VA Manager not allowing annual leave

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I work at a VA hospital & on my floor our current manager :devil: gives us a very hard time when we want to take annual leave. Mind you, we will ask for a day or two way in advance (a month or two) and have plenty of saved up leave time yet he will not allow it. He will only let us do a change of shift. We get two weeks of vacation a year which we have to request one year ahead of time. Things come up, we do not always know that far in advance what days we really need off. We have the union here but they are not much help at all. I was just curious if any of you out there have similar problems where you are at and what has been done to correct this situation. :confused::eek::mad::cry::cry:

Specializes in Home Health.

Are you working for the VA as Veteran's Administration, a branch of the US Government? Have you brought this up with your human resources department? I don't know what the laws are concerning the US Government, but in the private sector human resources can say that time off such as vacation time or annual leave is at the discretion of the manager, that this is not a benefit mandated by law.

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Specializes in Home Health.

While working in the private sector, I requested 7 days vacation three months in advance to travel to Europe. Two weeks before I was scheduled to leave, I was told I had to find someone to work my three 12 hour night shifts, fri, sat, sun and that if I didn't I would be terminated (I worked weekends only, three 12 hours night shifts, fri, sat, sun for 5 years for that hospital. I gave my supervisor 2 weeks notice on the spot. I called human resources about this and was told that the hospital didn't have to give vacation time at all. I was better off without that job, and thoroughly enjoyed Europe.

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Specializes in Corrections, Cardiac, Hospice.

I would put up with being turned down for leave only twice. Then I would just start reporting off on the days I need it. Let him scramble to find a replacement rather than have a scheduled per diem in place. I am not one to call off, either, before I get slammed. I have only called off twice in the last 3 years, once was with pneumonia the other was when my grandmother died. BUT! You can bet a shiney nickle it would be more if my manager didn't respect my need for some time off.

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I work for the VA and know exactly what you mean. :uhoh3:

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VA= Veterans Administration. Government agencies have "annual leave". Yes, it's absolutely unacceptable and we are having similar issues at the VA I work.

Seriously? Are you in the US? I only ask because you used the term "annual leave" and traditionally we talk about vacation days or PTO, etc.

Absolutely unacceptable. Go as high as you have to in order to get this remedied. How long have you/your co-workers accepted this?

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Specializes in Spinal Cord injuries, Emergency+EMS.
Seriously? Are you in the US? I only ask because you used the term "annual leave" and traditionally we talk about vacation days or PTO, etc.

Absolutely unacceptable. Go as high as you have to in order to get this remedied. How long have you/your co-workers accepted this?

VA facility ? military terms creeping over ? although yes referring to annual leave does seem to bea habit of theUK influenced people on AN

regardless of the type of facility or the location in the world you will have a set of staffing calculations that determine your staffing establishment , part of that calculation will be an allowance for all kinds of absences so a combination of 'holiday' , study leave, other off the unit work ( e.g. office days for those who are meant to be predominantly clinical , union rep duties, etc etc ) and sickness this should be expressed as a percentage of the hours in the establishment - as an example our absence as a team shouldn't exceed 21% of established hours - 14-18 % (average 16 %) as leave - remembering that the most european employers not just the NHS give a lot of leave compared to US employers - 20 days inc (8) statutory holidays is the minimum EU law allows and the NHS starts ar 27+8 before seniority additional days)

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Specializes in Telemetry/Stepdown, Government Nursing.

I'm also a VA nurse. Paper trail is the way to go for sure. Send emails CC-ing the associate chief of PCS. The VA wonders why they can't get anybody to show up for work. If they would work with people and give them their leave that they are entitled to, they probably wouldn't have all the call outs. I have learned that many employees will call out rather than ask for the time off ahead of time because they know that they will be rejected if they ask.

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Specializes in LTC.

We had a manager like that and at the end of the year all the time we acrued over 240 hrs, she HAD to give us or we would lose it. So many people had vacation at the end of the year because of her "controling ways" of not handing out vacations when people wanted it. So in the end she got in trouble with her bosses because she had no staff come November/December. Now we have trouble getting one day of AL if we ask for one. She comes out with the old "I'm not handing out any AL" at this time. IDK, some of these managers think our time is coming out of their pockets. We worked for it, we earned it and we should be able to use it when we need to. Not when they want you to use it...control freaks. :icon_roll

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Specializes in Spinal Cord injuries, Emergency+EMS.

following on from my earlier post - getting the leave 'right' is should be one of the things unit managers are expected to get right and should be one of their metrics - having too few people on leave only stores up problems for the end of the accounting year ...

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

I am in Tx. I sent an email requesting a day at the end of October off & I said I did not want to do a change of tour/shift, I just want to use AL & I'm giving plenty of notice. I was already prepared to fight but amazingly enough they approved and gave me the day I requested.

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