It’s the new year – Are your employees already thinking of their next break?

Wednesday January 2, 2019

As the new year is now upon us and the shiny new 2019 diaries make an appearance, it’s likely that your team-members are already planning their next breaks.

January is the busiest time of year for booking holidays, as we long for a winter escape or a summer holiday for later in the year. As an employer, it is therefore good to get yourself prepared for the potential surge of annual leave requests over the coming weeks.

Prepare for a rare calendar quirk

If your staff can’t wait until summer to get away, there is also a rare opportunity to have 18 consecutive days off work whilst only using nine days of holiday! This is due to three bank holidays falling close together this year over the Easter break and first May bank holiday (19th April, 22nd April and 6th May).

It is likely that some will look to take advantage of maximising their precious holiday entitlement. This will be applicable for all industries where bank holidays are not counted as a normal working day.

Managing the ‘Holiday Hack’ as an employer

It is worth being aware of this as an employer. Make sure that your acceptance of holiday requests is done fairly. Some staff-members may look to jump on the band wagon and bag themselves this extended period of time off work before their colleagues.

Before making the decision to sign off on this, think about the impact that this extended period of time off may have. How will the rest of your team left in the office feel? Is there a potential dip in service delivery to your customers?

One way to assist with this is to use an HR management system tool like HR Toolkit. The holiday management element of the system will enable you to clearly see who else has requested time off over the same period before you approve any requests. It can also avoid the confusion of the growing pile of paper requests.

If the Easter break is a busy time of year for your business, perhaps think about communicating this to your teams beforehand. This will help to avoid any last-minute disappointment if plans have been made without your approval.

If you need help with workforce planning or are interested in implementing a holiday management tool contact The HR Dept today.

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