As Spring begins to make its way back around it’s important to start preparing yourself for a lot of requests off, vacation days and maybe even a few days where you’re a little short staffed. It’s time to get your vacation schedule put out and figure out the best way to make everything fair!
Employees are already stressing about their trips so it’s up to HR to plan ahead to develop scheduling solutions that are beneficial to everyone. The policies should be written in the handbook that should be given to each employee and there should be very strict and specific.
Employees are often planning trips for months-years ahead of time. So it’s best to let them know when the most ideal time for them to take off would be. For some it’s holidays, and for others holidays are completely out of the question.
Deadlines are your best friend when it comes to coordination a vacation schedule. Seriously. Establish a reasonable deadline for vacation requests so that you have time to plan, forget and come back to figure out the real plan when the time comes. Always be sure to give yourself a deadline as to how long you have to approve or deny vacation requests. It isn’t fair for an employee to wait up until 2 weeks before the vacation to be told whether or not their plane tickets need to be cancelled.
Overcome choosing sides, managers too. When two people’s requests are put in for the same dates are fair in ways like, who has missed the least amount of work? Who has been there longest? Who put in the request first? You want to avoid asking questions such as, “What event will you be attending?” Because by doing this you are prioritizing people’s lives and whose trip is more necessary.