Resignation and holiday

[wainy]

Quick question about the OH who is thinking of resigning (depending on a couple of factors) and what affect it may have on holiday.

We have a holiday booked in July, been approved, as mentioned above OH is looking to change jobs, just waiting for some tests / interviews to be completed in the next couple of weeks.

There is enough holiday accumlated to cover the holiday in terms of allowance, but it looks like it would fall under the notice period. Does the company have any right to ask her to cancel the holiday? What would the company do if you handed in notice on the Friday and went on holiday for a week?

[GeraldSmith]

An employer can refuse permission to go on holiday so long as they give as much notice as the length of the holiday, so if the holiday is a week they need to give a week's notice. But in practice it's hard to see why they would refuse, if you don't take the holiday it costs them more money since they need to pay for the unused holiday days as well as the notice period.

[wainy]

The reason they might is for her to spend more time with the companies client, she is the only one working with them on a contract which runs till October. Hence get as much work / handover (as they will be forced to get someone else to cover - unless the client ends the contract) out of her before she leaves

[condor]

I'd suggest just mentioning that she has a pre-booked holiday in the resignation letter and that her 4 weeks 'working' notice takes that into account. ie she might give them 6 weeks notice to account for the holiday.

[GeraldSmith]

Well as said before they can't cancel the holiday if it's within a week (for a one week holiday) or fortnight (for a two week holiday) of it taking place. But if she resigned, say, three weeks before a two week holiday they could.

[wainy]

Cheers for the responses, hopefully can get the resignation in few days before holiday - its only a week.