mikelincs

When I worked for the NHS in the UK we got credited with our annual leave at the beginning of the financial year, you then could take it any time up to the next financial year start, we were allowed to carry over three days, but these days had to be used in the first two months of the year. We did, however have rules about how many staff could be off at any one time, and, exceot for very special circumstances, no one was allowed more than two weeks at one go.

During most of the year this worked well, but at Christmas there was a rota worked out, so if you had Christmas off one year you would go to the back of the queue for the next year, it usually worked out that people could have Christmas off one year in three, however those of us without children or without young children usually gave up our turn in favour of those with young children.

nikkijane88

For us it's more that they don't have the cover for people to take their leave... So they just don't

quiltman

Thats strange. All the employment contracts I've had (5 in my working lifetime from 1962) all stated what the accrued holiday per month was, or in one case, 4 weeks paid holiday after 12 months service, but existing holidays honoured.
anyway, that's in the past as i'm now on permanent holiday!

Pom_Chch

Lol, I always feel in the opposite camp. I tried to suggest setting up a system whereby employees with high amounts of leave can "donate" it to people who keep buggering off on holiday (ie me). It didn't go down too well sadly! I never understand people who have so much leave. Just take a few days and enjoy the local area, spring clean, work on a hobby, I don't know just anything to not be at work!

Bermudashorts

That would definitely be illegal in the UK today. I have never in my working life, come across a UK employer that expects an employee to accrue days. Of course they would be pro rated for a partial year of employment but you would be told of the day you join, your leave entitlement is x days and then you can take them whenever you wish, the following month if you wanted to.

Australia has the same concept of accruing holidays as described by OP. But it is more for accounting than anything else. In practice people might slip into the negative if they take more holidays than accrued but it will soon catch up and never seen an issue with that. Actually at my place of work, there was always more of an issue with huge leave balances building up.

Bo-Jangles

Most firms in the UK work on that basis and whilst maybe not explicit, it's usually implied that for example after the first month in a new job you would have accrued and been allowed to at least take the two days leave you have earned to date and so on.

In NZ it is not uncommon for firms to fully enforce the employment law which says that you do not become entitled to take any leave until you have completed the first twelve months.

Charismatic

I've not had this, in fact the last three companies I've worked at have had policy about requiring employees to take no less than two full weeks of consecutive leave per year as a measure to prevent fraud and such.

Pom_Chch

It's also not uncommon for companies to be lenient and flexible with holiday in your first year. My previous company, my partners company and now my current employer are perfectly fine with you taking 5-7 days paid holiday in your first year. For us it was 1 week holiday and 2 long weekends away which I have no complaints with.

Off on a tangent but just thinking it could be a worthwhile question to ask during an interview with a new company...

LauraNotts

This is one of the few things that drives me up the wall backwards about employment practices here.

I work on a very small specialist ward so we have limits on the amount of people who are able to take leave at the same time. People have accrued huge leave balances (I'm talking months of accrued leave and shift leave and lieu days) and take 6 weeks off at a time leaving the rest of us to scrape around and try to take a week here and there.
A full time member of staff might expect to have about 5 public holidays, 4 weeks of annual leave and 1 week of shift leave (so about 6 weeks) per year plus long service of an additional week after 5 years.

I very much strive to take my leave I see it as necessary to maintaining good mental health and being able to bring the right level of care and professionalism to my role. Even with my trying to take as much leave as possible to use it up I am about to enter my third year of employment (when my leave started accruing) with a leave balance of 15 days (for me on my 3 on 3 off roster that's about 4 weeks) that means that over the last 2 years I have had 4 weeks I could not take off. It's nuts.