Even if an employee is on holiday, he is obliged to perform an order of his employer – notices Marta Kosakowska of TGC Corporate Lawyers office. – An employer may require an interruption of a leave. In such situation, an employed should perform an order of a superior and return to his workplace.
However, an interruption of a leave may occur only when an employee’s presence is “very necessary”, when another person in a company cannot replace him and when an urgent threat of suspension of a company’s activity occurred. Nevertheless, the situation must be sudden, pressing and not taking place in a moment of the beginning of a leave, and also impossible to envisage before. In practice it means that the cancelation of a leave may occur in case of a failure or an unexpected inspection of a supervisory body, during which a presence of a person who is on holiday is necessary – says Marta Kosakowska.
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Not performing an order of returning to a company, under a law, constitutes a serious violation of employee’s obligations, which may result in imposition of a fine, provided in a company’s statute, including a disciplinary dismissal. However, it is worth taking into consideration that regulations do not impose on an employed a compulsion of giving a phone number, at which he will be available during a holiday, and indicating a place of departure. Generally, an employee does not have grounds and law for refusing and saying that he will not come back from a leave. However, if an employer cannot reach an employee on the phone, a worker cannot take any consequences for this reason – says a representative of TGC Corporate Lawyers.
A superior who interrupts his employee’s holiday is obliged to return all costs borne by an employed due to his earlier return to work and interrupt his relaxation, among them i.a. expenses for a reservation, accommodations, or tickets – also those which are related to the return of his family from their holiday. An employer should bear identical expenses in a moment of withdrawal of an earlier granted, but not started yet, leave.
Nevertheless, it is worth remembering that the right to holiday is a fundamental privilege of each employee, and the employer’s obligation is to organize work in a company in so that the cancellation of an employee’s leave would not be necessary. If an employee performs standard obligations or there are few people on similar positions in his department, an employer should establish a work continuity in such way that a company’s activity in a holiday season is taking place without any difficulties – says Marta Kosakowska.