UK employers are not required in law to have a holiday policy, but creating a clear set of guidelines can prevent problems further down the line.
A well written holiday policy provides your workforce with essential information so they can plan their well-earned breaks with more certainty.
Reduce Ambiguity
Along with key details, the document should give staff as much information as possible about all your leave guidelines to reduce ambiguity and help ensure everyone is on the same page.
Without a clear policy, potential issues can easily arise both for the employer and for individual staff members. The last thing managers want is an influx of holiday requests during busy periods that will leave you without enough cover and potentially cause resentment when requests are rejected.
Employers can legitimately deny holiday requests or even cancel approved leave but should have a good business reason for this - for example, if it would affect productivity during busy periods.
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It’s important to treat staff fairly and equitably when it comes to annual leave, otherwise you could be accused of favouritism and it may create bad feeling between team members.
Having an easy to understand and concise policy means you can clarify
entitlements and restrictions from the start, helping employees submit requests that are more likely to be approved.
What to Consider
· Procedures for booking leave.
· Dates of leave year.
· Holiday entitlement, including public holidays.
· Holiday pay.
· Carrying over holiday entitlement, including for long sick leave or maternity leave.
· Whether you allow TOIL.
· How much holiday can be used in one request period.
· Company requirements: restrictions, exceptions; conditions.
· How you allocate holiday requests: your normal policy; where clashes arise.
· Reasons why leave can be refused.
· Different leave options.
· Policies for new starters and leavers.
The Easy Way to Plan Staff Holidays
It’s essential to decide what guidelines work for your organisation and then communicate these clearly to every employee, ideally through a shared policy document.
With all the information to hand, your teams have more confidence that the process is fair to everyone.
WorkSmarter’s easy to use
Staff Holiday Planner helps SMEs manage all the complexities of holiday admin from one central platform.
Time tracking is simple with WorkSmarter and our intuitive system adapts to suit you.
✅ Request, review, approve or decline, from desktop or mobile.
✅ Avoid duplicate bookings and schedule conflicts.
✅ Prevent exceeding allowances.
✅ Flexible tracking by hours or days.
✅ Automatic time off calculations.
✅ Roll over unused holiday from one year to the next.
✅ Manage individual staff allowances, including TOIL.
✅ A shared holiday calendar keeps everyone in the loop.
✅ Download management reports.
Want to see how WorkSmarter’s easy-to-use platform works?
Book a demo with one of our friendly team.
