Can an employer force an employee to take annual leave?

Question

The annual leave period is from 1st April 06 to 31st March 07. Employees have been told they will not be allowed to have more than 10 days annual leave remaining after 31st December 06. All remaining time must be taken before then

Answer 1

under statutory requirement enforced by employment law a person must take their annual leave within the year and unless it is the company policy that these days could be carried into the nexy calender then the employee faces the risk of losing their annual leave days.however, the company cannot make force you to take it when they want you to take it; it is upto the individual of when they want to take it. However, the copmpany policy may require you to tell them in advance due to staff shortages and others taking over your roles for your time off.

Answer 2

yes, I am afraid they can and I am sure that this would have been in your contract.
This is designed to prevent employees all taking last minute holidays, to avoid losing them. Imagine a factory with 100 workers all with 20 days remaining on 1st jan - and all of them want to take all of those days off befoe 1st april, because they cant carry them over. This means that the factory will lose 2000 man days out of a possible 6400 man days, or just about 1/3 rd of all available production time being taken off on annual leave.

Answer 3

Some employers state that you cannot "carry over" any remaining holiday into the next year. 01.04.06 - 31.03.07 is the financial year, however holidays run from Jan to Dec. Therefore, any holiday for the year that you have not taken before December, may be enforced upon you to take prior to end of December, otherwise you will lose the holiday days and not be paid for them either!

Answer 4

Yes. I used to work for a bank and we had to take a 2-week holiday every year so that they could check no-one had any scams going on.

What are you asking for? If you want to be paid instead, or carry it forward, then both of those are definitely at the whim of the employer.

But if you're determined to work when you're being paid not to, and would rather not have the free time, maybe you could volunteer for a local charity instead!

Answer 5

It is strictly an issue of contract. Yes, if it is in the contract; no if it is not. Carry-overs and pay-out are also contractual.

In Canada, employers only must give you four percent vacation pay or the time off.

Answer 6

this entirely relates to the contract that you have signed. My employer also enforces that holidays must be taken between certain periods of the year or you lose them, but at the end of the day I signed the contract ?

Answer 7

Yes, he can, Your employer may think that your performance is not as good as usual and that you need a rest. If you have a lot of holidays outstanding and you risk loosing them then take them.

This will be part of your contract of employment.

Hope this helps.

Answer 8

Depends whats in your contract of employment. Sadly there is usually something in the small print that allows employers to do this stuff.

Answer 9

Of course they can, you can take teh time as unpaid or you can get paid. Heck I end up with the time as unpaid if my place closes(and with the piss poor economy thanks to the Democrats and Obama working it's wonders) closes at that time. Funny how Bush went in with a recession, the Democrats ran Congress his last two years and we end up with an even worse one. Yet the Democrats say it's all Bush.

Answer 10

It will depend on country to country.

MOST developed countries have laws REQUIRING the employer to FORCE you to take leave. It is in line with ILO (International Labour Organisation) conventions.