Christine:  Let's move on to our second topic, our happy holiday requests. So New Year brings lots of sickness, but it also brings the new holiday year, which is brilliant. But we get conflicting requests from employees who all want the same two weeks off in the summer, or they want to be off during their kids' school holidays to save on childcare. So we're going to talk about how you ensure a fair system for making requests.

When I was chatting to a friend about this topic, she told me about a former employer of hers that used to operate what I would describe as a "Hunger Games"-style system, where basically, they were told, "On this date, the whole holidays for the year are going to be released", and it was just, "May the odds be ever in your favour". And it caused a lot of problems in her workplace.

That doesn't sound like the ideal scenario. So, Seamus, how do you go about ensuring fairness here?

Seamus:  I mean, just the basics in relation to holidays is that all employees are legally entitled to a certain amount of holidays in the annual year, depending on whether you're full-time or part-time or what hours you work. You should always, again, have a policy and procedure in place about how the holiday process works.

And often, you'll see that employers will say that you can request holidays, but there are no guarantees that they'll be granted and it will depend upon the needs of the business. And it could be certain times of the year where the business is very busy and where holidays cannot be granted.

Again, that's within the rights of the employer to deal with that. But the key thing, Christine, is I think that it definitely needs to be properly communicated and clearly communicated to employees, and again, that you're managing expectations.

So there's the ability for the employer to refuse holidays, dependent on their business needs. But there are no specific laws that cover how to manage or prioritise leave requests. That's completely a matter for the employer.

And it's a headache for employers when they're trying to maintain a fair system, because we always will have those couple of employees that are sharp as a tack when it comes to the holidays. They get the diary out over the Christmas holiday and they decide what their holidays are going to be.

Januarys are a really big time for people to book their summer holiday. We're encouraged to do it. All the adverts come on the TV just after Christmas day. And it's important as well that employees are clear that just because they put a request in that it won't necessarily be granted.

And they shouldn't book holidays without having authority that they've got the time off, first of all. There's always that problem that arises for people losing deposits and they'll say, "But I've booked the holiday. I've paid for it". And it can have a really damaging impact upon the relationship on both sides when it comes to the trust and confidence that that we have.

So my view is always that you should have a clear annual leave policy in place, and the types of things that you want to be putting into that annual leave policy are, "Are there restrictions about when employees can and can't take leave?"

In the legal world, there's always that aspect of . . . We don't really get a huge benefit of it, Christine, as employment lawyers, but it was always that thing where the County Court and High Court, where the courts closed over the summer. And I remember whenever I started, it was always, "Use your holidays in the summer and don't use them in term time", because that's whenever the business is most busy.

Christine:  Yeah.

Seamus:  Those were the sort of set dates that you tended to work from in that sense.

But obviously, every business is different. If you're in hospitality, your Christmas period, your summer periods are all very busy, and you might put restrictions around that.

Equally, you might say, "We're going to enforce a closure in January and we're going to do our maintenance and our repairs during that period as well, so we have a reduced need for staff. We do need some staff, so you all can't have it off". It has to be that sort of open communication.

So restrictions about when you can and can't take leave, and details as well, I think, about how many staff can take leave at the same time. The employer needs to work out, on a minimum basis, what staff it needs in order to keep the business going.

So maybe if you're working within a department of 10 people, the employer might say, "Well, look, we can't have any more than three people off at a time to keep the business going on and to make sure that there isn't too much pressure put on other team members during an absence". So that's important as well.

And particularly around Christmastime, you'll often hear, "Well, we'll run the skeleton staff, but this is what we need in respect of our skeleton staff".

And then the other really important one is the amount of holiday time that can be taken at a time. You will get those requests where people will say, "Listen, I would really like to do a big trip this year. I would like three weeks off in July." And the employer might say, "Our policy is . . ."

You'll often see that you can't have any more than two weeks off, or 10 working days off, at a time without making a special request and for that to be carefully considered before it can be granted.

Particularly if people are getting married, often there will be a policy that will say, "If you're getting married, you get an additional so many days". And we all know the boundaries can be pushed out in relation to that as well. So, again, make sure that these things are clearly written down and contained within the policy and procedure.

And then again, what is the procedure for booking leave? How do you book your leave? Do you go the day before and say, "I'm taking tomorrow off", or is there a form that you have to complete in respect of your request? Does that need to be submitted, and does it have to be signed off by your line manager and provided back to you before the leave is granted? So it's looking at the procedures in place for granting that leave.

