Managers / HoD question about Christmas leave

[User1213]

what’s reasonable notice to give employees that their leave request over Christmas can go from provisional to pending? No client role in project / change so unlikely things will be delivered at peak operations time. New manager where previous manager who approve straight away and ensure team had at least a day or two off

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "can go from provisional to pending".
I would expect any request to be approved / declined within a couple of working days.

No client role in project / change so unlikely things will be delivered at peak operations time.

I don't know what you mean by this, either.
Surely you know how many people you need to be working, and presumably have a policy in place as to how leave is allocated ?

@NewName24 sorry I don’t mean from
provisional to pending, I meant provisional / pending to approve or decline. I find it an odd way to handle leave and not something I’ve experienced in the organisation in the last 10 from more junior roles to the role I’m in now.

In short I’ve asked for leave as I have a lot to use for this year allocation(been on maternity leave) not that the dates matter but I’ve asked for one of the two weeks over Christmas so would be in the business between Xmas / NY and the response I’ve had is it’s pending until I approve. I selfishly want to book flights if I’m allowed it off, if its decline I won’t kick up a fuss and just accept it as it’s fair but I want to ask when I can expect an outcome but want to when is reasonable time to chase it. Every other manager has always approved / declined and asked to put xmas leave requests in and worked out a fair request even when it was a client facing role so the operation couldn’t run short.

If they haven't approved or declined within a week I would ask to speak to them.

Christmas leave requests aren't approved until September in my workplace. It's well known that this is the procedure though.

Requests start coming in and then they're all looked at and compared with previous year prior to approval.

I think it's fair enough to ask for clarity if needed to a role/team/ organisation particularly if travel is involved. Generally Christmas leave isn't approved until September in my team however, an exception would be made if travel was involved or plans to visit family overseas etc

I'd ask them when they are planning to approve it as you need to book travel tickets ASAP.

Do you know what the process is for Christmas leave in your team?
Same as PPs, Christmas leave in my team is not sorted until September.
We can request what we want earlier but it's not approved until everyone has put in their request.
It's the one time of year it's not first come first served

Crikey September! theres no documented procedure and it’s up to the line manager I think to decide, however company policy is to book leave 18 months in advance.

I don’t understand how they can’t approve / decline 6 months ahead when they know minimum numbers required for the team plus we have a change freeze over Christmas generally so nothing to little can be implemented so there’s not much working to be done to be honest!