Annual leave at work - legal advice

katiebob

Hi all,

A legal question if I may. We have been told at work that we need to take 10 consecutive days leave as part of anti-money laundering thingummies...

It's not in my contract, or the leave policy, or the leave support pack, or the fraud prevention policy.

Can they enforce this without showing me where I have agreed it?

Kat

tailwindhome

The connection between your holiday and money laundering being?

katiebob

the longer i'm off the longer theyll have to discover my non-existent dodgy dealings ;-)

slowbike

line of business?

katiebob

Financial Services - leasing

spasypaddy

doesnt sound legit to me.

ask them to give you the 10 days as paid leave but not our of your holiday allowance as you dont want to use your holidays up as and when you are commanded to

davmaggs

I don't know about the legals, but it certainly is common practice.

Daz555

davmaggs wrote:

I don't know about the legals, but it certainly is common practice.

Yep, very common practice in financial sector.

jds_1981

I think technically your employer can tell you exacly when your holiday is (similar to this NI link)

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/nireland/ ... ke_holiday

jds_1981

TailWindHome wrote:

The connection between your holiday and money laundering being?

Not just ML but also plain fraud checks.
The idea being that with your colleagues looking after your work for two weeks they're more likely to find any dodgy things you may have been up to..

rick_chasey

My office shuts down for week between Christmas and New year and forces me to take it as holiday.

Suffice to say this is not popular.

dhope

Would be surprised if it wasn't in the staff handbook or similar. Certainly was at my place and 2 weeks is a requirement in the industry for most front and middle office roles.

katiebob

jds_1981 wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

The connection between your holiday and money laundering being?

Not just ML but also plain fraud checks.
The idea being that with your colleagues looking after your work for two weeks they're more likely to find any dodgy things you may have been up to..

Bugs me as I have no dealings with the fraud side. Unless someone discovers that I didnt Photocopy something correctly!

BigLights

In my experience it's mostly on the trading, structuring and compliance sides. M&A and such don't seem to be forced to take extended breaks.

stu-bim

As stated above when annual leave is taken as determined by the employer. Not sure on UK law but in Ireland it is also the obligation of the employer to ensure it is taken and not paid in lieu and not just in financial services.

desweller

Pretty common isn't it? Academic staff commonly have to take their holidays at certain times of the year, I expect most of us must take some time off over Christmas too. F1 teams are required to shut down completely at the break point in the season; I'm sure they would challenge it if they could!

patrickf

I'd expect that this kind of thing would have to be in your contract. It certainly is in mine (ok, not financial) that states the company may nominate 5 days over Christmas.

Actually reading this: http://www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/l/j/AL03_1.pdf, if it's common practice in the company then it may well be fair game:

Restrictions on taking holidays may be expressly stated in the contract of
employment, implied from custom and practice or incorporated into individual
contracts from a collective agreement between the employer and trade union(s).

Mikey23

Are you in a union or staff association?
What does your contract of service say?
If no to the above, I suspect you are stuffed...

clarkey cat

I'd very much suspect that it would be unenforceable, however, if the reasons for the provision being in place are to prevent money laundering and you refuse to comply then as your line manager I'd have to have a word with your MLRO.

The Rookie

It's what's in your T&C's of employment that count.....

Some jobs clearly will dictate holidays (e.g. manufacturing staff tied to plan shutdowns), many office jobs mandate Christams to new year.

If it's not in the T&C's query it and ask what compensation they are offering for varying the T&C's.

We recently had this at work where the travel dept want to change the travel policy to save a few quid (considering my travel bill for a year is about £12K, it would have saved about £200 every 2-3 years), to many employees it was a significant degradation in T&C's so HR were 'informed' that the travel dept where trying to vary our T&C's without consultation or any compensation and put an end to the proposed change.

katiebob

Not stated in my contract anywhere - states I get 25 days and thats it.

Im not in a union. If I cant get clarification on where it is I'll speak to Citizens advice.

t4tomo

why not book 2 weeks in the sun. It sounds like you need to chill out a bit anyway.

davis

t4tomo wrote:

why not book 2 weeks in the sun. It sounds like you need to chill out a bit anyway.

WTF? If you'd understood that you'd got 25 days to be allocated pretty much as you see fit (within reason), would you not be at least a tiny bit disgruntled that some person who doesn't know or care a jot about your real life dictate that 40% of that "free choice" was being taken away?

the_fuggler

Katiebob wrote:

Financial Services - leasing

Worked in Leasing for a few years. It was standard practice to have 10 days off, although it wasn't often enforced.

Mr_Cellophane

I had to agree to something similar when I TUPE'd into a bank. Never mind that I had been doing the same job for 3 years before that with an outsourcing company.

And if I remember correctly that was 10 working days, so 2 weeks over Christmas didn't count. Something you'd best check as well.

arran77

Rick Chasey wrote:

My office shuts down for week between Christmas and New year and forces me to take it as holiday.

Suffice to say this is not popular.

We have exactly this in our office, quite common in the construction industry, and I love it, I normally always extend the break to a couple of weeks, love being off at Christmas

MBCaad8

[Puts on legal hat]

Your employer can tell you when you have to take your holidays, but has to give you at least twice as much notice as the length of time they want you to take, ie 4 weeks' notice if they want you to take 2 weeks off. It doesn't matter if this isn't written into your contract, or the leave policy, or the leave support pack, or the fraud prevention policy.

[Takes off legal hat, puts on tin hat]

katiebob

MBCaad8 wrote:

[Puts on legal hat]

Your employer can tell you when you have to take your holidays, but has to give you at least twice as much notice as the length of time they want you to take, ie 4 weeks' notice if they want you to take 2 weeks off. It doesn't matter if this isn't written into your contract, or the leave policy, or the leave support pack, or the fraud prevention policy.

[Takes off legal hat, puts on tin hat]

Bum

Headhuunter

This very common in the finance sector, particularly in trading, sales, structuring as Big Lights says. The idea is that whilst you're away they have the time to check through your books/trades etc and any dodgy stuff you're hiding will come out. It may be a FSA (or whatever they call themselves these days) regulation....

t4tomo

davis wrote:

t4tomo wrote:

why not book 2 weeks in the sun. It sounds like you need to chill out a bit anyway.

WTF? If you'd understood that you'd got 25 days to be allocated pretty much as you see fit (within reason), would you not be at least a tiny bit disgruntled that some person who doesn't know or care a jot about your real life dictate that 40% of that "free choice" was being taken away?

you need a couple of weeks in the sun too. its not taken away or restricted choice. Its only that one 2 week block has to be taken consecutively at a time of the employees choosing. Its is relativley normal to take a 2 week holiday.

davis

t4tomo wrote:

davis wrote:

t4tomo wrote:

why not book 2 weeks in the sun. It sounds like you need to chill out a bit anyway.

WTF? If you'd understood that you'd got 25 days to be allocated pretty much as you see fit (within reason), would you not be at least a tiny bit disgruntled that some person who doesn't know or care a jot about your real life dictate that 40% of that "free choice" was being taken away?

you need a couple of weeks in the sun too. its not taken away or restricted choice. Its only that one 2 week block has to be taken consecutively at a time of the employees choosing. Its is relativley normal to take a 2 week holiday.

Meh. I quite like taking lots of consecutive Mondays off. 4 day weeks rock. Plus I don't have the money to go on a 2 week holiday in the sun (nor would I want to go somewhere hot, but I see what you're trying to say)