Entitlement
The holiday year for all staff is 1st January to 31st December. Unless your contract of employment states otherwise the standard entitlement to annual leave for staff who work all year round is:
- 28 working days
- 29 days after the beginning of the leave year following the completion of 3 years’ service
- 30 days after 4 years
- 31 days after 5 years
Requesting Holiday
When you wish to take part of your annual leave, you should follow the Union's procedure for requesting and authorising holidays. The Union wishes to ensure that employees take all of their annual holiday entitlement as leave. Holidays should be taken during the Union's holiday year, which is January to December. To apply for holiday, complete a request through our online HR platform.
Wherever possible, line managers will try to accommodate requests for leave, whilst bearing in mind the needs of the organisation and our members. In circumstances where staff cover is inadequate or holiday dates clash, a request may have to be refused. Requests will be assessed on a first-come, first-served basis.
A request is not deemed to have been approved until you receive notification that it has been approved by your line manager. Employees must not, for example, make personal holiday arrangements before their line manager has approved their holiday request in case it is not possible to approve the request. In such circumstances, the Union will not be liable for any costs incurred by the employee and any unauthorised leave taken will be classed as an Unauthorised Absence and subject to the Disciplinary Procedures.
The request for leave should be submitted as far in advance of the requested leave date as possible. In any event, you are required to give a minimum period of advance notice of twice as many days as the number of days requested. For example, a request for a fortnight's holiday should be submitted no later than four weeks before the first day's leave.
Holidays cannot be carried over into the next holiday year unless there are exceptional circumstances and the employee has the written permission of the Chief Executive – in these cases a maximum of 5 days will be able to be carried over. A maximum of one week of accrued flexible working can be carried over into the next holiday year unless there are exceptional circumstances and the employee has the written permission of the Chief Executive.