Vacations are necessary for employees (and employers) to rejuvenate and recharge their batteries. For most, a summer vacation is a care-free time away from the non-stop grind of ‘work, work, work.’ But for business leaders and division or department managers, the summer means an influx of requests for time off. The same is true during holiday seasons such as Passover/Easter, High Holy Days, and Thanksgiving. While vacations and holidays may be a happy-go-lucky time for some, it increases the workload and stress level for others. Multiple requests for leave may arrive at the same time. Vacation requests may coincide with other requests for time off such as maternity leave, family reunions, jury duty, and/or sick leave for medical issues. Conflicts are inevitable. What is a boss to do?
Processing employee requests for vacations or leave needn’t be a nightmare. To minimize leave stress, the key is to set clear policies and plan well in advance. When followed, there are best practices which can help minimize problems with those taking leave and those who will cover for them while they’re gone. Some of these strategies may seem strict or even harsh but, in the long run, ensures the overall well-being of both the staff and company.
Handling Leave Requests
The first step for managers is to accept that it is impossible to please everyone. Approving a leave request for one employee may very well make another employee unhappy. To avoid dissention or even mutiny, it all boils down to: clarity, parity, cooperation, and most of all, planning.
1. Be Clear and Fair
Instead of waiting for a conflict to arise, put leave policies in place in advance. Leave policies should address: vacation time, maternity leave, extended sick leave, jury duty, holiday leave, and personal time. If the company offers a sabbatical or leave of absence for charitable missions, those policies should be outlined as well. Provide employees with the company’s various leave policies in writing.
Highlight peak work or vacation periods during which time off may need to be prohibited, restricted or coordinated. If necessary, set blackout days where no one can request time off, or set a limit as to how many employees can request off for a particular day. If requests exceed this number, determine a consistent policy for how time-off requests are approved, such as by seniority or by whomever asked first.
If there are common conflicts with major religious holidays or other commitments, discuss them up front to prevent surprises later. One option is to allow employees to only request leave for one holiday in a season. For example, an employee can ask either for Thanksgiving or Chanukah/Christmas, but not both. This allows greater fairness to say ‘yes’ to more staff requests.
Discuss the company’s employee leave policies during the hiring and orientation process. Clarify management’s right to rearrange employee leave schedules to meet in-house demands and changing market conditions. It is important not to use this to unduly restrict employees from prime vacation periods. Otherwise, these policies could contribute to employee turnover. It is a matter of balance and fairness.
2. Encourage Cooperation
If staff knows leave requests must be submitted with plenty of notice, they may even work amongst themselves to ensure there is proper staffing. Employees in identical positions should be allowed to trade off vacation dates among themselves, so long as it doesn’t jeopardize production schedules or quality of work. Even so, the duties of vacationing employees should be split among several employees when possible. This keeps one unfortunate soul from having to do the work of two. Colleagues covering the jobs of those taking time off should receive a summary of work in progress, major responsibilities, key contact information, how to access related files, and other pertinent data to meet crucial deadlines from the person or persons taking time off. When possible, employees who agree to work during popular vacation or holiday times could be offered premium pay, bonuses, or other incentives or rewards.
3. Plan, Plan, Plan
Set a deadline for submitting leave requests that gives the department or HR enough time to:
- project how employee absences might affect production schedules and delivery dates, and
- resolve any conflicts.
Depending on the business, this could be anywhere from a month to six months in advance. While this may seem strict, staff will appreciate the idea of never being understaffed. Early planning helps reveal when two managers or two employees in the same department will be off during the same week or overlapping days. By planning ahead, qualified temporary workers can be scheduled during that time and remaining staff won’t be overwhelmed with work.
Vacations, sick leave, maternity leave, and other kinds of employee absences should be considered when planning staffing levels. In situations where a continuous or ongoing amount of leave is expected, that should be factored into the staffing needs. While there is a temptation to run on a skeleton staff during tight economic times, coverage issues can become critical when employee attendance is low during prime vacation season, flu season, holidays, or during other periods of high demand. It is unwise to consistently overload staff, as that approach can ultimately increase employee turnover. It is best to develop a good system for employee leave tracking and planning to ensure the best decisions are made regarding staffing levels.
In the flurry of scheduling time off for employees, it is important for managers and executives not to overlook personal vacation time. When departments are overloaded, there is a danger of managers taking fauxcations… or fake-cations. A fauxcation or fake-cation looks like a vacation, but in reality time away is anything but relaxing – calling the office every couple hours, conducting business meetings from the hotel, or constantly checking and responding to emails on a mobile phone or tablet. Fauxcations are worse than no vacation at all because the individual doesn’t benefit from the break but uses leave time.
While it is impossible to eliminate conflicts and overlapping requests for time off, it is possible to manage expectations and minimize conflicts related to leave. When rules are clear, expectations are set in advance and planning is done in advance, employee time off needn’t become a nightmare for everyone on the team.
Quote of the Week
“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”
John F. Kennedy
© 2013, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.
