Annual Leave

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New team of 14 people to manage. Held my first team meeting and suggested that people try and talk to each other first before booking leave over the summer holidays so if one team members wanted say a Friday off then check with their collegues to see if there are enough people in to cover the work on that particular Friday. Within half an hour had an email from senior management saying the team have made a complaint and that I was wrong to do this as I am the manager and I should deal with leave requests not the team. Am I really in the wrong ????

There’s too many in the team for the informal work it out approach.

You need a strict system. First come first served.

So are you saying:

• There is a centralised way for your team to book holidays, in which you have no input?

• Holidays are automatically approved - or, approved based on wider availability than in your individual team?

• You want them to check at a local level before submitting requests as the present system could result in too many of your own team being off on one day?

I think the simplest way would be to say all holiday requests must come via you, and as PPs have suggested, set up a simple spread sheet to show who will be in on a given day.

I agree that it's your responsibility to manage this, however, the fact that you offered them the opportunity to deal with this informally, and they rejected it, is something you could point out if they then object to the formal system you implement.

interesting comments about this being basic management and to go on a course etc. Aren't we moving away from management and into leadership in 2108 and we all know a leader bring's their team along with them . A Google search to show a difference between a leader and a manager may help to show what I am trying to achieve. Thanks for all of the other ideas and feedback as well.

They have been saying this for years, lead don't manage. Until the first hurdle that is.

Your company obviously want you to manage not lead.

I was bought in to sort out this team paid a nice decant wage to do a job that no one else wanted

Ok - so they definitely want you to mange this lot. Once managed, and working together well - then is the time to shift the gear up to lead.

I always start off a new team management role with letting them individually tell you what is good and bad - I use a SWOT analysis with each person for this.

Then I take what everyone said - keeping it confidential - and start working on the things that came up with more than 50% of the team; in a workshop - how we can make these things better...and then work for 6 months on those whilst working individually on the other things that the team said needed doing.

At 6 months I'll review it.

I wouldn't change the process of approving leave if they were happy with it.

It's 'laissez faire' leadership and comes across as avoidance. Imo laissez faire only works if working towards a specific project with clearly defined common goals with a team of highly competent and motivated people. Your personal annual leave is not a common goal and you shouldn't have to negotiate it with people who are literally competing with you for the same dates.

Within half an hour had an email from senior management saying the team have made a complaint and that I was wrong to do this as I am the manager and I should deal with leave requests not the team. Am I really in the wrong ????

^Yes you are in the wrong. Just operate a first come, first served basis. No one can argue with that.

Your method is the sort of thing that is terrible for people like me, who are organised and would book leave with plenty of notice, but easily intimidated by more assertive staff members.

It can work in very small teams where they aren't really big characters but for a team of 14 it doesn't work well.

First come first served. If only two people can be off at once, then they know once 2 people are booked in, that's it, unless there were special circumstances like a funeral.

It's not for people to have to argue with each other about who has the bigger entitlement to leave. If you need a certain day/week you get in early and otherwise you have to be flexible and take what's left.

I get your sentiment op but this would never work in such a large team that already has problems.

It may seem like a rather flaky approach, it is quite a basic task, approving holidays, and perhaps there is a perception that you are trying to offload that.

Wherever ive worked it’s always been:

Fill in holiday request form.

Give to manager.

Manager checks holiday diary and approves or declines depending on who else is off.

Negotiations may take place if there is a double booking issue. Manager has ultimate say on who gets the time off depending on who put the request in first. Manager may decide to allow both and shuffle workload round as necessary. Manager may ultimately have to tell someone they can’t have that week etc.

Once approved, holiday is added to the holiday diary by manager.

We try to arrange leave ourselves amongst the team to minimise clashes. It mostly works but if it couldn’t be agreed it would be first come first served to the manager

FFS. Are they adults or what?

In all my previous jobs we have had a shared calendar - everyone puts their approved annual leave in there. If you want book a day, you check the calendar and if it's free, then put the request in to the line manager to approve formally. If it's not, then don't bother wasting a manager's time with it.

Current job doesn't care who's in the office or not so it's just a free for all as long as you're looking after your own workload

Some great advice up thread, OP.

If you haven't already done so, contact HR. They are there to support management. Also, seek input from your own line manager.

(I had a team one that exhibited behaviour like this. You have my sympathy!)

Total recipe for disaster to ask a team to sort themselves out. It's your job as manager to deal with the bitching about how Mandy can't have time off because Kelly and Ben have already booked that week.

I used to deal with this sort of thing all the time. Easiest way is having a clear policy - whether that be no more than one person off at a time, or two people, or whatever. Have a spreadsheet, diary or other system which works for you. Then first come, first served.

It really is very odd to be asking the team to negotiate with each other over who is off when.

Its almost impossible to have a holiday system that keeps everyone happy, but you cannot leave a team of 14 to sort it out for themselves.

Firstly you need to work out what is the minimum level of cover you can work with on a regular basis. So say you can cope with 4 people being off at once. Then I would allow people to put in requests for their major holidays so two weeks - can be two together or two separate, as far in advance as they can. Then see what the calendar looks like.

Unfortunately due to the speed at which they've got the union and senior management involved, I suspect there is no perfect answer where everyone gets what they want, but unfortunately as the manager, its up to you to try to come up with some equitable solution.

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We have an online booking system through which we can check who in our team is off and request holidays. So we are expected to check before requesting, but we don’t have to verbally consult with others as it’s all there in front of you.

Do you have Outlook? Perhaps get your team to put their approved holiday in your diary and then the others in the team can check before requesting their leave?

My boss expects me and my work mate to check with the other one before taking leave. Tbh it pisses me right off. There's two off 'Mary, is it ok if I book Friday off?' 'No Sandra, I'm having it off. Erm. No.

I’ve worked in places where manager did all checking re AL and places where it was basically first come, first served/negotiated.

Pros and cons to both. Probably depends how well the team get on.

That said, it’s really weird that they went straight to management and Union rep?!! I can’t imagine not just sending you a quick email with my concerns e.g some people being part time and never getting first dibs or whatever the issue is! It sounds like the work environment has got quite disfunctional/toxic.

I think this is a managerial duty to approve holidays

I can't be off when one other colleague is so we talk but finding time to coordinate with 13 others would be a responsibility of the manager not the team. It's additional stress probably above their pay grade.

We have a policy of only 2 people off at once. Unfortunately we have 2 'managers' who make the decisions. I recently asked for a day off for an important family event and was told 'no' as 2 were already booked off. The other 'manager' subsequently allowed 2 (yes 2 FFS! I'm still SO pissed off) further people to have leave that day.
You need to be firm, fair and clear.

Thanks all some really good ideas and thoughts. it was only an Idea to manage and to lead this way as I wanted to bring the team along with me as work wise I am a new and this is a new piece of work for them. Like I said have taken this approach before. I'm basically bringing a new piece of work well established in the private sector to the public sector and it makes it clear what outputs individuals in the team are contributing so this is all new.
I'm not sure first come first served will work as that would not be good enough reason to refuse anyone requesting leave. if you have never worked in public sector it's difficult to understand.
I have asked for the afternoon off work tomorrow and have been asked who is covering for me for the 3 hours I am not in ! This has come from senior management. ....