Holiday HR: end-of-year advice for business owners

The holidays and the new year bring a wealth of joy and excitement to both you and your employees. However, they also tend to bring a number of fiddly HR issues that are not seen during other times of the year. Here are some common cases and how to handle them.

I am receiving a lot of holiday requests over Christmas. How do I deal with them fairly?

Throughout the year, the most just way to deal with holiday requests is to operate on a first-come first-served basis. However, during holiday periods such as summer and Christmas, this can become a hindrance as requests start coming in earlier and earlier.

Instead, it could be beneficial to implement a deadline system, where employees must submit their requests by a certain date.

When looking at leave requests for December, consider individual circumstances, such as:

• How much time they have taken off over the year: Those with more leave days left, for example, employees who did not take leave over summer, could be prioritised. Additionally, you might want to make it clear to employees that those whose requests are not granted at Christmas will be prioritised for summer and vice versa. This could limit the demand for leave at busy times.
• If they are parents: Parents might want to request more leave over the holidays as childcare can become difficult when schools and nurseries are not operating. You could encourage parents and their team members to liaise with one another before submitting requests, so that they are not seeking the same days off, maximising their chances of requests being accepted.
• The number of days they’re requesting: if an employee takes a large chunk of time off work, it can cause scheduling issues and put colleagues in unfair situations. It should be made clear that requests for too many consecutive days off will not be prioritised. Encourage employees to take up their leave days equally throughout the year.
• Their religious beliefs: the holiday period does not just include Christmas. Christmas Day and Boxing day are bank holidays; but those with religious beliefs might have to use leave days to celebrate days significant to their faith. Employers should try to make sure everyone has an equal opportunity to celebrate their faith.

Implementing a deadline system will encourage employees to finalise their plans in advance, which will limit scheduling issues, and increase communication amongst team members, allowing more people to get what they want.

I need to close up the office over Christmas. Can I make staff take annual leave?

The short answer to this is, yes. Under Section 15 of an employer may ask a worker to take leave on a day of the employer’s choice, so long as:

• leave is requested twice as many days as the number of days of leave in advance of the first day of leave. So, if you wanted an employee to take Friday off, you would have to tell them by Wednesday at the latest
• they are entitled to the leave that you are asking them to take

If you expect employees to take days from their annual leave allowance when you close the office for celebration dates, it’s good practice to tell them this when they join, and let them know which days you are closing the office.

Some of my staff have not used up annual leave. Should I let it carry over to next year?

Short answer: you don’t have to if you don’t want to. Under section 14 of 1998’s Working Time regulations, unless for certain extenuating circumstances, a worker is not entitled to have their annual leave carried into the next year. However, as a boss, you are allowed to make exceptions. According to Ice HR, allowing up to five leave days to be carried into the following year is standard practice.

Having said that, it is important to encourage an environment in which taking leave easy, else you may have to hand out more leave days in the future. Under Section 14, any remaining leave days can be carried into the next year in the following cases:

• an employee has had to take sick or statutory leave preventing them from claiming their leave days
• the employer has not provided the worker a reasonable opportunity to take the leave to which they are entitled
• the employer has not encouraged the worker to take leave the leave to which they are entitled
• the employer has not informed the worker that any leave days cannot be carried forward, and are in danger of being lost if unused

Therefore, as an employer, it is important to always stay in clear communication with your employees and to actively encourage them to take breaks throughout the year.

My employees are spending all their time Christmas shopping at work. What should I do?

Christmas shopping is often more of a chore than a charm. Busy employees with many family members to think about can often find themselves drifting onto online stores during office hours, desperate to get one more thing ticked off the to-do list.

As an employer, it is up to you to decide when enough is enough, but allowing some flexibility, so long as shopping is not impeding on productivity, may help to maintain morale and ease stress throughout the busy holiday period.

Often, if employees have to get all their Christmas errands done in their free time, it can result in many “sick” days, so finding the right balance in order to ensure maximum productivity is key.

Additionally, employees are always grateful to an employer who allows a small number of personal packages to be delivered to the office, as they might miss home deliveries. And, Capital Space’s friendly reception teams can accept parcels on your employees’ behalf, so allowing deliveries doesn’t even have to take them away from their desks.

If you are a SME looking for a flexible, serviced workspace, that comes with a whole lot more, get in touch.