How to Manage Annual Leave Requests: 7 Practical Tips

Annual leave should be something to look forward to. It’s a chance for your employees to take a well-earned rest, spend time with friends and family, and come back energised and full of fresh ideas.

However, if you’re the person responsible for managing your company’s annual leave, it can get a bit stressful, especially in the run up to Christmas!

If you know that your business will always shut down between Christmas and New Year, we recommend letting employees know about this as far in advance as possible, especially if you expect them to keep back sufficient holiday to cover a Christmas shutdown.

1) Is there a clause in your contract regarding Christmas holidays?

While it’s not essential to have a clause in your employment contracts, if you want employees to take holiday over Christmas and New Year, by law, you need to give them at least twice the amount of notice as the number of days of holiday that you want them to take. For example, 2 days’ leave requires 4 days’ notice.

2) Busy over the festive season but everyone wants time off?

If your business is busy during the holidays, you can limit the amount of holiday taken during this time, but it’s important to make this clear in advance, ideally in employment contracts. Approaches include first-come, first-served allocation or early submission of requests to manage competing needs.

3) What happens if you’ve granted annual leave but need to retract it?

Retracting approved leave is not advisable but may be necessary in a business-critical emergency. Compensation may be required if employees incur costs due to cancelled plans. Consider staff morale when making such decisions.

4) Encourage early requests

• Encourage staff to submit annual leave requests as far in advance as possible.
• Regularly review how much annual leave your staff have taken throughout the year.
• Be proactive in encouraging staff to take leave, ensuring coverage is maintained across the year.

5) Review and update policies

When was the last time you reviewed your policies and updated your employee handbook? Ward Williams HR can provide the creation and review of all policies, procedures, documentation, and handbooks.

If you would like to learn more about how Ward Williams HR can support your business, please contact us at 01932 830 664.

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