Problem in getting annual leave approved

Question

Last year our company changed the policy to neither carry forward employee annual leave days nor reimburse them. Eventually everyone has to 'use up' their full leave for a calendar year.

The deadline for availing leaves is very near and most of the employees still have more than half of their leave days in the bag. Good thing is that every one has applied for leaves and willing to avail them from beginning of this announcement. But, due to workload, managers of the departments are not approving the leaves (or only allowing short leaves). HR and Admin on the other end don't want to hear the employee case and keep telling that all leaves will be nullified.

What should be the best way to deal with this type of situation? No one wants their leaves to get void but managers are not approving them and HR/Admin is not willing to give some relaxation in the policy.

Answer 1

I worked in this type of environment a long time ago. We were given a lump sum of vacation days on April 1st and any hours from the previous year were lost. All leave had to be be approved in writing. (though there was a separate pool for sick days that rolled over and didn't need advanced approval)

The key to get days rolled over was the approval sheets. If a manager rejected X days then the employee could roll over the same number of days. Managers were unlikely to reject vacation days unless everybody was asking for the same days off, and there was a requirement to have no fewer than a specific number of staff each day. Managers who rejected vacation days were not graded highly by both their employees and their manager. Employees don't like to see days rejected, and managers don't like to see extra vacations days on the books.

A plan in which the employee doesn't control when they take vacation, and when a manager has an interest in maximizing the number of hours you work will always lead to the same place you are: expiring leave.

You must remain calm and avoid the temptation to just take leave anyway, or everybody call in sick the same day: you could lose your job.

You as a group have to document the rejected leave. The best cases are ones that have asked for more days than the leave allowed. If you are allowed 10 days leave, and somebody suggested 10 different times to take a 4 day weekend, and all were rejected: the company will have a hard time saying they waited to the last minute, and they were the same days everybody wanted.

Look back to when the new policy was announced. Are there comments or documents that discuss this situation. Sometimes management has trouble seeing where holes in a new policy are, and they need to be reviewed once they are in place. The other possibility does exist: they knew this was a big possibility and the plan is working as expected.

I considered suggesting that you ask for documentation of when upper management took leave and who approved it, but that could backfire. They might not take leave, or they could decide you are just stirring up trouble.

Answer 2

What should be the best way to deal with this type of situation

Both parties are just doing their job. It's HRs job to make you take your leave. It's your boss' job to make sure the project gets done. But those goals conflict and you are caught in the middle.

Set up a meeting with both your boss and a HR representative. Make sure you come across as constructive and tell them you are willing to either take your leave or have it prolonged. Let them decide what's the priority and let them come up with a long term solution or policy.

Answer 3

The deadline for availing leaves is very near and most of the employees still have more than half of their leave days in the bag

Interesting that most answers talk about rollover when this is the crux of the problem.

If the stated policy is not to carry, the onous is on the employee to plan and agree this in good time. I've been in companies like this, I would get written agreement at the start of the period for all my main planned leave, keeping a moderate number of days for flexible use. You know when Christmas or other fixed holidays are, why wait until a week before then feeling aggrieved when they say no. The managers can usually accomodate if they can plan it in, so earlier the better.

Leave half your leave until last week of the holiday period, I've no sympathy I'm afraid, you knew the risks.

I always ask my teams to at least "pencil in" dates for major leave at the beginning of the year ("a week in the first half of Sept" is enough resolution for me), if I can deal with resource issues months in advance ("do you guys have any flexibility as all three of you want off the same time", or get extra resource lined up) I'm more likely to say yes to what you want, and if I expect customers to let me know their plans months in advance, I should be doing the same for my team's capability/availability.

Answer 4

This is a legal issue. You should seek legal counsel in Pakistan. In Europe, companies wouldn't be allowed to do this. Even in the US, many States have laws against this kind behavior from companies.

At the very least, you should document this impossible situation you're being placed in, and send a carefully crafted email to both your manager and the HR person explaining the situation to both of them at the same time and asking for a resolution.

Essentially, you should frame your message exactly the same way nvoigt already suggested.

Make sure you come across as constructive and tell them you are willing to either take your leave or have it prolonged. Let them decide what's the priority and let them come up with a long term solution or policy.

But you should do this in writing, because whether the email discussion goes your way, or doesn't go your way, you need to maintain documentation of what happened, and you need to print it and keep a copy of it at home for safekeeping.

Because even if your manager gives in and promises that you can take some extra time off next year (without needing to formally go through HR), you would need to document that kind of promise.

Even if you trust your manager implicitly, it would be very easy for a family emergency, or another opportunity, or a corporate takeover/reorganization, to take him away from you as your current manager, and any new manager probably wouldn't be aware of any promises the previous manager had made to you (or perhaps, could be aware of such promises, but could choose not to honor them since they had been made against HR policy by someone else).

Answer 5

Call in sick. Get a doctors note at the appropriate time. Then take legal advice. If your company has created a quagmire of policy then that is their problem. Presumably in your jurisdiction you are legally required to be given your allotted holidays or to be paid for them.