Dealing with conflicting annual leave requests fairly

Although restrictions on UK holidays are due to be lifted on a phased basis from 12 April 2021, international holidays won’t be permitted until at least 17 May 2021 and even that is “subject to review”. That said, the government hopes all remaining lockdown restrictions will be removed from 21 June 2021, with the result that the period from late June to September is fast becoming even more popular than it normally is for workers to book their annual leave. Added to that is the fact that many staff have surplus annual leave to take, having carried some over from 2020’s allowance and not having taken any leave yet in 2021.

Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, although workers are entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks’ paid annual leave, employers are not obliged to agree to a request to take leave at a particular time. If an employer receivse competing requests for annual leave, they’ll need to prioritise them in a fair, consistent and non-discriminatory way, e.g. first-come, first-served or drawing names out of a hat. The employer should check the terms of their holidays policy to see if it specifically covers the issue. Once they’ve fairly dealt with approving the annual leave requests that they can accommodate, they can then decline those that they can’t - perhaps offering those workers alternative summer dates, so that they’re allowing everyone the opportunity to take at least some of their annual leave over the summer, whilst still ensuring there’s no detrimental impact on business operations.