Policy: Staff Holidays

In this article we're going to go into our holiday policy, how we manage it and what measures we take to ensure that our service to children and parents is not disrupted by staff on leave. To be read in conjunction with deployment

Key Points:

• Annual paid entitlement accrues at a rate of 1/12 total entitlement / month and must be used within the year
• Management reserve the right to instruct holidays to be taken at specific points during low activity e.g. summer and winter
• No two staff may take holiday at the same time unless directed by management
• Holidays must be booked with at least 2 week's notice via BambooHR and operate on first come first served basis and with 3 month's notice for longer periods
• Discretionary / unpaid leave is only permitted at the discretion of the management

Holidays 

All employees are entitled to paid holidays during their course of employment with us. The annual paid leave entitlement runs from 1st January until 31st December each year, holiday days are accrued on a monthly basis and can be found on BambooHR, holiday will be pro rata for employees who start mid way through the holiday year.The holiday entitlement can be found on the below table, this entitlement is based on a 40 hour week,Holiday entitlement will be prorated down accordingly for employees who work less than 40 hours per week.

Holiday Entitlement- Full Time 40 hours 

Employees will benefit from an additional days holiday for Each year’s service, up to a maximum of 5.

• Holidays must be taken at a time convenient to the company and no two employees from the same school may take holiday at the same time unless with the express permission of the Central Executive Management. In the event of a conflict the management will convene a staff meeting to discuss any conflicting annual leave requests with the team members directly
• The nursery management team must not take holidays at the same time at any time - to meet with statutory compliance, there must be a named manager or deputy on site at all times. This is the reason why the nurseries have a named manager, a deputy and a third in charge, so that there will always be at least two managers on site at any one time
• Annual leave is to be booked on a first come first served basis 
• Requests for holidays which are deemed to be unfair and unreasonable to the rest of the team may be refused. For example a request for 5 Fridays in a row may be refused as this would block off 5 whole weeks for staff based at that Nursery. 
• The nursery will try to accommodate religious holidays and ad hoc requests wherever possible however requests for these must be made following the guidance in this policy.
• The nursery will not agree to a request for a holiday that involves more than two consecutive working weeks (10 days holiday) unless agreed in writing with one month’s notice in writing. More than two consecutive weeks is defined as more than two consecutive working weeks
• For holidays longer than two weeks, the manager must receive the request with as much notice as possible aiming for 3 months in writing and retains full discretion based on the smooth running of the nursery
• Exceptional circumstances are at the manager’s discretion and based on annual entitlement and unpaid leave but will only be affected should there only be one member of staff off for that period of time in any given month.
• The nursery reserves the right, on reasonable notice, to require you to take annual holidays during quiet times such as the summer holidays
• All holidays booked must be agreed by the Nursery Manager in advance through Bamboo. The nursery manager will be held accountable for the above terms being adhered to by nursery staff

Procedure

• Four week’s notice for proposed holiday dates must be given to your Manager via Bamboo  holiday planner 
• Your Manager will consider your request and return your holiday request to you through the system and stating the authorised dates.  Your manager will make every effort to ensure that holiday requests are granted wherever possible; however there may be occasions when a request will have to be refused.  Your Manager’s decision on holiday requests is final and not negotiable
• Holidays are only permitted once the manager has authorised the holiday through Bamboo
• Any untaken holiday may not be carried forward to the next year and no payment will be made in lieu of any untaken holiday
• No holiday entitlement may be taken during the first 3 months / during probation unless explicitly agreed with the central management
• No unpaid leave will be authorised without express permission of the central management team after a recommendation fro the Nursery Manager
• The nursery is closed during the Christmas to New Year period and staff are obliged to take this period as holiday which will be automatically deducted from their annual entitlement

The terms of holiday allowances are furthered in the terms of your contract. Please review and for the purposes of clarity, the contractual terms always take precedence.

On termination of employment holiday entitlement will be calculated to the nearest full month worked.  Holiday pay is made at your basic rate, and if you leave having taken in excess of your accrued holiday entitlement, the company reserves the right to deduct the appropriate amount from your salary.  If you have been paid for fewer holidays than your entitlement then the balance will be paid to you with your final salary.

Other Absence

Appointments

You are normally expected to ensure that appointments to visit the doctor, dentist, hospital etc. are made in your own time and outside normal working hours unless prior arrangements have been made with the Nursery Manager with one week’s notice prior to the date that deployment in the nursery is finalised for the subsequent week. 

In the event that this is not reasonably practicable, time off work will be permitted to attend such appointments providing that the appointment is substantiated with an appointment card/letter (if requested) and the timing of the appointment causes as little disruption as possible, i.e. at the beginning or end of the working day - such time off will be either requested back as hours in lieu or taken off pay.

Bereavement Leave

In the event of the death of an immediate family member, i.e.: spouse/partner/mother/father/son/daughter, employees will be granted appropriate time off work, the amount of which will be at the Company’s discretion.

In the event of the death of an extended family member i.e.:

grandfather/grandmother/sibling/grandchildren or close friend, the Company will consider requests for leave and grant it at its discretion.