Yahoo Finance Boss’s ‘ridiculous’ annual leave rule backfires: ‘Going to lose staff’
The annual leave change went down “extremely badly” with staff.
An employer has been labelled the “worst boss ever” after he made an unpopular change to his staff’s annual leave policy. The move backfired massively, with one senior staff member quitting and threatening that more resignations were coming.
For most employers, the process of applying for annual leave is fairly straightforward. You put in a request with your boss and once it is approved, you are free to take the time off as planned.
This had been the process for one business until the boss, named Elliot, announced staff would need to take “an extra step” when booking in leave.
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“You will submit through the usual system and wait for it to be confirmed, however you will then need to message me to personally make sure that it is still ok the week before you are off,” he told staff in a leaked email.
“I will then reserve the right to cancel it depending on the business requirements. The reason for this change is that we as a business keep being surprised with people being away and it is starting to impact our revenue levels.”
The email was shared online by entrepreneur Ben Askins, who said it could be “the most ridiculous annual leave policy ever”.
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“Does he not know how holidays work? Some people book flights ahead of time or holidays or whatever it might be,” Askins said.
“The idea that this is his plan is absolutely crazy and I cannot fathom.”
Staff quit over change
An employee, called James, responded to the boss’s email to tell him the change had “gone down extremely badly with the team”.
“I really think we are going to lose staff over this,” James wrote. “The main point seems to be the concern that they can never really plan holidays if they need to wait for your sign-off so close to the time they are going away.”
He then asked the boss whether there was another way they could sort out people’s annual leave. But this didn't receive a warm response from the boss.
He replied with: “James, my job is to drive this business forward, yours is to make sure we deliver everything as planned and that includes making sure people don’t quit.”
This ended up having the opposite effect on James, who handed in his resignation.
“If that is your honest assessment of this problem then it is clear that I cannot do my job to any degree of success with you making these types of decisions,” James said.
“I am giving you a professional heads up. I know for a fact this is not the last one of these you will be receiving over the next few days.”
People in the video’s comments also sided with the employee, with many saying they would also jump ship over the policy change.
“I would immediately resign, no way I could work for a business so incompetent that they can’t keep track of annual leave,” one person said.
“Reserving the right to cancel someone's plans, the company should have to reimburse all travel costs,” another said.
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