BrightHR’s Alan Price offers his advice to managers who have to ensure their employees are properly rested while avoiding holiday havoc.
While most employees are legally entitled to four weeks’ annual leave each year in Ireland, not everyone takes all their days. In fact, a 2021 CSO survey found that more than one in five workers didn’t take any leave over the 12 months prior to the study. Not taking annual leave entitlements can lead to burnout, increased chances of needing sick leave and a reduction in productivity.
The hardest aspect of managing annual leave when leading a team or running a business is the knowledge that everyone has different holiday habits. There’s no one-size-fits-all, making it challenging to get the balance right. So, let’s talk about the top three common personality types you’ll notice when it comes to taking annual leave.
Holiday hoarders
If you’ve been in the business for a few years, you’ll likely have met this type of worker. These holiday-hoarding employees wait until the very end of the year before they book time off, often missing out on their full entitlement which can lead to a nasty bout of burnout. And beware, if these employees decide to leave your business halfway through the year, it can cost you a chunk of their notice period or pay in lieu.
Refresh rushers
These employees rush to book holidays as soon as their entitlement refreshes, which is great! But if they end up taking all their holiday at once it can lead to burnout further down the line when those holidays inevitably run dry.
Crowd followers
You know the type, the ones who book their holidays exactly when you expect them to. This also means they book their annual leave at peak times when everyone books time off, leaving you understaffed during busy periods like summer or Christmas and your employees who are in, overworked and stressed out.
While these are all perfectly acceptable ways to take a break, if you don’t have a clear view of your team’s remaining leave balance, it can mean you’re leaving yourself open for holiday havoc down the line, including staff on the brink of burnout, not having enough staff available to work during key periods, and a whole lot of annual leave that goes to waste.
So, what are the benefits of encouraging healthy attitudes towards annual leave in your team? Encouraging annual leave in your team may feel like the last thing you want to do when you’re under pressure to meet deadlines.
But keeping your team happy, engaged and refreshed is in everyone’s best interest and it helps keep burnout, stress and attrition rates at bay. When your employees take a break, they’ll return to work with renewed energy and focus on their job, and you’ll see productivity soar. Also, relaxed team members are less stressed out, meaning they’re far less likely to take sick days and you’re more likely to keep them engaged for longer, reducing the costs of employee turnover.
Reasons your team might not be taking time off
It’s important to determine whether your employees feel comfortable taking a break. If you find that people don’t feel comfortable taking holidays, it might be time to work out what the reasons are.
Some reasons include:
Heavy workloads: Your team may feel that they can’t take time off due to the amount of work they have on. In this case it’s important to prioritise workloads and take stock of all and any non-essential tasks.
Negative perception of holidays: In some businesses there is a perception that holidays are a bad thing and employees should take as few holidays as possible.
Schedule conflicts: Particularly at busy times of the year, employees may feel they’re not able to take time off.
Lack of notice: Some businesses require a month’s notice for absence requests, which isn’t always possible for employees.
Employee bravado: Some employees don’t feel that they need to take time off and often never take their full holiday allowance, wearing it like a badge of honour.
Holiday rollover: Some firms allow untaken holidays to be carried over into the following year.
Employee capacity: Especially with smaller companies, staff may feel less inclined to take their full holiday entitlement as it could detrimentally impact the running of the business.
So how can you encourage employees to take more time off?
Audit your company culture
The first thing you need to do is take some time to audit the culture of your business and its attitude towards annual leave. Take your time and be thorough.
Culture is something that can be changed with consistent top-down leadership, however, it’s not something that you’re going to change overnight.
Reassess your holiday policies
Some companies have opted for unlimited holiday policies to encourage a healthier attitude towards taking a break. For example, Microsoft ditched their annual leave policy for an unlimited paid leave policy last year, meaning employees will no longer have to track their time off.
It’s an interesting tactic, but this might not be the best approach as most employees in businesses with unlimited holidays end up taking fewer holidays than the legal allowance, often for fear that they’d be discriminated against in favour of those employees who took less.
Set a good example
Making sure more senior members of the team are taking regular days off can set a good example for the more junior people on your team.
Attitudes towards annual leave in your organisation should come from the top. If your team sees their manager taking regular breaks, they’re more likely to follow suit.
Have an easy method of booking time off
In most businesses, communication which encourages employees to take time off is the key. Having a easy method to book time off, by which we mean a system that allows someone to submit leave for approval without having to justify the reason they want the time off, is essential.
This can make all the difference and encourage a healthier attitude towards requesting holiday, especially if the system you use is fast, efficient and accessible to employees outside of the workplace.
By Alan Price
Alan Price is the CEO at BrightHR and COO at the Peninsula Group. A version of this article was previously published on the BrightHR blog.
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