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Planning “compulsory” annual leave

Employers can insist that their workers take annual leave at certain times of the year – during a Christmas shutdown, for example – but only in certain circumstances.

Ideally, employees’ individual employment contracts should specify the precise dates of any annual shutdown. If they do not, the employer can instruct workers to take statutory annual leave on particular dates only if he or she gives at least twice as much notice of the leave as the length of time the shutdown will last.

This means that, during November, an employer could tell his or her employees that the organisation will close for, say, two weeks over Christmas and the new year. Employees would then have to use up two weeks of their annual holiday entitlement at this time.

The employer should, strictly speaking, be able to show a “legitimate aim” – such as carrying out machine maintenance during the shutdown – for denying the people the right to work.

An enforced Christmas and new-year shutdown could be a bitter pill to swallow even for practising Christians who would prefer to have more holiday “in reserve” for the summer months. For non-Christians, such a shutdown would seem to be even more of an anomaly. A Muslim may strongly prefer to work throughout late December and early January and save extra leave for, say, Eid-al-Adha.

If the employer could not show a legitimate aim for the shutdown, the Muslim worker may be able to claim indirect religious discrimination for being denied the right to work between Christmas and the new year.

Employers who have, over the years, always insisted that their workers take time off in late December and early January could claim that this is now implied in their contracts. But it is always safer to have a written document to make things certain.

All full-time workers in Britain are entitled by law to a minimum of 24 days’ paid time off a year – a figure that will rise to 28 days next April. Part-time workers are entitled to the holiday on a pro-rata basis.

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Notes to Editors

Pearson Hinchliffe Commercial Law is a commercial law practice providing a range of legal services to business and commercial clients in Oldham and across the North West. The firm's specialities include Company & Commercial, Employment Law, Commercial Litigation and Commercial Property matters.

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