Managing employees’ annual leave is probably one of the major administrative headaches that any Company may encounter. Every employer is facing tough economic times and as such the vast majority of employers are operating their workloads with minimum level of staffing required. The headache therefore arises when several employees request annual leave at the same time or, more disruptively, when it nears the end of the leave year and several employees have excessive leave days remaining to take. How can you manage this? The best way is to manage it from the very start of the year.
Annual Leave Policy
It is very much recommended that every employer has a clear and unambiguous policy on annual leave entitlements, in the employee’s own contract, and on the procedures for the requesting/granting of annual leave, in the employee handbook. This will ensure that employers can implement and enforce the policy that bests suits them and it will ensure that employers have a reference point for any disgruntled employee who does not have their leave request approved.
Annual Leave Request Form
The Peninsula Advice Service recommends that employers require employees to submit their leave requests on a formal annual leave request form. You may request a copy of this by contacting Peninsula on 01 855 4861. This form will require the employee to outline the dates they are requesting off and, quite importantly, also requires the employee to date the request. This allows the employer to see which employee submitted their request first and will also allow the implementation of a ‘first come/first served’ policy.
First Come/First Served
Many employers operate different methods of prioritising who gets first choice in the event that more than one employee requests to take their leave at the same time. Peninsula always recommend that the most effective policy, and the fairest, is to implement a ‘first come/first served’ policy and to reflect this in the Annual Leave Policy. This ensures that employees will get their requests in at the earliest possible stage and it will accordingly allow the employer to take the necessary pre-emptive action to cover workloads well in advance.
Minimum Leave Per Quarter
An extremely useful policy is to require employees to take a minimum number of days leave per quarter. Remember, the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997, clearly states that “the times at which annual leave is granted to an employee shall be determined by his or her employer” as long as the employer is mindful of the employee’s need “to reconcile work and any family responsibilities” and avail of “rest and recreation”. Thus, a clear policy will allow employers to require employees to take leave per quarter and if the employee fails to apply for requested days then the employer can look to assign it for them by giving one month’s notice. This will ensure an even spread of leave days throughout the year and again will avoid the likely eventuality of employees having an excessive number of leave days to take in the busy period before Christmas.
Communication
If you have found that employees have carried over leave days from 2013, or if you have encountered any of the problems mentioned above, then the best way forward is communication. Meet with the employees, communicate company policy, highlight the requirements for the coming year and then look to agree a way forward. It may be useful to highlight problems encountered in the past. For example, if you found that an excessive build-up of leave led to under-staffing then I’m sure those employees will recognise the difficulties they encountered in managing the workload. Get the employee’s on board and it will make things a lot easier.
Conclusion
If you have questions following the above or would like to discuss your annual leave options then please do not hesitate to contact the 24 Hour Peninsula Advice Service on 01 855 5050. In addition, if you wish to implement any of the documentation referenced above then please do not hesitate to contact our Documentation Services on 01 855 4861.
