Leave

When you take leave, you’ll, of course, have a critical look at your calendar and your colleagues and make sure that your colleagues know that you are not there before you take leave. Make a note in your calendar and communicate your absence in Slack. On this page, you will find more information about different types of leave. You can arrange everything yourself using a tool called 🔢NMBRS (app) without asking permission. But…

If you are not sure whether your leave falls under holiday hours but, for example, under care or a sudden absence, please contact the Request for Leave role, so together we can have a look at the possibilities. Also take a look on the paragraph 📆Special Leave, for more info.

You always apply for leave by using the NMBRS app. Some circle like the clarity the absence sheet brings.

Vacation leave

If you work full-time, you are entitled to 24 vacation days. Of these, 20 are statutory, and 4 are non-statutory.

If you work part-time, this will be calculated based on the amount of time you work. The same applies when you start or stop employment mid-year. On your payslip, you can see how many leave days you get. Please note this balance is a calculation until 31 December. If you leave employment sooner, a final invoice will be drawn up.

We think it’s important to chill for a considerable amount of time during the year. And when we say this, we really mean relax and not think about work. That’s why you must take two consecutive working weeks of vacation a year.

How to take (annual) leave

You need to apply for leave in advance. This is done through 🔢NMBRS (app), using the group ‘vacation leave’. Coordinate within your circle who is on holiday and when, and make sure that the important things or certain tasks are transferred to your colleagues during the time when you're on vacation.

If necessary create a note on the role in GlassFrog with who you are transferring your role to so this information is easy to find for your colleagues.

When you become ill unexpectedly during your vacation, you will keep your vacation days. Read more in the paragraph about illness.

Vacation days that have not been used

If the situation occurs that by the end of the year you haven’t used up your full vacation hours, then you can bring 80 hours of leave (working on a full-time base) to the new year. The statutory days will expire 6 months after the calendar year in which you've accrued them. For example, the vacation days that you received in 2016 but did not use will expire on July 1st 2017.

• An exception can be made if you were chronically ill.
• Non-statutory supplementary days expire after 5 years.

We find it important that you get days off, therefore it is not intended to save up leave time. That is why we don’t pay in exchange for days off.

4+4 (from January 1, 2022)

We tested this cool incentive in early 2021, and we want to continue facilitating a 4+4 situation in 2022. What does that mean exactly and what does it look like?

A colleague can take 4 hours of leave quarterly, which will be supplemented to 8 hours of leave. You can apply for this 4 times a year. The hours must be taken consecutively (i.e. a full day).

Since the extra hours expire each quarter, we hope you will use these hours to take time for yourselves, for a spontaneous day off. Hopefully leading to a better work/life balance.

Please note: It cannot be saved up, transferred to other months, or taken per separate dayparts.

Processing will take place in NMBRS by requesting 4 hours of holiday leave and 4 hours of special leave and noting '4+4' in the description.

Holidays

On the following days, you can write a cross in your calendar. You get a day off on:

• New Year’s Day (January 1st)
• Easter Monday
• King’s day (April 27)
• Liberation Day in the anniversary year (May 5th 2025/2030)
• Ascension Day
• Whit Monday
• Both Christmas Days (December 25th and 26)

You may also leave a bit earlier, one hour earlier on

• Good Friday
• 5th of May on the non-lustrum years
• the day before Christmas
• New Year's eve

This is a small compensation for those who are working these special days. So taking the day off will cost you the normal 8 hours.

Public holiday leave for part-time employment.

It may occur that a public holiday falls on your standard schedule-free day. This means that all colleagues are off from work, while you are already off in accordance with your work schedule and therefore enjoy less to no benefit from the public holiday leave. To prevent colleagues from enjoying less benefit from this arrangement, public holidays are compensated pro rata, so you can take these hours within one working week before or after the relevant public holiday. You cannot therefore save up these hours.

The hours are compensated pro-rato because full compensation of the hours creates unfairness compared to the colleague working full-time. For part-time colleagues who have a public holiday on their working day, a full day off applies as normal.

Conditions:

• Your schedule-free day must be known to the RFL helpdesk. It is therefore important that your schedule in NMBRS is correct.
• The hours must be compensated within one working week before or after the public holiday.
• You have to administer the hours in NMBRS under special leave.
• If you are off for part of the day, only the hours off are compensated pro-rata. For example, if you work a standard half-day on the day the public holiday falls, you will be compensated 4 hours times your part-time percentage.

Practical: What should I do when I see that a public holiday falls on your day off?

1. Determine how many hours you are allowed to compensate. Calculate this as follows: working day hours 8 x your part-time percentage = hours you are allowed to compensate. For example, 8 x 0.8 (workweek of 32 hours) = 6.4 hours that can be compensated.
2. Log in to NMBRS, go to the leave overview.
3. Go to Bijzonder verlof (special leave), write down the hours you are allowed to compensate and put in the description: Hours compensated - holiday day (e.g., Easter).
4. Do you want to take a full day off? Then place the remaining hours that you do not compensate under Vacation leave.
5. The RFL helpdesk-role checks your deduction request and approves it.

Interchangeable Holiday policy

From January 2022 it is possible to exchange 4 official Dutch holidays for another one.

We want to be an inclusive organization, so we are implementing the Interchangeable Holiday Policy. With this policy, you may exchange 4 national Dutch holidays per year for any other day of your choice. By doing this, we hope to offer a more inclusive arrangement for colleagues who, for example, but not limited to, prefer to celebrate Ied al Fitr (also referred to in the Netherlands as Suikerfeest), Thanksgiving, Yom Kippur, your birthday, or Christmas Eve.

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