Annual leave

[Rolly99]

2 members of the same team cannot be off at the same time. Long term policy and is clear.

When it comes to school holidays or festive/religious seasons, turns are given to make it fair.

Holiday calendar recently opened for next year. It is first come first served. Both put their requests in the same day

Person 1 requests their usual period of time in a particular month as per the past few years running when no other requests clashed. It is not school holidays or any important holiday season.

Person 2’s new holiday request slightly overlaps with person 1’s. person 2 demands their manager give them the entire holiday request to be fair to them, as person 1 had it last year (and therefore decline person 1’s whole holiday). However, person 2 also had time off in that same month in previous years, just not the same exact week.

manager did not approve either request and asked them both to compromise and sort out the clash which neither of them want to do.

Who is being unfair?

Yes I imagine colleague 2 is stirring it.

Personally, I would say ASAP after careful consideration on this occasion colleague 1 will be granted X time off. If a future clash occurs next year for these dates colleague 2 to will be given priority. I imagine employee 1 maybe just has a family birthday or anniversary and has got into the habit of requesting this time off whereas colleague 2 is maybe aware of this and has chosen to clash out of spite to make things awkward for you and colleague 1.

Depends why person 2 specifically wants those dates. If it something that is unique to that exact period then I have a lot of sympathy eg we go to a specific event overseas, it happens for 5 days a year, if the previous year I could not go I would be annoyed that yet again the other person got in, whereas if it's just a general holiday that can be any week i would be less receptive to intervening

I gave person 2 the chance to ask their colleague if there was a compromise as person 1 got there first and if no compromise I would get involved to make the decision.

I think you put person 1 in a really unfair position by doing that. Either there’s a clear policy in place, in which case you follow it, or if the the policy’s not clear then you as the manager need to make that call.

I’m afraid I agree with this.

@Rolly99 it is very hard if you open the calendar up and one team member is quicker to log their leave stopping everyone else. You clearly have precedents for busier times when there is more likelihood of overlaps. There is no reason why you can’t use them for this situation.

I don’t think you were unreasonable to ask two adults to first have a conversation to see if there is a compromise.

However, as this has not been achieved the decision now rests with you. The fact that 3 days overlap rather than a full week is interesting. I assume person 1 wants a full week and person 2 wants to start their leave on the Wednesday.

The obvious compromise is person 1 works the Friday and person 2 starts their leave on the Thursday, this leaves one day overlap (Thursday) which is manageable. Whilst this is fair in black and white terms I have sympathy with person 1 who would anticipate tacking on the weekend and so working 1 day is more disruptive.

I would talk to both employees (1:2:1) and ask them for a bit of background. Discuss potential options e.g, each giving up 1 day, one having the week this year and the other having next year, names in an hat etc. and see how they react. I suspect person 2 has either booked a holiday or has a key date which this year means they want an earlier holiday start. A key factor would be whether or not each employee could push their holiday forward or back I.e. no point in asking person 1 to start their leave a week early if someone else has already booked that week and vice versa.

If genuinely you can’t separate them, I would do names in a hat and whoever doesn’t get the week this year gets that week next year.

If its first comes first then the system decides. Person 1 submitted first. Oerson 2 needs to find a workaround.

Whether the policy is daft or not (not sure how anyone who isn't the employer can decide that) is not relevant. The policy is what the policy is. If two members of staff cannot be mature enough to resolve this themselves, then I would say that the manager is not employed to cover them to let them both have their own way or get around policy, nor to referee between grown ups. So I'd solve it by refusing both requests, and then I am being totally "fair". I would be willing to consider a mediated "fair decision" they both agreed if they then want to come back and ask me to reconsider. If not, well there are lots of other weeks in the year and they will have to pick another period of leave.

This is a workplace, not a school playground, and "It's not fair Miss..." is a ridiculous way to operate.

First come first served - but both of them asked on the first day of holiday requests being open? So there was maybe just hours or even minutes between requests?
And person 1 has had same holiday for years? This year person 2 wants some of those dates but everyone thinks person 1 should get their request agreed?

I appreciate person 1 may have been in a difficult position it was not my intention to personally ask them to move or change their leave as they got there first, which is why I didn’t get involved, I just advised person 2 that they talk to person 1 to see if there was a compromise.

There isn’t and person 2 hasn’t given me an exceptional reason to make them a priority. I would have considered a 1 day overlap but 3 is too many.

