Holiday request form

It’s important that employees know how they should request annual leave. Having a formal system in place which involves the employee completing a holiday request form means that everyone knows where they stand in terms of whether annual leave has been granted or not.

Annual leave

You should ensure you have in place a formal system of approval for holiday requests, so there can be no misunderstanding about exactly which days off have been granted as annual leave. Our Holiday Request Form is a useful starting point. Where a worker is in their first year of employment (and they’re not an irregular hours or part-year worker), the amount of annual leave that can be taken at any particular time can be limited to the amount that they have accrued at that time, calculated monthly in advance at the rate of 1/12th of the full annual entitlement. In the absence of any arrangement to the contrary, workers must give notice of their intention to take annual leave equal to twice the length of the period of holiday that they wish to take. There should be no payment in lieu of statutory minimum annual leave entitlement not taken, except on termination of employment. If the worker receives contractual annual leave which is over and above the statutory minimum entitlement (5.6 weeks), you can agree to payment in lieu of any accrued but untaken contractual holiday. Subject to some specific exceptions carved out by legislation, workers must generally take at least four weeks of their annual leave entitlement in the holiday year in which it falls due, but you can permit them to carry over the additional days into the next holiday year. However, some workers have a statutory right to carry over some or all of their annual leave entitlement from a previous holiday year, e.g. where they were unable to take it due to being absent from work on sick leave or maternity leave.