Should you consult with the whole team before booking annual leave?

[Arlah]

Interested to hear what's normal. I overheard two colleagues at work having a conversation and they were annoyed that certain team members don't consult with the rest of the team before booking leave. People just book their leave and put it on the calendar, these colleague think that people should check it's ok with the rest of the team first.

I was surprised that people think like this, I thought it was up to the manager to decide.

No, I just put my leave request in and my manager checks who else might be off, we never check with the whole team.

Actually I do, in my old job I had to arrange cover so would ask around and we had min number requirements. In this job I do it because we are a small team and again part of my role needs covering, I don’t check with the wider team tho…

Nope! We have a spreadsheet of who has already booked time off so you just check that then put your request in. I’m not asking others if it’s ok or for their thoughts, if they want that time off they need to book it first!

It’s a team culture thing - at my old job in a large team you had to ask basically everyone you worked with and it was a big pain.

No I just put my request in and wait for it to be authorised.

I agree, it depends on the team culture. Of course, it's your manager's decision ultimately, but in some teams, it might be the done thing to consult others first, and I can see that it would then be annoying if new people don't do that. There is nothing they can do about it though...apart from moan!

We have a shared calendar and it goes in there.
First come first served.

That said my team is half people with school aged kids & half without, so battling over school holidays isnt a problem.

We do in my team - it's because we have matrix management and the person who approves holiday has no easy way to find out if the requested holiday would be in a busy period/lots of people already off etc. So people consult with others in the team first. If there is an issue, then manager is brought in, but a lot of the time people sort clashes out between themselves.

You snooze you loose. There’s always the same group in my workplace that have 2/3 of their holidays left to book halfway through the year who then moan their preferred dates are not available, meanwhile every one of my holiday dates is booked in the day the holiday calendar opens.

No, we ask the manager and then book it.

Depends on the nature of the role and if you'd need anyone to cover you. Historically I'd never had to check with colleagues before requesting time off. But then I moved to my last job where there were 3 of us with school age kids all wanting school holidays and we were a service department (eg. At least 2 needed to be available at the office at any one time)
My manager asked us to agree amongst ourselves what dates we all wanted so she didn't have to keep refusing and it be awkward because one of us had got in there first and booked off all the school holiday dates.
My current job (same company but different role) is similar, small team of 4 but now in the manager, if one of the 4 of us is off someone else physically has to cover their role so I can only approve holiday when someone else will switch positions and cover them for the day/week

We check with the rest of the team because it can take ages from holiday being approved to the administrators adding it to the leave calendar - I think the record was a month.

We have minimum cover requirements so it makes sense to check especially for popular dates eg feb half term.

There is no normal and not all employers manage it well because it depends on the needs of the business, but it's up to the manager to manage this, along with making sure everyone gets to use all their leave during the year.

They should also try and make things fair if there's popular times for people to be off and cover levels that need to be maintained. What they shouldn't allow to happen is for the sharp elbowed to always get the popular weeks because they book it the second they're allowed to, leaving everyone else to have to fit around them. Or have people get near the end of the year and find they haven't used enough leave so have to carry a lot over or take time off just to use it up.

I am in a job share role, we give each other the heads up if we are booking leave just in case there we have forgotten there is something urgent during that period of leave which would lead to one of us working hours of overtime (its never happened before though!)

Sometimes me and colleague will chat about it if is school holidays so we both get a fairish share. Anything outside school hols we just check spreadsheet and book.

I work with 1 other, so we talk about dates we would like off etc.

But if I worked in a big team, no, I'd just book.

It depends if your holiday means others can’t be off at the same time or not.

I manage a large team that has a number of sub teams. I treat my people like grown ups so I say I'm happy for them to take whatever holiday they like but it's on them to make sure they have cover within their sub teams. Usually it works but I've had the occasional situation where I find there's hardly anyone in from on particular sub team because the manager has decided she wants to be off then let a couple of team members take it off too. I take a very dim view of that sort of behaviour and it gets reflected in end of year review grades etc.

If you want to be treated like a grown up behave like one!

It’s a “fuck no” from me.

We check the calendar and if a certain number of people are off we can't have it off. Varies by time of year due to nature of work. Christmas is always treated differently though.

Yes and no. I think it's fine to book a week or two off without consulting for a main holiday normally however if everyone in the team has kids it's only fair to coordinate the summer holiday for instance so everyone who needs it gets some time off rather than one person grabbing 3-4 weeks

just send out the email at the same time as putting the request in

after checking the calender

3 of us do the shop counter job all part time. Only one can be off at a time, we talk.

It does annoy me a bit, because I came from a job where no one had to cover - so you actually got 25 days off, not just shift your schedule around where if I have a week in may, I have to cover someone else's week in June etc.