No you cant. For one its perfectly legal to travel (so "legally" you cant) and secondly you could only do it as a reasonable management request of if you had some pretty restrictive contractual clauses. It cant (for 99.99% of cases at least) be a reasonable management request as HM Govt who know more than you say it is OK to travel.

You can ask nicely but I am not sure what you will say

On what basis would you even be trying it? I quite fancy a holiday in the sandwich Islands

In reply to Keith:

Thanks Keith, We are within the childcare sector and feel it would be an additional risk.. we have managed to go the whole pandemic with no cases in our setting.

In reply to Rebecca:

On what scientific basis do you think it would be an additional risk?

Given the very severe restrictions that HMG have placed on travel there are places in the UK with potentially higher contagion rates...

But you can ask nicely

In reply to Rebecca:

You can point out that if the green status changes to amber or red they will have to isolate/quarantine by taking additional holiday whilst doing so.
BTW why would Portugal be any worse that spending all weekend in the gym and pub and catching up with 'hugging'?

In reply to Rebecca:

HI Rebecca, there was a similar thread recently about restricting what people do in their own time, with very similar answers. The employer has little right to involve itself in someone's private time, especially if the planned activity is legal (not always cut and dried even if it isn't legal!) Think also about the message, your people have put themselves at risk to come to work with little ones who don't understand social distancing or not coughing on the nearest adult, and now they may finally be allowed a holiday abroad, you're threatening that you might not allow this.

In reply to Peter Stanway:

All of this applies to returning from green countries:

Before travel to England

Before you travel to England you must:
•complete a passenger locator form
•take a COVID-19 test
•book and pay for a day 2 COVID-19 test

On arrival in England

You must take a COVID-19 test on or before day 2 after you arrive.

You do not need to quarantine unless the test result is positive.

You must self-isolate if NHS Test & Trace informs you that you travelled to England with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.

We had similar discussions last year in a school environment, when travel was legal but the risk of a country being added to the quarantine list was very real. We tried to communicate positively with our staff in the October half term - to say that while we had no wish or right to interfere with their holiday plans, we did expect all staff to be available to return to work when teaching started again.

Some of our staff had really important reasons for travel, and we agreed exceptions in as supportive way as we could - but our position remains that we need staff to be available for work in person, and the onus is on them to do everything in their power to make that happen.

What we didn't want to do was to encourage anyone to hide travel plans from us or to breach any quarantine - so tried hard to walk the line between encouragement and support. Broadly it worked!

NEW THREAD FROM THIS POINT - MODERATOR

We don't want to stop people going on holiday but can't give people an extra 10 days to quarantine too. Can we decline additional time off for this and ask people to consider this when booking their holiday and consider it unauthorised if they decide to travel to Amber or red list country?

Strictly speaking they should only be travelling to those countries if it is essential (or words to that effect)
You can and should be asking where they are going and warning them of the consequences. terming it AWOL is not a response I would adopt.

ps Welcome to the Community

In reply to Peter Stanway:

Hi Peter, the guidance on essential travel is just that, it's guidance and therefore not law. Therefore people can travel where they wish. Also, I don't believe an employee has to tell their employer where they are going! Do they? Obviously employees will need to have enough days to take off though and in this situation, it doesn't sound like they will.

In reply to Deborah:

Employees have to tell you if it is a reasonable instruction, which I believe it is

Just because something is not unlawful does not make it right. It may not be our role to police travel but if it has consequences then it is our business.
In this case 'We are not prepared to give unpaid leave so not being back on the XXth will be seen as a serious disciplinary matter in the same way that anyone else taking holiday when it is not approved will be dealt with.@

In reply to Peter Stanway:

Is it reasonable to ask an employee where they are going everytime they book time off work? If employees are law abiding citizens, I find this very intrusive. It may be different if you suspected an employee of breaking the law etc...
Yes, in this situation, if the employee doesn't have enough days to take, the employer is well within their rights to treat it as a conduct issue if they fail to return on the correct date. But if an employee has enough days to take off and doesn't break any laws, I don't see this as something the employer can get involved in.

In reply to Deborah:

Deborah

So employee requests a week's holiday and it is approved. They subsequently inform the employer that they will need to take an additional week and a half of their holiday balance on their return - because 'they have enough days to take off' the employer just has to accept that?

I don't think so - that is unapproved absence and a potential conduct issue and something the employer has every right to get involved in.

In reply to Robert James Munro:

No, but if an employee books 10-15 days off and the employer approves and the employee follows the law, why would the employer get involved as to where they are going?