Can I Force My Employees to Take Annual Holidays in the UK?

As an employer in the UK, you are under a legal duty to provide your employees with annual leave. There is a minimum statutory amount of leave employees are entitled to, which you must give as paid leave. Accordingly, it is critical that you understand the rules regarding employee entitlements to annual leave, so you can meet your legal obligations and avoid potential disputes. However, there may be instances when an employee does not wish to take their legal leave entitlement. When this occurs, you should be aware of the obligations, both for you and your employee. This article will explain the statutory leave entitlement for employees and whether or not you can force an employee to take annual holidays.

What is the Legal Annual Leave Entitlement?

Most employees have the right to a statutory leave entitlement of 5.6 weeks or 28 days per year. This is only the case when they are working a five-day week. For part-time workers, you can calculate the necessary leave amount by multiplying the number of days they work by 5.6. For example, someone working three days per week would be entitled to 16.8 days of statutory leave per year.

If an employee works more than a five-day week, there is no legal requirement to increase their annual leave entitlement. Furthermore, it is at your discretion whether to include public holidays as part of your employee’s statutory annual leave entitlement.

Usually, when an employee requests leave, they must give double the amount of notice of the number of days leave. Therefore, a request for two days of leave would require four days notice.

What Rights Do Employees Have?

In addition to the existence of a statutory (legal) leave entitlement, employees also have the right to:

• receive pay whilst on annual leave;
• build up their annual leave whilst taking other forms of leave such as any parental leave;
• ask for their annual leave whilst taking sick leave; and
• receive payment in lieu of any accrued but unused holiday on termination of employment.

Further, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government introduced a new temporary legal right to assist employees where it had not been reasonably practicable to use up their holiday entitlement. This includes critical workers. This legal right allows employees to carry up to four weeks of their annual leave over the following two years. If an employee leaves their job during these two years, you must pay them for any holiday not already taken.

Can You Force an Employee to Take Their Annual Leave Entitlement?

Despite the rights afforded to employees in terms of holiday entitlement, you also have rights as an employer. For example, an employee would not usually be able to carry over any of their statutory holiday leave into the following year. Apart from the temporary right created due to the pandemic, carrying over holiday leave is only allowed where you have a ‘workforce agreement’ in place that allows an employee to do so.

As a result, you can also request when employees take their holiday leave. Providing such a request is reasonable and does not discriminate. In such an instance, it is unlikely that an employee can refuse to take their holiday leave. You may make use of this right where, for example, you want to ensure employees take a holiday at Christmas, especially if this is a quiet period for the business. On the contrary, you want to ensure all areas of the business are adequately covered at one given time.

What Limits Are in Place?

There are some rules surrounding your right to force employees to take annual holidays. For example, you must:

• legally have any rules relating to when employees can take their leave, as well as any restrictions written in a ‘workforce agreement’;
• locate this ‘workforce agreement’ in a place where it can be easily found, for example, in an employees contract or a staff handbook;
• include your own fixed leave in any written rules – otherwise, where you do not have your own leave year, there are separate rules regarding when this would be for an employee; and
• ensure all rules are clear, justified, and applied consistently and fairly.  

Equally, if you refuse the holiday leave dates your employee has requested, you must give them notice of this. The minimum amount of notice required is the length of the period of leave they have requested. Therefore, if your employee had requested eight days of leave, you must give them eight days’ notice before this.

You are also entitled to force an employee to take unpaid leave during a shutdown. However, you can only do this if the employment agreement with the relevant employee allows for this action.

Key Takeaways

You are legally obliged to encourage employees to take their annual holidays. There are rules surrounding statutory holiday leave and rights afforded to both you and the employee. As part of these, you can force an employee to take annual holidays at a chosen time. You can also refuse the dates that the employee requests. However, you must be aware that there are rules surrounding how you force an employee to take annual leave.

If you need help with your employee’s annual holidays, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents. Call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.

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