Thanks to our mighty government’s workplace reforms, as of 2007 University academics will be required to apply for their leave via the HR system, as are most general staff and employees elsewhere. Whilst this is probably right and proper (narrowing the gap between the privileges of the academic v the general staff, and bringing academic jobs in line with Real World(TM) HR practices) the likelihood is that as academics are still likely to take leave as they currently do, but not submit their forms for single days of leave etc (after all they’re not terribly well tracked to tell whether they’re not in their office because they’re taking a day off, at a conference or in the library doing research, for example).
The likely result of this is that academics will accrue large amounts of leave, which they will then be forced to take by HR. Of course they may be forced to take leave at times such as the middle of semester, which is likely to be quite inconvenient for any students of theirs.
