How to manage your small business’ summer holiday annual leave requests
As Welsh schools head towards their summer breaks in the middle of this month (July) you might suddenly find yourself inundated with requests from parents trying to manage their childcare responsibilities around their worktime.
Factor in as well, those who have existing holiday plans, cover seasonal work, or simply if the weather actually improves significantly enough in 2024 that the sun comes out and we all want to go on mini breaks (we can dream!) – then you’ve got yourself a potential problem balancing both the needs of the business to cope on a skeleton staff level and the morales of the employees who want to take the holiday they deserve.
Therefore, it’s important to think of the key factors to address at this time of year, in case you find yourself in a situation where you’re juggling more than you can manage. To help you in this, we’ve drawn out these six elements below to highlight some of the keys ways in that you can manage those summer holiday leave requests.
1. Establish Clear Summer Holiday Policies
Like many good HR practices a good holiday leave policy will provide the backbone to your efforts. In this case, focus not only on a ‘typical’ annual leave section, but have a specific set of guidelines around summer holiday annual leave – particularly for organisations who have seasonal demands.
This policy should include; how to request leave, the approval process, blackout dates, restrictions during peak periods and contingency plans for emergency leave.
This should also state how long a notice period employees should give when requesting leave – in particular with a view to the summer holiday period in case there is additional demand for this time at your organisation.
Finally, ensure that your policy is always up-to-date and accessible for all employees whether via printed or digital copies.
2. Implement a Robust Leave Management System
Where possible it’s best to use a reliable HR or leave management software to track leave requests, approvals, balances, and employee availability in real-time to allow you to quickly and easily manage your entire workforce.
This could include creating and inviting staff to group calendars that help improve the visibility of planned leave for their team, or even the company as a whole. This transparency allows employees to make sensible requests in the first place and empowers them to work around or with fellow colleagues to manage their leave allocation. Managers can also benefit from this, by having the full picture to hand in one place, they can visually ensure staffing levels are always above minimum acceptable standards.
With that in mind, ensuring you have minimum staffing rules in place (add them to your policy if possible) will help settle any disputes on holiday leave and help avoid resourcing problems from unplanned low levels of staffing.
If you don’t have clear visibility over your organisation’s or team’s planned staffing levels then it becomes too easy for potentially problematic leave requests to be approved without fully checking the situation. This includes considering how this would work for cross-departmental project teams, who might depend upon the availability of colleagues from outside their traditional functional team.
3. Maintain Transparent Communication
Starting with your policy, ensure that all employees are aware of their leave entitlements, the process for requesting leave, and any updates to policies through regular communication and easy-to-access resources.
Then as a HR department, make sure pre-planned communication is shared ahead of business critical periods. Whether this is communicating restricted or blacked-out periods for leave, or simply requesting advanced notice for potentially busy periods. Create a clear message for when leave needs to be booked to sustain all requests in advance.
Finally, foster a culture of open communication regarding holiday leave planning between departmental teams. Holidays shouldn’t be a taboo subject and time off should be celebrated! We should encourage each other’s plans and create the courtesy to balance everyone’s needs over the summer holiday where possible. Make sure parents with childcare needs aren’t always immediately prioritised over a non-parent’s requests, but find a flexible solution that supports your business needs and those of your employees for a fair distribution of leave opportunities.
4. Provide Manager Training
Train your managers on the importance of fair leave management, the approval process, and how to handle conflicts or peak period requests to ensure consistent and unbiased handling of leave requests.
This could be provided on a one-to-one basis with supporting reference material to provide as-and-when needed to your teams in order that they are also forward planning their own staff coverage.
Too often we see the situation where a team has under-utilised their holiday leave deep into the holiday year and suddenly have to cram in staff absences over a shorter period of time to enable the statutory holiday leave to be used up (especially in cases where the carry over of holiday leave is not encouraged).
5. Plan for Coverage, Continuity and Contingency
As mentioned above, you should work with your managers to develop plans for workload coverage during employee absences, including cross-training employees and creating backup plans to maintain productivity.