It turns out subsequently found out since then that person 2 came to me after person 1 told them they could not change their leave. They approached person 1 saying it’s not fair you always have x time can I have it this time. So they were trying to get me to prioritise their leave on the Christmas rules already knowing person 1 wasn’t going to change and got there first

it’s resolved now. 2 has to pick other leave dates

Person 2 couldn’t add the leave as the system only accepts 1 at a time for that team per date so by the time they went to do it, it was too late.

Yes they want the leave dates for themselves.

However they both had leave in the same month the last 2 years running concurrently. It is literally the difference of 1 week they are fighting over. Person 2 wants their leave 1 week earlier than before but person 1 had already booked it

Don’t envy you this problem OP. Anyway sounds like the matter is settled now.

You've managed this poorly tbh OP, it's on you to decide, you put them in a difficult position.

Given the requests were essentially at the same time, I think person 2's request to alternate was reasonable if that's the precedent at other busy times.

Well if it is usually 'first come first served' apart from times of particular significance such as Christmas and Easter, the policy/practice is clear and person 2 is out of luck as they weren't the first person.

You should just stick to the policy (first come first served unless it's Christmas etc).

You should not have asked them to sort it between themselves, that's very poor management. You should have simply reinforced the policy to person 2 and said unfortunately they are out of luck and were too late.

Sounds like person 2 did it on person. Stick to your guns, they don’t get it.

If the system is first come first served then person 1 gets it.
Op- I think you were perfectly reasonable asking them to see if a compromise could be reached. In the part I’ve had a colleague ask if needed could I change my annual leave. I had booked to go away but did say at an absolute push I could work the morning of day 1 but would prefer not to. I liked this colleague though. Under the circumstances you described I can see why employee 1 refused.
Peak time is different for you and if this is not ideal time then give it to colleague 1.
It does sound like colleague 2 has booked these dates out of spite but who knows.

Ideal =peak

As a manager of 15 years first come first served us always a terrible way of dealing with annual leave requests.

It’s always been this way and I think to change it would cause an uproar.

Surely the only other system is to gather all the leave and search back through various years to compare and then spend a long time mapping out what was (subjectively) ‘fair’ and that would take a lot of my time.

The onus is not on a manager to spend hours micromanaging other people’s holidays. It’s THEIR holiday - I’ve set out the business rules - 1 off at a time, fair sharing of peak seasons. Exceptional occasions are given special consideration. It all seems fair to me and I am also bound by the same rules in the senior team.

Say for instance Barbara has her child’s birthday on X date and it’s not peak season at all, so she tends to always book it and no one else usually does, and she gets there first - she has to give this up just because someone else wants to save £50 going to Benidorm that week? She got there first because it’s an important date for her clearly and there are 50 other weeks of the year to take. Unless someone else is going to a wedding I’m not about to turn down leave someone requested in good time

When I got into this job someone before me had a paper system and I have moved it over to a digital platform. There had been so many rows and mistakes as it was all on paper

look at this thread, this is what can happen I think if managers don’t have a set of rules to stick to. This is really awful and is why leave can be so abused

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/work/4840049-boss-taking-all-annual-leave-over-school-holidays?postsby=Sickofthissheeet

Do you know why they both want the same time ?

I know it's not something major like a wedding but it seems weird that non school holiday weeks a year in advance are so sought after.

I do think if - heaven forfend- they are both around next year you do have to be a bit proactive about it, have a chat with all of you and encourage them to agree dates together.

I think first come first served is fine presuming there's an actual gap between the requests - once leave is approved, people should be able to go an book a holiday.

The problem here is that both people submitted their request on the same day - if they'd been able to log in at the same time they would have been simultaneous. So I don't think first come first served applies here, it's not like the first request was in a week before the second.

First come first served is the fairest, unless you have part time employees who are not able to access the system because they dont work the day the booking is released.

It doesnt matter how big the gap in booking was, there was one who was first, and one who was second

I suppose first come first served is fair if the rules are clear as is the booking window to account for part time people, transparency on when bookings ‘open’ etc. first come first served without that (which I was I experienced pre being a manager, was a nightmare - someone in our team booked leave 3 years in advance. I’m lucky I suppose as we can have up to 75% of everyone off so leave clashes are very rare.

I'm glad Person 1 had their leave approved. They requested in line with policy, the turn taking doesn't apply in off-season. If I was person 1, and my leave had been declined then I would have spoken to HR. What's the point in a policy if it's not going to be followed?

From your description, it sounds as though person 2 is being tricky as they don't get along.