Holiday - information about requests, registration, and accrual

• Holiday leave entitlement under the Collective Labour Agreement (CAO)

  Holiday leave entitlement is an important part of our employment conditions.

  Under chapter 4 of the CAO, anyone who works on a full-time basis is entitled to 232 hours of holiday leave per calendar year, with retention of remuneration. Some of these hours are collective holiday leave. For part-time employees, the number of hours is prorated according to the FTE percentage. 

  On-call workers have the same holiday leave entitlement as regular employees, but they receive their holiday pay along with their normal wages. On-call workers therefore do not accrue holiday leave.

  If employment commences or terminates midway through the calendar year, the holiday leave balance will be pro-rated according to the employee’s employment contract in the relevant calendar year. Article 1.1(r) of the CAO stipulates what is understood by ‘remuneration’. What is understood by ‘monetary compensation for work outside office hours’ and ‘monetary compensation for being on call’ is the average amount of relevant compensation received in the three calendar months prior to the moment holiday leave commenced.

• Types of holiday leave and periods of limitation on your holiday leave chart

  Types of holiday leave
  On the holiday leave chart, you will see different types of leave days.

  1. Statutory holiday leave entitlement
     Your annual statutory holiday leave entitlement is four times the contracted number of working hours per week. For full-time employment of 38 hours per week, the annual statutory holiday leave entitlement is 152 hours per calendar year (pro rata for part-time employees).
  2. Extra-statutory holiday leave entitlement
     The CAO stipulates that, in addition, you are also entitled to holiday leave above the statutory minimum. That comes to 80 hours per calendar year (pro rata for part-time employees). Therefore, for full-time employment of 38 hours per week, the annual holiday leave entitlement is 232 hours per calendar year (pro rata for part-time employees).
  3. Compensatory leave
     Article 5.6 of the CAO allows you to make use of the Flexible working hours, and gives you a choice between the plus, basic or minus options. For part-time employees, the above figures will be prorated (see Appendix G of the CAO).
     • If as a full-timer you choose the plus option, then you work 40 hours instead of 38 hours per week. If you select this option, you will accrue an extra 96 hours of holiday leave. These hours will be separately entered and registered on the digital holiday leave chart. 
     • If as a full-timer you choose the basic option, then you will work the usual 38 hours per week and you will see a 0 on the digital holiday leave chart for compensatory leave. That’s because you have no extra hours requiring compensation.
     • If as a full-timer you choose the minus option, then you work 36 instead of 38 hours per week. If you select this option, 96 hours will be subtracted from the statutory holiday leave entitlement. You will see a minus sign next to the 96 compensatory leave hours on the digital holiday leave chart as proof that you have chosen the minus option, but these 96 hours will in fact be subtracted from your statutory holiday leave entitlement. All these calculations will be performed periodically by the HR Service Desk.
  4. Long-term leave accrual
     If you are enrolled for the Long-term saving model under Article 5.5 of the Collective Labour Agreement, then you are reserving leave for a future single continuous period of extended leave. The reserved leave appears on the digital holiday leave chart under this heading. 

  Period of limitation
  In general, employees are expected to take their holiday leave entitlements in the year in which they have been accrued. If any holiday leave entitlements are left over at the end of the calendar year, they are subject to a period of limitation, as stated in Article 4.7(7) of the CAO.

  1. Statutory holiday leave entitlement
     Any remaining statutory holiday leave entitlements will be carried over to the new calendar year on the digital holiday leave chart, but will lapse after six months. ‘Lapse’ here means that any remainder can no longer be taken in days off.
  2. Extra-statutory holiday leave entitlement
     Any remaining extra-statutory holiday leave entitlements will be carried over to the new calendar year on the digital holiday leave chart. Employees must make a written agreement with their manager within six months of the last day of the calendar year in which the entitlement was accrued about taking this leave within a maximum of five years of the end of the calendar year in which the entitlement arose. Generally speaking, extra-statutory holiday leave entitlements lapse after five years, with the cut-off period entering into effect from the end of the year in which they have been accrued. ‘Lapse’ here means that any remainder can no longer be taken in days off.
  3. Compensatory leave
     Any remaining compensatory holiday leave that then still appears on the digital holiday leave chart on 31 December of that calendar year will automatically lapse. ‘Lapse’ means that any remainder can no longer be taken in days off.

  When holiday leave is taken, the system always utilises the accrued leave time that would expire first. In other words, first compensatory leave, then statutory holiday leave entitlements, and finally extra-statutory leave entitlements. There is one exception: when you still have a remainder of statutory holiday leave entitlements valid until 1 July on the digital holiday leave chart, those accrued hours are used first because they expire first.

  Although any remaining or already lapsed entitlements are technically still visible in the leave balance report, non-active holiday leave entitlements are not included in the balance available and therefore have no impact on the balance remaining.

