Putting in for vacation time at work

[Christine]

I agree not enough information to know if the company policy is just arbitrarily restrictive or if there is a reason for it. Not all jobs and functions are the same. For instance, I can take as much leave off at one time as I want. There are smallish things that won't get done, but we have enough people that can pitch in during my absence and probably temporarily fulfill some of the important things *have* to get done. Our IT person, on the other hand, is a different story. We have about 150 people in our organization serviced by one IT guy. If he goes on leave, we can borrow IT people from other departments, but they would only be fill-ins for an hour or two a day. No one will lend out their IT people as much as we need it for any real length of time. So the IT worker has limitations on how much time he can be off at one time.

 

[Colleen27]

No advice, just commiseration. I'm also planning a 20th anniversary trip - well, actually a 20th anniversary dinner during the Disney trip we already had planned for DD's 21st birthday - and DH's work totally ruined the surprise I had in mind by dragging their feet on whether he could get the time off for the trip. He put in for it in January but since it falls over a holiday weekend (Labor Day) his immediate supervisor wanted to wait and see if he'd be needed to come in while production was down to do repairs. Which he never minds doing - the factory he maintains runs 3 shifts, 6 days a week and he often goes in on Sundays to do repairs that can't be done while the lines are running and hundreds of workers are on site. But he put in for this in January, and as of this past Monday still didn't know whether it would be approved! Fortunately his team is very friendly and close-knit, so when I spelled it out that I was planning an anniversary surprise so no, we couldn't just go without him and make it a girls trip, he was able to go to the "big boss" (his official boss but not day-to-day supervisor) and get it approved.

 

[tvguy]

Because of the hours I worked over my career, and my job, my vacation time was always a pain to managers. I worked 11 pm to 7 am for 25 years, and 3 am to 1130 am for my final 13 years. They HAD to have someone cover for me as I was the only one on duty doing my job.
Vacation time off almost always meant disrupting someone who worked normal hours to work the graveyard shift. So most encouraged me to take my vacation in the biggest chunks of time I could so they got those hours off the books, and shortened the disruption to those who had to cover for me.*

First place I worked the preferred way to take vacation was in blocks of a week or more. I took 3 weeks off one time.

Second place I worked it just depended on the manager approving vacations. I really upset the manager when I put in a vacation and put "you pick the week" on the request because I had too much vacation on the books and I was only going to stay home and work around the house so the specific week didn't matter. My reply to him was to show him the 4 previous vacation requests with specific weeks that he rejected.

Final place I worked it they preferred one week chunks, and in the last 4 years for example I wanted Christmas week off, but was "forced" by my boss to take 2 weeks off because I had too much vacation time on the books. But being in California where they HAVE to allow you to carry over vacation from one year to the next, there was a lot of turmoil between Corporate and us, the only of their 64 locations in California. Corporate spent a lot of money on labor law lawyers and 2 years trying to find a way around allowing us to carry over unused vacation. In the midst of that they bought another location in California, and they finally threw in the towel. The 2 California locations now have their own vacation policy that allows vacation carry over, while the other 63 locations it is "use it, or lose it"

* Second place I worked, a woman who worked graveyard shift weekends (Friday night to Saturday morning, Saturday night to Sunday morning) talked the boss into allowing her to take 3 weekends (only) off. She was going to work her 3 week days still. 6 days had to be covered, and their were 6 of us to cover. Simple, right? Well some thought since I worked that shift during the week that I should cover all 6 days. That would have been 27 days straight. Boss called us all in and said he needed each of us to cover one day. I raised my hand and said "I'll do the first day". Boss said "thanks, you can go now". It took an hour for the other 5 folks to work out what day they had to cover.

 

[LYSE]

"It depends" however your husband is probably a better judge of this based off previous employment and word of mouth from other employees at other companies.

For me personally I've never had that, but 4 weeks + PTO is common in my industry so limiting it to a week makes it a bit tough, I've heard unofficial rules of keeping it under a month but that's it.

 

[sam_gordon]

That’s a ridiculous policy.

It is a ridiculous policy.

As others have said, we don't have enough information to know if it's ridiculous or not. And you can't really compare vacation policies between businesses much less countries. Well, you can, but just because company "x" does something one way doesn't mean "y" must do the same.

 

[Karin1984]

At my previous company, in the Netherlands, if you took more than 4 weeks at a time you needed to get special permission, anything under just depended on workload, scheduling etc.

I am probably gonna give a very European answer: can your husband talk to his manager or HR or whoever is in charge to ask if an exception is possible? It is a special occasion.
The worst they can say is no, because not the policy.

 

[mikalkwin]

As others have said, we don't have enough information to know if it's ridiculous or not. And you can't really compare vacation policies between businesses much less countries. Well, you can, but just because company "x" does something one way doesn't mean "y" must do the same.

2 consecutive weeks should be allowed because it is better for their employees health. It is not a matter of comparing companies / countries. It is also not a matter of having a key person or being too cheap of a company to hire more personnel to ensure to have backups (yeah, i know about staff shortages and blah blah). Noone is irrepleacable. Your key person could drop dead tomorrow, you'd be force to do without them for more than 2 weeks if you need to hire a replacement.

