Leave request is mandatory.
If you wish to take one or more days of paid leave, you must first inform your employer. In writing or orally.
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Validation by the employer is not always essential
Then several scenarios are possible:
- Your employer validates your request. And packed it is weighed, you embark for Corsica (this is an example, you can of course go wherever you want) as planned.
- Your employer does not validate your request. And there, things get tough (decidedly). :
- If the rules of procedure or any other internal text indicates a precise instruction requiring the employee to obtain an express agreement prior to taking leave, then you cannot go on vacation without your employer’s approval. For example, if you have to indicate your days of absence in an HRIS and wait for your manager’s validation to leave.
- If there is no specific instruction requiring you to obtain an express agreement prior to taking leave, this constitutes acceptance by your employer. Whoever says nothing agrees.
In fact, this question of the tacit agreement for the acceptance of paid leave was submitted to the Court of Cassation in April 2022.
The case that sets precedent
In this case, an employee had verbally requested a day off for June 27, 2016, but no response from his employer. He was then still absent on D-Day. His employer, dissatisfied, had then sanctioned him with a warning for unjustified absence. The employee then seized the industrial tribunal to obtain the cancellation of this sanction, arguing that he had considered his request accepted on the principle of “silence which would be worth acceptance. For its part, the employer justifies the warning by the impossibility for the employee to fix the dates of his holidays himself without the express prior authorization of the management. And that this absence had caused a real disorganization in the functioning of the company and in the organization of work.
The decision of the Court of Cassation:
“It considers that the employer did not justify any specific instructions requiring the employee to obtain an express agreement prior to taking leave. In the absence of refusal from the employer, it decides that the employee could consider that his request had been accepted.explains Carole Vercheyre-Grard, labor lawyer.
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Sylvie Laidet
Independent journalist, I carry out surveys, portraits, reports, podcasts… on the life of employees in companies. Gender equality, diversity, management, inclusion, innovation are among my favorite subjects.