Employee takes holiday even though you denied the request
Whilst you should accommodate annual leave requests where you can do so, sometimes you may need to decline them, such as where you’ve already authorised other employees to be absent at the relevant time. Provided you act fairly and in a non-discriminatory manner, you can legitimately decline annual leave requests to meet the needs of the business.
If you then hear, say, from another member of staff that an employee plans to take the time off anyway, be proactive and drop them an email setting out the position if they do so. You could write something along the following lines:
“Following the declension of your annual leave request for [dates], it has come to my attention that you may still be planning to take time off without permission on or around this time. I therefore wanted to advise you of the position should you decide to take annual leave on any date on which it hasn’t been authorised. Not only will unauthorised leave be unpaid, absence from work without permission and without just cause is regarded as a serious disciplinary offence, and so is likely to result in disciplinary action being taken up to and including summary dismissal for gross misconduct. I do apologise though if my understanding of your plans is incorrect.”
If the employee then goes ahead with their unauthorised absence, you’d be justified in disciplining them for potential gross misconduct when they purport to return to work. However, they might try and get around this by alternatively calling in sick. If they do, you can still investigate that as a potential disciplinary matter given the circumstances of the case and this should include conducting a robust return to work interview. If the employee’s absence is longer than one week, they’ll also need to produce a fit note as medical evidence of their incapacity.
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