  Changing the time period on your holiday leave chart for a good overview of your holiday leave credit
  If you open your holiday leave chart and click the blue link 'Show All' in the 'Balances' section at the top right, you will be taken to the simplified view of your holiday leave chart. You will see the composite available balance overview of holiday leave credit. If you then click on the tab 'Account View' at the top, you will see all holiday leave types listed separately with the relevant balance and future expiry dates.
  
  By default, the time period is set to 'As of today'. This means that already requested future holiday leave have not yet been deducted from the balance overview you are seeing. If you change the date on the right to 31 December of the current year, all requested holiday leave hours in the future are also deducted from the balance overview. So to get a good overview of your total holiday leave hours, it is recommended to set the date to 31 December of the current year.

  Absences and holidays
  If you open your holiday leave chart and click on the blue link 'Show All' in the 'Upcoming Time Off' section at the bottom right, you come to an overview with 3 tabs: 

  • under the tab 'All' you will see all future holiday leave hours, collective holidays and public holidays listed
  • under the tab 'Absences' you can see all future holiday leave hours and collective holidays
  • under the tab 'Holidays' you can see all future public holidays

  If you click on the filter symbol on the right and choose 'Past Events', you get the overview from the past (until 2021) in 3 tabs:  

  • under the tab 'All' you will see all holiday leave hours taken, and the collective holidays and public holidays from the past
  • the tab 'Absences' shows all the holiday leave hours taken, and the collective holidays from the past
  • the tab 'Holidays' shows all public holidays from the past

• Collective holidays and public holidays

  Collective holidays
  The Executive Board may, in accordance with Article 4.7(5) of the Collective Labour Agreement and with the approval of the employee organisations in the Local Consultation, designate up to seven days per year as collective holidays. At the beginning of the calendar year collective holidays are deducted from the hours that expires first. As a rule these are the compensatory leave hours. If you are not participating in the plus option of the Flexible working hours scheme and therefore do not accrue any compensatory hours, collective holidays will be deducted from the statutory holiday leave entitlement. No hours will be deducted if a collective holiday falls on an employee’s scheduled day off.

  Public holidays
  Public holidays are mentioned in Article 4.8(1) of the CAO and are granted as days off with retention of remuneration. If a public holiday falls on a day on which you are not scheduled to work (a scheduled day off), then the holiday will not be compensated at a different time (nor will any time accrue to the holiday leave balance).
  
  Overview of all the collective holidays and public holidays per calendar year.

  Other religious observances
  Employees who wish to take a day off for another religious observance (holiday, anniversary or fast day) must take time from their holiday leave balance. Requests for such days off will be honoured up to a maximum of five days per year, unless the university has compelling reasons for doing otherwise.

• Flexible working hours

  As a standard practice, employees with a full-time employment contract are expected to work 38 hours per week. Salaries are always based on a 38-hour workweek, regardless of the choices you have made under the rules regarding the Flexible working hours. Flexible working hours is therefore a working hours scheme.

  • Plus option
    If an employee chooses a 40-hour working week (the plus option), then 96 hours of holiday leave entitlements will be accrued in the form of compensatory hours. 
  • Minus option
    If an employee chooses a 36-hour workweek (the minus option), 96 hours will be subtracted from the statutory holiday leave entitlements. With the minus option, you are in fact taking two hours of holiday leave per week already. The same applies to part-time employees on a pro rata basis (see Appendix G of the CAO).

  Employees opting for the Flexible working hours should initiate this upon commencement of employment, and otherwise preferably at the beginning of the calendar year, so that the hours can be properly scheduled. The schedule is linked to the holiday registration system so that the holiday leave balance remains correct. When you take a day off, your schedule will determine how many hours will be deducted from your holiday leave entitlements for that day.

  In the exceptional case that you work a 9-hour day, when you take a full day off, a 9-hour day will be entered in the holiday leave registration. The same applies for collective holidays that fall on a scheduled workday of 9 hours; in this case, 9 hours will be deducted from your free leave entitlements.

  The Flexible working hours is not available to on-call workers. 

  In an effort to reduce excessive holiday leave balances, employees with 200 or more hours of holiday leave under the rules of the Flexible working hours as of 1 December will not be allowed to participate in the plus option of the Flexible working hours.

• Registering holiday leave: turn on or off structurally

  You can turn holiday leave registration on or off using the self-service option Activate or deactivate holiday registration.

  Employees can register holidays in two different ways: either the regular way or by circumventing the system and making arrangements directly with their manager. 

  Regular holiday leave registration
  If you register your holiday in the regular way, you first consult your manager. After their approval, you then register your holiday leave via the self-service option Request holiday leave, amend holiday leave and view holiday leave chart. Your manager does not have to approve once again in the workflow; your request will now be directly processed by the system. If you had a remainder on your holiday leave chart on 31 December, it will be carried over to the next year’s balance. At the commencement of employment, the regular method of registering holiday leave applies automatically.

