According to the Holiday Act, an employee is entitled to at least 25 days of holiday leave per year. This legislation is largely mandatory. This means that terms in an employment contract that restrict the employee's rights according to a mandatory legal rule are invalid. However, certain rules in legislation can be regulated in contracts or through collective agreements. The right to holiday is otherwise limited by the employer's decision-making power regarding the allocation of holiday leave. However, an employee is always entitled to a continuous summer holiday of four weeks. Which means sometime between 1 June and 31 August. But can the employer revoke granted holiday?

Who has the final say regarding the timing of the vacation?

The employer's right to ultimately decide when the holiday is to be scheduled is in line with the right to manage and distribute the work and to decide on the organisation of the company. This right in the context of holidays differs from the general rule regarding the employer's right to manage work. An important difference is that employees have a statutory right to holiday leave. They also have the right to some influence in determining the leave. The employer's right to initially decide on the arrangement of the holiday does not extend to the extent that the employer has the right to revoke its promise of holiday without further ado. Granting holiday for a specified period has binding effect. The employer may be obliged to pay compensation to the employee if the holiday is later revoked.

It is not uncommon for an employee to request vacation for a time that suits the rest of the family so that they can spend the vacation together. You may have already booked and paid for travel and various other expenses. Having to reschedule vacation that has already been granted can therefore be a major inconvenience for the employee. The employee may thus suffer a financial loss, which means that the employer may be forced to compensate the employee for the financial damage caused by the revocation of granted vacation. This applies in any case when the employer has revoked its decision without justification.

If the employer considers that the initially granted period of vacation is no longer appropriate, without any actual change in circumstances at the workplace since the vacation was granted, the decision to revoke the vacation leave may be unjustified. Furthermore, it is important that the employer discusses the matter with the employee before revoking the decision. This is because the Vacation Act states that the employer must take into account the employee's reasons for requesting vacation for that particular period.

Final advice

A couple of things to keep in mind is to always request vacation in writing unless it is already a requirement at your workplace. This makes it easier to go back to the conversation with your manager if there are disagreements about what you have said. Make sure to get a definitive answer so that there is no discussion about whether the vacation notice was preliminary or definitive.

Source:Lawyer's Helpline