Holiday entitlement

[hacksaw]

Asking for opinions on behalf of a friend!

He’s been informed that the way his holidays are administered is set to change.

Traditionally, holidays ran April - March

New system is to be January - December. Starting Jan 19.

His issue is that he’s taken this current years entitlement and was expecting a fresh set of 25 days in April 2019. He has made holiday plans based on this, to find out that the company is now only issuing 3/4 of this, 19 days instead of 25. These are for the period April - December.

The maths is right, it just seems a little unsporting to drop this without any form of consultation etc. For what it’s worth, his contract specifically quoted holidays are April - March. Long serving employee, > 10 years service. Personally, I’d just take the missing days unpaid, but he seems reluctant.

Thoughts?

[Sy1441]

I’ve delivered this change in a few businesses, the first year you just factor in the transition and manage people’s holidays accordingly.

[Sir Bagalot]

I worked in a company that did similar, rather than have a 9 month holiday year they simply extended it to 21 months to allow people to manage it better

[NewbishDelight]

I think this is a pretty straightforward case of speaking to his line manager and explaining the situation.

I would be surprised if a solution (either of those mentioned above) is not workable through the chain of command and with some HR input.

Main thing would be to approach the question politely and calmly, and he'll likely be looked after.

[mazdajason]

Sir Bagalot said:

I worked in a company that did similar, rather than have a 9 month holiday year they simply extended it to 21 months to allow people to manage it better

Same here, April to March then changed to Jan - December. I'd already made holiday plans for the following 1st quarter so they extended the period to 21 months worth of days off.