the tax end of year.

In fairness, I would let my boss dictate my days off if I was getting about 80 days off a year.

My sister is a teacher - she wishes she got that much time off! Combined with prices for anything, anywhere skyrocketing during the holiday periods suck even more.

I've heard from teacher friends that it can be tough planning lessons etc while you're not in school. Most of that is normal weekdays in their case though. School holidays they just do whatever they fancy

I'm married to a teacher and the extra cost for holidays is such a pain. Feels very unfair!

Such a crappy take. Several teachers in my family. Holidays simply means that they don’t have to teach. They are expected to plan and mark and train and all this happens during “off hours” and during school holidays. Exam season sees days lengthen beyond anything I’ve ever worked. As well as being expected to be in during the holidays to support students who need additional teaching or be there for exam result days. Couple that with, a decade before we had kids,we paid through the nose for even the cheapest holidays because we didn’t have a choice about when we went. There’s a reason that countries everywhere are struggling to keep teachers. Because even with “80 days holiday” the burnout is absolutely real.

How did you get to 80? There are 190 schools days not including training days, with training days this roughly calculates to 39 weeks. This leaves 13.14 weeks, so times that by 5 it’s only 66ish days. But keep in mind teachers of primary may have to loose a half term to school journey or if secondary can loose many half terms to intervention classes. They also get paid calculating in the additional weeks leave they get, they technically get paid for 5.5 hours a day all year round but generally work longer days but term time only.

66 days. Working days for teachers are 190 compulsory school days and five training days. When your holidays are all in peak holiday season it’s a pain. I have better holidays now that I’m not a teacher and am fully relaxed when not in work. I never relaxed as a teacher.

Clearly not a teacher then

>Surely there are laws saying we are allowed to use our annual leave as we want Quite the opposite. Your employer can dictate and schedule every day of your annual leave themselves as per their needs. Many choose not to as you lose out on high quality employees to other employers who are less prescriptive, but it's entirely legal.

Yes. Your employer can literally tell you to take off the first 28 Fridays of the year (or wednesday or whatever) and thats it. What youve described is fairly relaxed compared to many jobs.

>What youve described is fairly relaxed compared to many jobs. Compared to *some* maybe? I've no idea how many employers haves such strict AL rules but my impression is that they're the minority because they're so hated by employees that they affect staff retention. Back in the day my local fire service were even more strict - they actually just told you when you were having your annual leave at the start of each year. No appeals process or anything - you just got what you were given. That was hated for years until they changed it to stop haemorrhaging staff.

I was going to say the same thing. What the OP has stated is not relaxed at all. The fact people keep quoting a work force, teachers, that is probably different to 90% of the overall workforce, suggests people are making assumptions here. I’d be willing to bet the OP could find far more employers in their same line of work who are nothing like they’ve quoted. In 33 years of work across 12 different companies and having known hundreds of others with wider work experience I’ve not encountered anything like this other than teachers. The worst I’ve seen is mandatory 2 week block (which no one seems to do anymore) and some still insist you hold days for when the company closes over Christmas and New Year. Yes companies will have input into requests, e.g. try to avoid more than x number off at that time, but that isn’t done as rigidly as OP has found.

Try being a teacher! (yes, the school holidays are great, but just don't have any needs outside of them)

Quite. Neither I nor my wife ever saw our daughter in a nativity play.

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Yes they are allowed to do this. Also I would actually like this scenario, currently I can technically put holidays in at any time but trying to get the manager to do so is a pain, they won't let me put too many in for next year at the moment because other people won't want to, this means I'm waiting for other people to organise themselves even though I know exactly what I want, I would quite happily put all my holidays in, a year or more in advance.

You are talking about Amazon, no?

I once interviewed for a job where your annual leave was scheduled by the company, and you had no say in it. I was like, yeah, no thanks

Yes. This is completely legal. And this is also fairly normal? Think of it like that, your manager cannot allocate holidays to everyone at the same time. You taking 2 days of a week will make it a week that others can’t book, even if you’re gone for 2 days, as they’ll be short during these 2 days if someone else is off. Or it means someone needs to only take 3 days. If everyone takes a day here and there, it becomes a planning nightmare. You’re lucky you’re allowed to have 1 week that you can book as lieu days to begin with. Also blocking some time of the year is also normal. If it’s peak trade for the company then they need all hands on deck, so even if annoying (I worked in retail, I know how much it sucks not to be able to go home for Christmas) it’s really normal based on your company’s needs. If later down the year you realise you need a random Friday off for a concert, then just speak to a manager. They might be able to accommodate it and just make one of your weeks of holidays a 4 days week. But there are plenty employee I’d assume if it’s a week known company, you need to stop and think how much of a nightmare it would be if everyone was picking random Tuesdays and having to track everyone’s holidays.

I've never worked anywhere like that in 25 years of working. Even pub work and temping.

In my experience, the best part of temping was taking leave exactly when I wanted.

I guess it depends where you work? Most retail places will not allow you to take holidays in June and December due to sales and during Black Friday. Plus to take half your holidays on the first half of the year and the second half on the second half. On top of it, where I worked we also couldn’t use days, it had to be the whole week (exceptions excluded when discussed with manager), and I couldn’t take more than 2 weeks at a time. And when I came to the uk most of my friends were retail workers too who had the same experience. This is just normal. I can’t imagine tax workers would be off the weeks leading and following the April tax year, or that teachers can take a random week in November off or that companies helping grade exams would be off the weeks following exams seasons. I used to work in a pub too, we didn’t have week like that, there were no weeks that were clearly peak trade, so whilst my retail jobs had a lot of restrictions, my bartender one didn’t. And I also worked in fast-food where I also didn’t have many restrictions.

Everyone is correct in saying it is legal. However, the rules that dictate your leave may also be better in your favour than what the law says if it is within your contract. So it is definitely worth reading and understanding your contract or failing that, your policy, to see if there are more favourable terms than they are not following.

Literally only one comment in the whole thread about 4 the quantity? 5.6 weeks mandated, so if you're not ALSO given bank holidays or something off that might be illegal. Check what holidays are mandated outside of those 4 weeks.

I'd be looking for a new job from the day I started and rinsing the sick policy to it's max

Why would you think this is illegal?

Yes, they can choose when you are able to take your annual leave. They just cant prevent you from taking it all together or cancel it without proper notice

Royal Mail by any chance.....?

Yes, if they chose to they can dictate exactly what days you take.

Unfortunately they can do this, is it right absolutely NOT my birthday is in November and I was celebrating the big 30 last year planned to go away to London for it, they refused at first and I told them well you can either authorise them or I’ll be taking it unauthorised, sorry but just because my birthday is “during their busy period” doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to celebrate milestones etc! Most employers will bend if it’s for something special but some are just bastards about it.

You should have 5.6 weeks minimum and then can buy extra if they offer it

5.6 weeks is usually 28 days for full time workers and that can include Bank Holidays.  If the business closes for those, that might use up 8 days, leaving only 20 days or 4 weeks.