| Now that the clocks have gone back and evenings have become much darker, we know that the end of the year is rapidly approaching. For many employers that means that there is a limited amount of time left to achieve targets and that becomes narrowed down further when you factor in Christmas closures and the general slow down associated with the festive period. What can exacerbate matters further is where staff have still not taken all their holiday for the year and you face a lot of last minute holiday requests.
If your holiday year ends on 31st December, you would be wise to check your staff’s entitlements to see if anyone has holiday left to take. You can then encourage them to book it at a time that is convenient to the business or you could even give them notice and force them to take it at a particular time. You need to give notice of at least double the duration of the leave to be taken (e.g. two weeks’ notice for one week’s holiday).
Admittedly, with only two months to go it may be a bit late in the day to be facing this issue now, but at least you can try to minimise the impact. You could also consider, on an exceptional basis, allowing staff to carry forward some of their holiday into the New Year (in fact your holiday policy may allow for that already). If you don’t want this to become a precedent, just make it clear that this is being offered on an exceptional basis. You could then make a New Year’s resolution to monitor staff holidays regularly throughout the year with a view to avoiding a backing up of holiday in future years.
(Don’t forget that our recommended HR System – breatheHR – makes reporting on holidays a complete breeze). |