  Arranging holiday leave outside the system
  You can choose not to register your holidays using the self-service option Activate or deactivate holiday registration. Your manager must approve your choice. If you do not register your holiday leave, you will no longer request holidays using the self-service option Request holiday leave, amend holiday leave and view holiday leave chart, rather you take your holiday leave entitlements outside the system. Depending on the agreements made, this leave can be taken with or without consulting your manager. 

  However, you will still have an assigned holiday leave chart. On 1 January of each calendar year, your holiday leave hours will appear on the chart, based the number of hours you work and your employment contract. The collective holidays for that year will be deducted from your entitlements in January. You can use your holiday leave hours as a source in the Optional Model for Terms and Conditions of Employment On 31 December of that calendar year, the balance will automatically reset to zero. On 1 January of the following calendar year, you will receive a new holiday leave chart and the cycle will begin again. 

  You can decide to switch from regular holiday leave registration to not registering holiday leave in the system at any point in the calendar year using the self-service option Activate or deactivate holiday leave registration. However, this cannot be done retroactively. Please note that all holiday leave hours you have already accrued up to the moment you no longer register holiday leave must still be taken in the regular way via the blue 'Take action now' button on this page. These old holiday leave hours will therefore not automatically expire at the end of the calendar year in which you have chosen not to register holiday leave. 

  You can also switch from not registering holiday leave to regular holiday leave registration. However, this will only take effect on 1 January. 

  Employees who work on a project with strict accountability requirements and record their hours worked are required to use the regular holiday registration method. As such an employee, you do not have access to the self-service option Activate or de-activate holiday registration. Employees required to begin recording their hours worked in the course of the calendar year will need to contact the HR Service Desk to switch to the regular method of holiday registration in the system.

• Holiday leave and illness

  The term ‘illness’ is understood as occupational disability, which means a physical or mental condition that, in the opinion of the occupational health physician, prevents the employee from fulfilling his or her duties in whole or in part.

  Full and partial occupational disability
  Employees on long-term sick leave are legally entitled to full accrual of holiday leave hours during their period of illness for as long as they continue to be entitled to full or partial salary payment.

  Taking holiday leave during a period of illness
  Employees on long-term sick leave are required by law to take a minimum holiday leave of four working weeks per year. Managers are expected to ensure that employees actually take holiday leave time. Only in exceptional cases will a sick employee be allowed to take less holiday leave or none at all. Generally speaking, this is only the case if the employee has been admitted to a hospital or other healthcare institution and/or is bedridden, or if the employee is so dependent on others for basic daily needs that he or she cannot be considered to be self-sufficient. The occupational health physician will advise in such situations. 

  VU Amsterdam employees with a full or partial occupational disability or are reintegrating and go on holiday are required by law to use their holiday leave hours. This means that, for each day off, the partially ill employee must use the same number of holiday leave hours that he or she would have worked according to the schedule if not ill.

  Falling ill while on holiday
  If you fall ill while on holiday, you should report your illness by telephone to your manager, and subsequently enter your illness in the self-service option Report illness and recovery.

  When you return to work, you should explain to your manager that you have been ill. Subsequently, you may delete the holiday leave hours requested through the self-service option Request holiday leave and special leave from the time the illness was reported. Do this by clicking on the blue button ‘Take action now’ on this page. The same applies to any collective holidays that fell within the relevant holiday leave period. A notification will be sent to your manager. 

• Holiday and leave schemes

  Holiday leave under the Parental leave scheme
  For employees participating in the Parental leave scheme, annual holiday leave entitlements will be reduced in proportion to the leave factor and leave duration.

  Holiday leave and the maternity leave / additional childbirth leave
  Holiday leave accrual is not affected by maternity leave. If a collective holiday falls during the period of maternity leave, then this day will not be deducted from the holiday leave balance. This also applies to additional childbirth leave.

  Holiday leave and the Vitality Pact
  Employees who participate in the Vitality Pact waive all extra-statutory holiday leave entitlements and retain an entitlement to 5 times the remainder of working hours per week multiplied by a factor of 1.6 or a factor of 1.2 holiday hours per week. The new working week then contains 4 working days or respectively 3 working days of 8 hours each. Participants in the Vitality Pact are not allowed to participate in the Flexible working hours scheme.

• Holiday leave and termination of employment

  Payment of holiday leave hours upon termination of employment

  Managers are responsible for ensuring that employees use all holiday leave entitlements prior to the date employment terminates. If holiday leave hours are being taken as part of the Individual choices model, the Flexible working hours scheme and/or Long-term saving model, then they will be offset against the holiday leave balance. If there is any remaining balance, these holiday leave hours must be taken as time off before the employment contract ends.

  The remainder of the holiday leave balance will only be paid out if there is no other way to use up the entitlements. At any rate, this applies in the following cases:

  • upon the death of the employee
  • upon termination of employment directly after a period of full occupational disability, where the employee has stated that they were unable to take holiday leave.

  If an employee moves to another unit at VU Amsterdam, then the two units must agree on how to reconcile the employee’s holiday balance. Generally speaking, the new unit will honour the employee’s full holiday leave balance.

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