I’ve always heard that European companies had a more liberal time off policy … five or six weeks a year being typical. However, I just received an offer from a British company abroad granting me 25 days holiday, which seems to include both what we Americans would call holidays and vacation time. Would that be typical for a British company operating in England? (It’s for a software team lead position.)
I get 25 days to take when I wish plus public holidays (we call them bank holidays for obscure reasons I don’t quite understand). These bank holidays are:
Jan 1st - New Years (or following weekday if it falls on a weekend)
Good Friday & Easter Moday
First Monday in May (unless it conflicts with Easter, when it will be put back a bit)
Spring Bank Holiday - Late May or early June
Last Monday in August
Christmas Day and Boxing Day (or following weekday if either fall on a weekend)
So that is 33 days in all which I think this is pretty normal in UK. Continental Europe tends to have more vacation time especially in summer.
It is also worth noting that in the UK we call all vacation time holidays.
One thing worth checking: often employees are forced to take some of their holidays, whether they wish to or not, between xmas and new year.
I wish I was forced to take holiday over the Christmas period. I work in a 24/7 Telephone Network helpdesk and seem to have drawn the short straw… Working both BIG days!!! Like who’s going to want help with their telephones on those days?..
…EVERYONE… it’s usually our busiest time!
Don’t confuse “Europe” with the U.K.
In the U.K., effective November 1999, employees must receive four weeks of paid annual holiday (that is, vacation); that’s 20 days if you’re on a typical five-day workweek. The comment about people being required to take time off is that employees may not receive payment in lieu of time off (except unusued accrued vacation at the time of termination of employment.)
The average number of paid vacation days is around 23, but there can be significant differences by company, by industry, etc. Vacation entitlement commonly increases based on length of service, 27 days is a typical maximum (but some companies allow more and some fewer.)
Bank holidays (U.S.: public holidays) are usually in addition to annual vacation, and there are about eight. However, employers are not required by law to give these days off. Bank holidays may be included in the statutory minimum of four weeks of vacation per year, which sounds like the approach your employer has taken.
The rest of Europe, in contrast, tends to have higher requirements for paid time off.
Denmark, for instance, requires companies to give 30 days of vacation each year after the first year of employment, usually calculated based on a six-day workweek. Germany requires 24 working days after the first six months of service, but most larger companies grant 28 to 30 vacation days, plus up to 13 holidays (varies by state). In Italy, managers get a minimum of 35 days’ paid annual leave (based on a six-day workweek), ordinary employees have lower minimums based on the appropriate collective agreement.
Hope that helps.
The way you take holidays in the UK can vary hugely and it would also depend specifically on your particular role.
Example - most companies give a minimum of 20 paid days on top of public holidays such as Christmas, Easter, Mayday etc, however some jobs simply cannot stop for public holidays.
Usually you will be paid at least time + 50% or more and in public services such as hospitals, prisons and the like you will also be entitled to take another day instead.
There is a loyalty award in most companies but the most you will get is 30 days usually after maybe 10 to 15 years sevice. In one company I worked at they increased you number of allowed paid sick days too and these were effectively used as holidays too.
I have always been in maintenance and in many industries the only time that is available to carry out essential work is when the whole place has a shutdown and all the production staff are on leave, their leave is compulsorily timetabled with most of their holidays arranged a long time beforehand.They usually only get maybe ten days of elective holidays.
For maintenance staff this is totally differant, we would get paid higher rates for working unseasonal hours and take our leave whenever we had arranged it between the whole maintenance crew but making sure of adequate cover for normal working.
In most production facilities the technicians, electricians, fitters etc are usually the best treated of the staff.Good ones are hard to find.
Contrary to C K 's comment about public holidays being counted toward the total entitlement of an employees leave this is fairly rare and the companies that do do this are usually the sort that no-one would work for if they had a choice.
I worked back in '83 for such a company and the turnover was incredible, and the wages were not.We effectively had only 15 days holiday and even then the was some weaselling done by the owner.Out of a payroll of less than 20 he managed to go through over 70 staff in less than two years, that gives you an idea of the type of company that does try to whittle down the hols.
IMHO you’d be mad to take a full-time position like this. If you have the skills to be a software team leader, you can come here and set yourself up as a contractor. That way, you can pick and chose where and when you work, and who for, earn incredibly good money, and have as many weeks off for holiday (vacation) as you want to give yourself.
I’m a Brit, and have worked in the software industry over here since 1987. Be a freelance contractor. Full-time / permanent positions suck. Software companies here (I’m London-based) show zero loyalty to their employees whatsoever. They’ll fire you soon as look at you. As a freelance, you are out of all the office politics and corporate bullshit, and you are your own boss. Even with the deductions you will have to pay, the money is still fantastic. And if you want to give yourself 10 weeks vacation a year, you can! It’s unpaid vacation, of course, but you can earn so much, you still end up ahead of your full-time wage-slave peers.
Okay. So what exactly are:
[ul][li]the 1st Monday in May[/li][li]Spring Bank Holiday[/li][li]last Monday in August[/ul][/li]And don’t you get the Fourth of July off? Oops! Sorry…
Some of our holidays are rather arbitary.
In the 70’s, when there was a big fuss over us joining the Common Market in Europe, there was a collective sigh toward Italy and its large number of public holidays.
All we got were a few religious days and that was about it.
Even New Years day was not a public holiday except in Scotland which IIRC did not take Boxing Day instead.
Somehow we decreed a couple of other days and invented resons for them, Mayday was one such and was put there to coincide with International Labour day which also happened to be celebrated by most of the Eastern bloc.(remember those enormous military march pasts in Red Square?)
When good old Maggie Thatcher came to power Labour Day always rankled her, I suppose she thought it was communist or that it was a plot by the opposition Labour party.
She decreed in a somewat high handed manner that this holiday was now abolished (she called it ‘moved’) and insead we were to declare Trafalgar Day(sometime in November) a national holiday.
Who the hell wants a day off in British November weather ? No Brits that I can remember especially at the expense of a loss of a much more likely pleasant 1[sup]st[/sup]May, call that a move ? Bloody robbery is more like it.
This experiment was widely resented a was taken to be just another nasty, petty, little dictatorial facet of Thatcher.It was soon changed back.
As for New Years day being a normal working day, well Joe Public simply stayed at home more and more and it became a public holiday by dint of popular will, a revolution caused by not having to do something is the British way.
Most nations have some kind of National Day but that is because they gained or won their independance from colonial powers such as ourselves, we had no such reason so thats one day less for us.