Events of the last few years, such as wildfires, cancelled flights, travel companies in liquidation, and the lingering impact of Covid, will see many employers approached by employees wishing to cancel or amend their holidays.
With the recent devastation on the Greek Islands, and this week’s events regarding the fires in Hawaii, many due to fly out there in the coming days and weeks are going to be re-arranging their plans. But what does this mean for the annual leave they have already booked?
Considering a request to cancel
There are many reasons why an employee might want to cancel their pre-booked annual leave. It could be through their own choice, or due to circumstances beyond their control, such as is the case earlier this month on the Greek islands of Rhodes, Evia and Corfu where massive wildfires have caused holiday makers and locals to flee large areas of the islands, and Hawaii in recent days. However, as devastating as the reason may be for the cancellation, it is down to the employer’s discretion or internal policies as to whether or not the holiday can be cancelled, as the law is silent on this.
If a request to cancel a period of holiday comes in, you should consider whether you are able to approve it.
The circumstances may dictate your ability to agree; short notice cancellations may be trickier to cancel because you may have organised cover which cannot now be changed, whereas if plenty of notice is given of the cancellation request, it may cause less disruption. Whatever you decide, it must be reasonable. Failure to ensure this could lead to damaged employee relations and the possibility of problems in the future.
Where you cannot accept the cancellation request, you should consider if it is possible to allow for some of the days to be cancelled, as the employee could then take a shortened period of holiday and have the chance to take the remaining leave at another time. Either way, you should let the employee know as soon as possible that all (or some) of the annual leave remains booked and will come off their overall entitlement as originally planned.
Alternatively, you might be able to accommodate the request. If this is the case, this should be communicated to the employee and their outstanding leave entitlement adjusted to include these days. However, when doing this, it should be made clear to the employee that they are still expected to take all of their annual leave in the current annual leave year, if you operate a ‘use it or lose it’ system. If some carry over is permitted, the employee should be reminded of the limitations of this.
What if the employee gets caught out?
For employees who find themselves stuck in a situation such as those who were already on one of the affected Greek islands when the wildfires took hold, or are now affected by the fires in Hawaii, cancelling the annual leave isn’t a practical option. They might even get stuck without a means of transport home, potentially beyond the date they were due to return to work. If you are an employer of an employee who is unable to return to work because of circumstances beyond their control, the following advice may be helpful.
Ideally, you should have clear rules in place that set out the notification requirements for employees who are likely to be unable to attend work or are likely to be late due to travel disruption. These rules should be flexible — the situation may be fast-changing and certainly beyond the employee’s control.
Clarify the position about pay and working hours to the employee — you are not under any legal obligation to pay the employee for this lost time (unless there is a contractual requirement to do so). You should seek to agree to some alternative working arrangements to cover this and any continuing absence. It is usual in these circumstances to ask the employee to take additional annual leave from their annual entitlement to cover the absence(s). Alternatively, you could ask the employee to make up the time upon return to work.
How we can help
At S.E.Hunter Associates Limited we can help employers respond to the needs of their employees in such circumstances, and help avoid confusion and conflict by establishing guidelines, policy and process.
The services we offer include:
- Creation of Holiday Policy including policy and process on request to cancel.
- Providing a one stop point of HR contact where you will have access to your own HR Business Partner, to answer queries via telephone and email in a personal and timely manner, to help respond to situations both general and in regards to an unforeseen national or international event (such as wildfires);
- Supporting effective communication via the production of letter templates to respond to a variety of holiday related scenarios;
- Supporting with the grievance policy where an employee has been refused a request to cancel.
If you would like to discuss any of the above, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us, either by mailing info@sehunterassociates.co.uk or calling 07838184094.