If there are cross-departmental project teams are there others from the department who can step in to keep the project on-track. This could be aided by setting up clear project management records and keeping project files accessible for additional team members.
It’s also important to be aware that even if you plan a summer holiday leave package in advance that suits your staffing requirements, emergencies happen and your employees sometimes have no choice but to take time off (paid or un-paid) to care for themselves, a loved one or manage another circumstance.
There should be a contingency in place for when you are officially ‘under-staffed’ and how resources can be reallocated, timelines amended, service provisions reduced or what communications need to sent out to warn of the situation.
6. Review and Update Policies Regularly
Finally, it is best to periodically review your leave policies and procedures to ensure they are up-to-date with legal requirements, industry best practices, and the changing needs of your organisation and its employees.
It would be a good idea, since we’re focusing on managing summer annual leave requests, to review this particular policy in advance (perhaps at the end of winter) and remind employees of the requirements and deadlines in relation to booking leave during this time.
Obviously, despite all the plans – there will be some cases where you might still have to deny an annual leave request as it would drop below minimum staffing levels or cause issues at another company level.
In these situations make sure you explain why a request has been declined, work with the employee to see if alternative dates would be suitable instead and even, depending on your company policy, investigate flexible or remote working opportunities that might support urgent needs.
If you’re still wondering how you might best plan for your staff holiday entitlements, need support reviewing your policies or even mediation partners to help handle difficult situations you can always call on the support from Dolen HR.
We’re happy to help tailor a solution for your business and can provide flexible (Hyblyg) support that can help you scale up or down your HR needs to cover the summer period.
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Summer Holiday Annual Leave FAQs
A few questions you might need to field during the holiday period
How much annual leave can be taken?
The Working Time Regulations (1998) and Working Time Directive entitle workers to a right of 5.6 weeks of annual leave per year (28 days inc. Bank Holidays). Staff may be able to purchase additional leave or carry forward leave from a previous year but there is no statutory right to this so it is down to the internal policies of each organisation.
Can a request for annual leave be refused?
Employers are well within their rights to refuse a request for annual leave from an employee where there is a good business reason for doing so, but they can’t prevent employees from taking their full entitlement within the holiday year.
An employer can also cancel pre-booked holidays if they provide as much notice as the original holiday request. However, the impact on the employee could be detrimental to both their morale and the values of the business.
How much notice needs to be given when booking annual leave?
There’s no statutory requirement for this, but it is suggested by ACAS that twice as many days notice should be given compared to the length of holiday. i.e. a week’s holiday should be requested two weeks (or more) in advance.
When should I book my annual leave for the school holidays?
It's best to book your annual leave as early as possible to secure your desired dates. Not only is this in excess of the point mentioned above, but it is also to ensure your leave doesn’t overlap with a colleague’s request during a typically busy holiday period.
How far in advance can I book my annual leave?
You can typically book annual leave as far in advance as your company policy allows, often up to a year ahead.
Are there any restrictions on booking leave during peak periods like school holidays?
Some companies may have restrictions or require manager approval for leave during peak periods to ensure adequate staffing. You should check your employee handbook or with your HR Manager for details.
How is leave priority determined if multiple employees request the same period?
Leave priority is often determined on a first-come, first-served basis or by managerial discretion based on business needs. We can also suggest other methods of leave management that might best suit the needs of your business if you consult with Dolen.
Do public holidays affect my annual leave if they fall during my leave period?
Public holidays do not usually count against your annual leave entitlement if they fall within your leave period. The summer holidays in the UK usually features the August Bank Holidays so you should be able to factor these into your plans.
What are the options if I don’t have enough annual leave left for the school holidays?
You may be able to take unpaid leave or negotiate a leave arrangement with your manager. A HR department should have this contingency in place in case of unplanned or childcare related issues over the summer holidays. In some cases it simply won’t be possible to provide the full time off so a flexible working arrangement may need to be considered.