Pre-allocation for the 2024/2025 holiday year

Why do holidays need to be pre-allocated?

It is the university management's wish that all employees take their accrued holidays during the holiday period (1 September 2024 to 31 December 2025). All employees at AAU must therefore plan their holidays well in advance. This is done in accordance with the Rules regarding holiday entitlement at Aalborg University.

This year, we have tried to make the process more flexible to fulfil a request from you for a smoother process. This means, among other things, that you are allowed to wait until after New Year to request holiday requests if this fits in best with your local operations. However, we encourage you to have a deadline for registrations no later than 1 February 2025, so that you have the opportunity to announce summer holidays well in advance (deadline of 3 months). However, the most important thing is that you have a local process for pre-planning that complies with the rules of the Holiday Act and ensures that the holiday is taken.

How are holidays organised?

The HR department has prepared a number of tools and templates, including a suggested email text for employees, a holiday agreement form and a holiday calculator. All of the material should be seen as inspiration, and we do not have a requirement for how you collect holiday requests. The only requirement is that all employees plan their holidays and that all agreements are in writing. If the employee does not submit their holiday requests by the deadline, or if only partial requests are submitted, you as management must give notice of the remaining holiday days to be taken. This notification must also be in writing. The days can be notified to be taken at the following times in the holiday year 2024/2025 in order of priority:

• 27, 30 December 2024
• Weeks 29, 30 and 31, 2025 (main holiday)
• 30 May 2025 (Low service day)
• Week 42, 2025

If the holiday is not announced until after the turn of the year, the days can be announced at the following times:

• Weeks 29, 30 and 31, 2025 (main holiday)
• Week 42, 2025
• Week 7 or 8, 2025 (depending on physical location)

You should be aware that employees may have started taking the new holiday and therefore not have 25 available days left in the holiday year. It is therefore important that you announce the summer holiday as the first holiday, as we are obliged to ensure that employees have the opportunity for 15 consecutive days of summer holiday.

Can we at the department/department choose to announce holidays in other periods?

It is possible for the department/unit's works council to decide which periods the holiday should be announced in, as long as it complies with the rules of the Danish Holiday Act. In this regard, you should be aware of the following:

• The employee is entitled to have at least four weeks of holiday within the holiday year (1 September 2024 to 31 August 2025). Management therefore only has the option to notify a maximum of one week's holiday in the period from 1 September 2024 to 31 December 2024.
• The notified holiday is earned at the time of taking it. It is important to note that the last 2 x 2.08 days of holiday are not earned and ready to be taken until 1 August and 1 September respectively. Therefore, the employee has only earned 20.8 holiday days out of 25 holiday days in July. Full holiday will not be earned until 1 September 2025, which means that the last days can be notified to be taken in week 42 2025.
• When giving notice of holiday, you must use the holiday that the employee has earned with pay at AAU as a starting point. It is therefore not possible to notify non-earned holiday to be taken.
• AAU has previously been closed between Christmas and New Year, see ‘Holiday closure between Christmas and New Year’. At their meeting on 27 February 2024, HSU decided that AAU will be open between Christmas and New Year in the future. 

Do we have to plan all holidays now?

No, you can wait to send out the material and collect requests. However, it is important that the holiday is pre-scheduled and you ensure your ability to announce the main holiday to be taken if employees do not submit holiday requests. You should therefore collect holiday requests no later than 1 February 2025. If you don't pre-arrange holidays until after the New Year, some employees will already be using their holidays, e.g. Christmas holiday 2024, if they haven't saved holidays from the old holiday year. When approving ongoing holiday requests, it's important to make sure that you have earned and ‘saved’ 3 weeks of holiday for the summer holidays (the main holiday period). It is important to note that the last 2 x 2.08 days of holiday are not earned and ready to be taken until 1 August and 1 September respectively. Therefore, the employee has only earned 20.8 holiday days out of 25 holiday days in July. Therefore, it is not possible for the employee to carry 10 days forward to the summer holiday period if you also want to ensure that they have saved 15 days for July.

Who approves the holiday requests?

Previously, it was the manager who had to approve holiday requests. It has been decided to change the procedure so that you can decide locally who should approve holidays in your organisation. However, it's important to note that although the manager has the option to delegate the task of approving holiday, the manager cannot delegate the actual responsibility. It is still the manager's responsibility to keep up to date with the workplace's holiday accounts so that you are not obliged to pay out any remaining holiday at the end of the year.

Hvorfor står der ikke noget om de særlige feriedage?

Det er valgfrit, om medarbejderen forhåndsdisponerer de særlige feriedage nu. Har en medarbejder ikke afholdt sine særlige feriedage, og er tidspunktet for afholdelsen ikke fastlagt senest den 1. januar 2024, kan ledelsen varsle dagene afholdt med 1 måneds varsel. HR-afdelingen udsender en reminder omkring dette i starten af 2025.

Holiday hindrance

When you are prevented from taking your holiday, for example due to a period of maternity leave, this is called a holiday hindrance.

The rules on holiday hindrance apply to your maternity leave if you are absent on 31 December, when the holiday year closes. In this case, your accrued holiday days under 20 days will automatically be transferred to the next year, and your accrued holiday days over 20 days will automatically be paid out unless an agreement is made to transfer the days instead. If your maternity leave extends beyond the end of the year, you should therefore consider whether to make an agreement with your manager to transfer your holiday days over 20 days to next year.

Decide on your holiday before you go on parental leave

You have the option to agree with your manager in advance whether you want to carry over your holiday days over 20 days on 31 December and your special holiday days on 30 April. These will be paid out automatically if you do nothing. It may therefore be a good idea to arrange transfers with your manager well in advance if you can already tell them now that you want your holiday days carried over to next year.

When you return from maternity leave

When returning from maternity leave, it's important to consider how much holiday you have available.
This is especially relevant if you have carried over a number of holiday days from the previous year. This is because the holiday must be taken during the holiday year, which for normal holidays runs from 1 September to 31 December the following year (16 months) and for special holidays runs from 1 May to 1 April the following year (12 months). You should therefore consider whether you should agree with your manager in advance that you will take holiday in extension of your maternity leave, or how you can best arrange your holiday days in an appropriate way. Your holiday balance can be found in Statens HR.

Example 1:

An employee is due to go on maternity leave on 1 October and at the start of their maternity leave has 8 days of accrued holiday to be taken before 31 December. The employee expects to return to work on 1 June after 9 months of maternity leave. In this case, the 8 accrued holiday days will be transferred to the next holiday year on 31 December due to the rules on holiday prevention, which means that on 1 June the employee will have a total of 8 holiday days + 18.72 accrued days from the maternity leave period itself, which gives a total of 26.72 days (2.08 days of holiday accrued per month). The employee therefore agrees with their manager to take 10 days of holiday in extension of their maternity leave so that they can take their accrued holiday. It is also agreed that the employee will take 15 days of summer holiday in August and 2 days of holiday in week 42, so that they do not accumulate too much holiday, which risks being forfeited at the end of the holiday year.

Example 2:

An employee goes on maternity leave in January and returns on 10 December. During the maternity leave period, the employee accrues 23.92 days of holiday and will have accrued 25 days by the end of December. To utilise their accrued holiday, the employee has agreed with their manager to take holiday in extension of their maternity leave, from 10 to 23 December as well as 4 days between Christmas and New Year, thus using 17 accrued holiday days. In addition to this, they have agreed that 5 holiday days over 20 will be carried over to next year. The 3 remaining days cannot physically be taken before the end of the year, which is why these 3 days are covered by the rules on holiday prevention and will be transferred to the next holiday year.