10 Dec 2025
Everyone on leave at once? It must be Christmas!
Managing annual leave at certain times of the year can be tricky – especially if your business requires staff to be present during seasonal periods, like Christmas.
As the festive season approaches it is vital for people managers and business leaders to ensure that annual leave is managed effectively to avoid disruptions, while also remain compliant with annual leave requirements.
Here are some essential tips to help you navigate leave requests during the festive season.
- Have a Clear Annual Leave Policy: Make sure your policy outlines the process for booking leave and sets clear expectations for both employees and managers.
- Encourage Early Planning: Remind your team to plan their time off in advance. This helps reduce last-minute leave requests and ensures adequate coverage.
- Strategic Workforce Planning: Review staffing levels to ensure critical roles are covered, especially during peak periods. Be transparent if there are conflicts with overlapping requests and suggest an annual rotation for days like Christmas Eve or Day to ensure fairness to all.
- Communicate Clearly: Keep the process for requesting and approving leave transparent. This minimizes surprises and helps set expectations for everyone involved.
- Prepare for Business Continuity: Ensure there are contingency plans in place for urgent matters during employee leave, so operations can continue smoothly.
- Calculate part-time workers’ annual leave fairly and accurately, including pro-rated number of bank holidays.
If you’re looking for some advice about annual leave or any aspect of people management, talk to us for a free, no-obligation discussion with Juliet Mellues.
#Leadership #ChristmasLeave #TeamManagement #WorkLifeBalance #HRBestPractices #ManagerTips #HR
Juliet Mellues