On getting a new job Susan was told by her employer that she would be entitled to a one month paid vacation to any country of her choice after working for 12months. One year later on the job, susan requests for a paid vacation from her employer and was told she's no longer entitled to a paid vacation. Susan have no written document of the entitled vacation . What advice would you give to susan to get her paid vacation?

Well, this situation is very dicey in the sense that the agreement was oral. It's a case of her words against their words which might put her on the losing side. So to get her vacation might be a long shot.

I've heard of a case where an employee is unjustly treated and made a scapegoat at his workplace which led to his immediate voluntary resignation. On that fateful day, he was called on the phone to give quick feedback to one of their clients. However, on getting to the office his boss started yelling at him, and was like who told you, why did you have to respond to our client that way? Perhaps he may have forgotten that he was the one that instructed him to do so. Though the employee's reaction of resigning may have sounded conditioned, but not everyone can handle yelling.

Sometimes ago when I finished my Exams I began having symptoms of malaria. When I went to the medical centre I was given some drugs which I took but it worsened the situation. When I went back to complain, I noticed the people attending to me were all covering the colleague. However, The doctor that later attended to me that day said my claims are not valid because of no such records on my medical file. You know what? I felt embarrassed.

We've seen cases where an employee got injured at work but the employer refused to compensate him on the ground that it's not in the course of employment.

Whether arising " in the course of employment" or "out of employment", The fact is, the employee must be able to prove his claims before the court of law. 

Given this above case, it seems the employer had only played on her intelligence, and if she won't let it slide and buoyant enough should be confident to demand her right aggressively. Verbal for Verbal

I've seen an instance where someone bought food at a restaurant and is supposed to collect change, but the person who sold the food denied collecting any money from him. Though he voiced out aggressively and was able to collect his change. The woman later said " he's likely to be telling the truth from his reaction and aggression.

Where this doesn't work we should learn from our mistakes. I don't know what else to tell her. I think There's always a price to pay for the experience.

The key takeaway from this is to always get things like this documented.

It could be as small as sending a mail to confirm all that's agreed to orally with the employer's mail as an evidence

I think There's usually a condition of service before employment. So it's already a red flag if they don't give you and a fault if you didn't request for it and understanding the terms and conditions before accepting the offer of employment is very sacrosanct. As it stands the employer has likely exploited her. However, there are institutions fighting and protecting the rights of employees, She could approach workers' rights organisations and other relevant bodies to support and investigate the matter to resolve the situation amicably.