Every year it's the same story: Easter, the summer holidays and Christmas roll around and suddenly everyone wants the same weeks off. As an employer you need the business to keep running but your team also needs proper time to rest and recharge. All work and no play really does make Jack a dull boy and Jill too.
The good news is that a little planning up front makes holiday season much calmer for everyone. Here's how I'd approach it.
1. Start with your business, not the requests
Before a single request comes in, look at your year. Are there busy periods or critical moments when you really need people in, such as a seasonal peak, year end or a big client deadline? Map these out in your calendar so you can see them at a glance.
Then think about your people. What is the minimum cover you need during those periods and who are the critical people for your key operations? Everyone will be off at some point, so plan now for who covers them. What you don't want is for part of the business to slow down or grind to a halt simply because one person is on holiday.
2. Look at the patterns in your team
Have a look back at when people have booked leave in previous years. You might have a parent who always takes a week or two in the summer holidays or someone who usually takes time off for a religious festival such as Eid, Diwali or Chinese New Year.
You don't need to make a show of it and you shouldn't assume anyone will need that time but being aware of what matters to your people and trying to accommodate it where you reasonably can does wonders for engagement. People notice when you've remembered what's important to them.
3. Know the numbers
By law, almost everyone is entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year. For someone working five days a week that's 28 days and you can choose to include the bank holidays in it. Many employers give more, for example 25 days plus bank holidays. Part time staff get the same pro rata, so someone working three days a week gets at least 16.8 days.
If you give 25 days a year, someone builds up about 2.08 days a month (25 divided by 12), which is useful to know for new starters and leavers. Our free holiday entitlement calculator will work out the exact figures for you, including part year and irregular hours workers.
4. Check your policy supports what you need
Once you know what the business needs, check that your holiday policy and contracts back it up. Do you limit how much holiday can be taken in one go, for example two weeks at a time? Do you need longer notice for longer holidays or a cut off date for booking the Christmas period?
If your contracts don't say anything, the legal default is that an employee gives notice of at least twice the length of the holiday plus one day, so three days' notice for one day off. You can refuse a request but you need to give notice equal to the length of the holiday plus one day and you can't stop someone taking their leave altogether. If those defaults don't work for your business, put your own rules in writing so everyone knows where they stand.
5. Talk to your team and listen
The best communication goes both ways. Once your rules are clear, have each manager sit down with their team. It takes about 30 minutes and saves so much hassle later. Remind people what their entitlement is, explain the busy periods and give them a real chance to share their thoughts. You may well hear something that changes your plan for the better.
Encourage people to spread their holiday across the year rather than saving it all up because regular breaks are far better for wellbeing than one long one in December.
6. Make sure time off is really time off
When someone is on holiday, they should be off. Think about it: when you're sat on a beach with a margarita in hand, the last thing you want is your work phone pinging. Good planning is what makes this possible because work doesn't pile up while someone's away.
That's where a handover comes in. Before anyone goes on leave, they should sit down with their team and go through what's open: the key tasks, what needs doing and by when, who is picking each one up and the key contacts. It helps to be clear about what's critical, what's urgent and what would simply be nice to get done. Keep it wherever your team works, whether that's Excel, SharePoint, Slack or Trello.
Support goes both ways here too. Because people know the notice periods, it's their responsibility to prepare for their leave and agree what support they need. And always check capacity before you hand something over because a task given to someone with no time to do it simply won't get done and frustration will follow.
To make this easy, I've put together a free annual leave handover template in Excel that covers all of this.
One last thing: keep good records
From 6 April 2026, employers must keep records of annual leave and holiday pay for at least six years. A simple shared calendar plus a holiday tracker or an HR system makes this painless.
If you'd like help putting a holiday policy in place or setting up an HR system to track leave, book your free 30 minute HR chat.
This article is general guidance rather than legal advice. Sources: GOV.UK holiday entitlement and Acas.