By law, full time employees are entitled to a minimum of 28 days paid holiday each year. Although it is ultimately up to the employer to control when employees take that holiday, in many cases employees will request time off for certain times. Particularly in the peak of summer, bosses will be inundated with holiday requests and it can be a difficult task to ensure that you can cope with all of the requests without leaving staff disheartened or the business under-staffed. There are several things that you can do as a manager to alleviate some of the pressure when it comes to holiday requests.
One of the first things that you should do is to record all requests clearly and concisely. That way you will be able to refer to the list when new requests come in and you should easily be able to tell if you can authorise the holiday. Before you are faced with an influx of requests, decided how you will determine if a request will be granted or denied. Will you decide on a first come, first served basis? Once a system has been decided, stick to it to avoid any unfair decisions being made. Consistency is key.
Once you've decided your policy of distributing annual leave and stuck to it, you must communicate this with all of your employees. If staff are unaware of the procedure, they may end up losing out on the holiday they requested and become disgruntled. If needs be, hold a meeting with all of your staff to discuss the procedure.
There will be times in the year where you will be inundated with requests, such as the summer holidays and Christmas. A good way of dealing with this is by offering incentives to staff to reconsider when to take holiday. Perhaps you could consider offering an extra day or two on top of their existing holiday for the inconvenience that this may have caused them. This is a great way of keeping staff morale.
Annual leave is vital for the morale and performance of your employees. This is a key opportunity for them to recharge their batteries and return to work refreshed and alert. If appropriate, you should encourage your staff to make the most of their annual leave. Make sure that they switch off from work and that they are not constantly checking emails or taking work-related calls. This will pay dividends in terms of productivity when they return to work.
One of the first things that you should do is to record all requests clearly and concisely. That way you will be able to refer to the list when new requests come in and you should easily be able to tell if you can authorise the holiday. Before you are faced with an influx of requests, decided how you will determine if a request will be granted or denied. Will you decide on a first come, first served basis? Once a system has been decided, stick to it to avoid any unfair decisions being made. Consistency is key.
Once you've decided your policy of distributing annual leave and stuck to it, you must communicate this with all of your employees. If staff are unaware of the procedure, they may end up losing out on the holiday they requested and become disgruntled. If needs be, hold a meeting with all of your staff to discuss the procedure.
There will be times in the year where you will be inundated with requests, such as the summer holidays and Christmas. A good way of dealing with this is by offering incentives to staff to reconsider when to take holiday. Perhaps you could consider offering an extra day or two on top of their existing holiday for the inconvenience that this may have caused them. This is a great way of keeping staff morale.
Annual leave is vital for the morale and performance of your employees. This is a key opportunity for them to recharge their batteries and return to work refreshed and alert. If appropriate, you should encourage your staff to make the most of their annual leave. Make sure that they switch off from work and that they are not constantly checking emails or taking work-related calls. This will pay dividends in terms of productivity when they return to work.
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