And then I think another one is just under what circumstances may leave be refused? The business might give an indication of those sorts of circumstances when leave will not be reasonable, where it can't be provided for. And again, that might be during those very busy periods over when the business needs everybody's shoulder to the wheel.

Again, what you're doing here is you're trying to avoid that disappointment. You're trying to avoid the difficulties that arise around the answer when it's no. And if you can refer them back to the policy and say, "Well, look, this is what the policy says and this is what we have to work through, and we apply that consistently".

And then this issue about whether holidays are approved on a first come, first served basis, that is a really tricky one because on face value it's fair, but again, you have those employees that are very quick and sharp to it.

We were talking there specifically about this aspect where employers will say, "Well, no, we don't deal with holidays in the first week in January because not everybody is back to work that week".

And I think we were just having a conversation with Maria about that as well, where you were saying we don't do it that way because everybody doesn't come back the first week, and that's not fair, because those that don't come back then will miss the opportunity to book their leave.

And I think the other thing is just that aspect of exceptions. What are the exceptions, and what are the exceptions to the rules that are there? What are the emergency circumstances that we would permit holidays outside of our policy and procedure? Is it because there are family weddings that are local or that are far away? Or is it because holidays need to be used for other events that are taking place that we wouldn't necessarily treat as holidays, but the person would like to use them as holidays in order to ensure that they've been paid during that period?

So there are lots of things to cover off, but I think the holiday policy needs to be in place and needs to be clear. And if conflict arises, that's what you're reverting back to.

But I think that this idea of the first come, first served is a really interesting one. And as you say, it could be warfare for holidays when it comes down to this.

And I think in giving it some consideration and thinking about it, there are advantages to that first come, first serve process. It's a system, it's a policy, it's easy to set up, everybody knows about it, and you just have to be clear enough. And it also encourages everybody to plan their holiday year in advance, which helps the business plan going forward as well. It gives prioritisation, it's simplistic, and it's transparent, and it allows the employees the chance to request leave if there are certain periods where they want leave or where they traditionally take leave and things like that.

Many people just consider it to be fair. It's first come, first serve. That's a fair way of looking at it. But it does have its downside as well. And two big disadvantages, I think, are that for those employees that can't make their plans in advance, maybe they're carers or maybe they are waiting on certain things happening, they lose out because they don't have the ability to plan that far ahead.

Certainly, if your wife or your husband or your partner works in educational sectors, they get a broad range during the summer, but very limited outside of that as well as to what they can take. So that can be difficult.

And we all know of those employees who are married to a teacher or their partner is a teacher, and they can only take their holidays during those sorts of . . . Halloween, Easter, those sorts of things that happen.

But you'll undoubtedly always get one or two employees who submit their request on the first day. They'll do it every year. They'll book up all of the popular days off at the start of the year and they'll leave their colleagues with the scraps to pick up in relation to what's left.

And that can be really difficult in terms of managing relationships in the office as well. It does damage it and it can create issues between staff, whereby it builds up issues.

But look, it's a difficult one to manage, and you can't be seen to be giving preference to one person over another. I think there has to be a consistent approach with it.

Christine:  Yeah, so I suppose really the message is first come, first serve is in theory fair, but you do need everyone to play the game. So it's something to keep an eye on really, isn't it?

Seamus:  Yeah.

Christine:  So if you're requiring people to save days to take off between Christmas and New Year because you're closing, or over the July fortnight, there's a rule about notice for that, isn't there, Seamus? Can you take us through that?

Seamus:  Yes, you do. So, essentially, if you're going to close for a period of time, you have to provide double the notice of the period that you're essentially closing for, is the general rule of thumb.

Some businesses will have traditional periods where they always take off. I know that there are certain solicitor firms that close the July week, and they've always done that, and they probably always will do that. But the employees will be familiar with that and know about that.

And I suppose for any new employees that that information has been shared with them at their induction or whenever they start so that they're clear about it, and that they know then what other days they've got left throughout the year in terms of managing their leave also.

But the general rule there is the notice should be double the time. So if you're intending to close for a week, you provide two weeks' notice in advance of that. But ideally . . .

Christine:  Well . . . Sorry, Seamus. Go ahead. I'll let you finish.

Seamus:  But ideally, you want to give as much notice as possible in relation to that.

