Holiday Leave

Author: Alexis Asher

It is the time of year when employers will have been flooded with requests for leave. Often employers are unclear about their right to refuse holiday requests, and how to balance workloads with personnel being out of the office.

Below are some top tips on managing holiday absence:-

1. Ensure you have a Holidays Policy in place which covers the procedure for requests and grounds for refusal;
2. Ensure that you follow the policy at all times in order to avoid potential discrimination against any employee;
3. Remember that you have a right to refuse holiday requests if there is a genuine business reason to do so, e.g. if another employee from the same department has already been granted holiday for the same time and the absence of another employee would result in an unmanageable workload;
4. Limit the number of employees who can take annual leave at any given time;
5. If the business requires you to do so, you could specify periods when annual leave cannot be taken, e.g. January in retail businesses so that there is adequate staffing to deal with the sales.