 

[tvguy]

That’s a ridiculous policy. my company doesn’t care. If you have the time off, you can use it. I’ve taken 2-3 weeks off for one trip. I know some folks, especially those that have family in other countries take a month off.

What if they don't have someone to cover for you? For many of us, THAT was the issue. I get that. Nothing ridiculous about that.

 

[mikalkwin]

What if they don't have someone to cover for you? For many of us, THAT was the issue. I get that. Nothing ridiculous about that.

They should have someone to cover for anyone at anytime. Trianing people, hiring people. If you have a car accident tomorrow and noone is able to cover for you, what happens then?

 

[martikus]

All I want to know when approving requests is how the job will get done. If someone presented me with once in a lifetime trip and a promise to work a little more and after so their work doesn’t get too far behind no problem. I gave an employee 3 weeks off to tour Africa with her mother. She is my best employee and absolutely want to keep her. She picked a month that was slower at work and had a plan. I was also happy to help with some of her tasks.

My worst employee who doesn’t pull their own weight on a good day is gonna get a no (thankfully don’t have any of those right now).

Never know unless you ask but it is all how you present it to your boss.

 

[tvguy]

They should have someone to cover for anyone at anytime. Trianing people, hiring people. If you have a car accident tomorrow and noone is able to cover for you, what happens then?

LOL. I agree they SHOULD have the staff, but that hasn't happened in my industry in decades. It means overtime and or double shifts usually and a crisis.
A manager at a past employer did her masters project on the employer's understaffing, and turned it over to the big bosses. She show how hiring more people, even when factoring in benefit costs could save them a lot of money in overtime. The numbers all made sense, but the big bosses say corporate would never allow it to happen because corporate was all about keeping the head count down.

 

[kymom99]

HR should have a vacation policy. Does he know that the official policy is?

 

[mikalkwin]

LOL. I agree they SHOULD have the staff, but that hasn't happened in my industry in decades. It means overtime and or double shifts usually and a crisis.
A manager at a past employer did her masters project on the employer's understaffing, and turned it over to the big bosses. She show how hiring more people, even when factoring in benefit costs could save them a lot of money in overtime. The numbers all made sense, but the big bosses say corporate would never allow it to happen because corporate was all about keeping the head count down.

So the no 2 consecutive-weeks of holidays is not the only stupid rule in your company/industry, then

 

[FlightlessDuck]

My job doesn't have a 1-week max, at least not in my department. If I worked the phone lines, maybe? But also we do have some weeks when there are only a limited number of people who can take off in my department. Late July through late August is "busy season" and my manager doesn't want all the senior people out at the same time, which I understand.

I think it really has to do with the specifics of your role and what your company does.

 

[tvguy]

So the no 2 consecutive-weeks of holidays is not the only stupid rule in your company/industry, then

Or many other industries. My wife's best friend works for a company had gives NO paid vacation time off. You can take as much time off as you want, just no pay. They also didn't used to offer any paid sick days off, but California law now requires some paid sick leave, and of course with covid there are laws here requiring two weeks paid time if you test positive.
Owners didn't want to deal with the hassle of tracking vacation and sick time. And they pay enough above going rate that employees can afford to take time off without pay.

 

[sam_gordon]

They should have someone to cover for anyone at anytime. Trianing people, hiring people. If you have a car accident tomorrow and noone is able to cover for you, what happens then?

So they should have an extra person for every employee? Generally, whoever fills in for the person taking vacation will either be doing more work or someone has to do theirs.

And saying its "unhealthy" to not allow two consecutive weeks off? Really? Please show some facts on that one. Will it make for a happier employee? Maybe for the one taking off, but guessing the worker who has to take up the slack isn't as happy.

And, as I mentioned previously, it could be done to allow everyone a chance to take off when they want.

 

[ronandannette]

It is a ridiculous policy. French labour law imposes 2 weeks of annual leave between may 1st and october 31st. In other european countries where this is not regulated, 2 consecutive weeks once a year might be imposed by the company for health considerations (true in many european banks for high-stress jobs such as front-office etc).

Perhaps we'd find those dictated policies to be ridiculous? I prefer to have as much control as possible over my own PTO and don't feel I need a government-mandated stress leave "imposed" when I'm healthy and some other use of the days would better suit my needs.

 

[ronandannette]

They should have someone to cover for anyone at anytime. Trianing people, hiring people. If you have a car accident tomorrow and noone is able to cover for you, what happens then?

You don't own or manage a small business, do you.

 

[DLgal]

It sounds like your husband needs to be sick that Friday.

 

[disneychrista]

I don't think we have this rule. But to be honest in the four years I have been there I have only taken 8 actual vacation day total. Taking time is frustrating to me because I come back to so much work that it almost makes taking time off not worth it. Luckily we are allowed to cash in 2 weeks of vacation time a year, as long as we retain at least 40 hours in our bank.