Christine:  I was just interrupting there, Seamus, because you touched on a point that we have a question on. So we've got somebody saying that staffers are very reluctant to book holidays and end up with loads of days left at the end of the year. So is it the manager's job to make sure they take their holidays, or does that just fall on them and if you don't take them, well, there you go?

Seamus:  Look, there are just so many issues. I mean, we know that we're waiting on our big decision coming from Agnew, as well, in relation to holidays. We had the Supreme Court hearing back in December. So we're waiting on our decision. And I have no doubt if we get the decision this year, Christine, that you and I will be dissecting that in our webinars.

But there is that real problem as well that happens where you get the reluctant employee that doesn't book their days off and you get up to the . . . If your holidays' year runs from January to December and you get to October and it's a real panic about the holidays . . . Traditionally, it's always the same individuals that will do that. But you can manage that throughout the year by saying to the employee that they need to use their holidays during that year.

And is there a specific reason as to why they haven't used any to date? That needs to be accommodated during the year to make sure that they get the benefit of their holidays.

Don't forget that the purpose of the holidays is to make sure that there is time away from work, that you have rest and relaxation, and that you're not going to end up sick because of all of the hours you're working. So there's a welfare issue there that has to be tied in also with that.

And what you want to do is encourage the employee to use their leave, and to do so in a way that assists the business throughout the year as well. So if there are quiet times for the business, you can say, "This is a good time for you to take holidays. And it actually means that when you go away, when you come back, you won't have a huge big workload waiting on you because it's a good time to do it".

You can't dictate, but just remember that the strength is always in the employer's hand because the employer has to approve the holidays. And you do have an ability to decline, provided that you can justify that on a business reason, of course.

So I think encouragement. And you still hear about people taking their winter week and their summer fortnight and those sorts of traditional ways of taking holidays. A lot of that still is threaded out through a lot of businesses, where they will say, "Your winter week, you'll have to take that sometime in December, January, February. Your spring week, your summer fortnight, or whatever it is", and build it in that way also.

Christine:  There's someone suggesting a solution. I'm wondering what you think about it. Can you ask employees to have a certain amount of holidays booked by a date throughout the year, i.e. one week each quarter? And if they don't do that, can you allocate them holidays?

Seamus:  Well, you just need to be careful. I think that definitely the case law has moved, and certainly the European Directives, the holidays are more and more coveted. They're protected more. And to dictate when an employee should use their leave, it can create difficulties in itself because the employee may simply say, "Look, I don't want to take my holidays then". And sometimes they just simply don't like being dictated to.

So I would sort of discourage, from a relationship perspective, telling people when they have to take their holidays. Ultimately, you do have some muscle on the bone in relation to that because the employer ultimately controls when the holidays can be taken when the requests are made.

But certainly, I would encourage that there would be open communication about that, and if that works best for the business, that you encourage the employees to use their holidays that way,

Christine: Seamus, we have run over, not surprisingly, because of the topics we're considering. But I should mention that next week on Thursday, I'll be talking to Mark McAllister of the LRA in a webinar, and he's going to be looking into his crystal ball about Agnew. I'm certainly very excited about it in the geekiest way possible. I can't believe we're going to get an answer. And he's also going to talk about the Harpur Trust case as well, which obviously deals with holidays as well.

I noticed today in the news, the Westminster government have actually opened a consultation on the outcome of Harpur Trust. So it will be useful if as many people as possible feed into that from HR and employment law backgrounds. I think they're very quick off the mark to try and change this piece of case law, and it always makes me suspicious when governments get up to that. So let's all get involved in the consultation.

But we have overrun. Sorry, everyone, but we just got very involved in that discussion. If you look on your screen now, you'll see all about Legal-Island. We've got our great Employment Law Hub, which covers all the case law.

We've got a couple of conferences coming up soon, a Cost-of-Living Crisis one at the end of February there, and then we've got Productivity in a Blended and Hybrid Working Environment.

And we've got a new Social Media in the Workplace eLearning module and we've got a new ESG eLearning as well. Seamus and I will be talking about ESG next month in Employment Law at 11, which is on 3 February, I believe, Friday the 3rd.

You can also find us on podcasts wherever you find your podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or Apple. So look out for us there if you want to catch up.

Seamus and I are also on LinkedIn, so please drop us a line and connect to us.

But thank you all very much for coming along. Thank you, Seamus, for doing this today. It's always enjoyable.

Seamus:  Thank you.

Christine:  We will see you again next month. Thanks, everyone.