Why plan if people can just agree?
In a small team leave runs on verbal agreements for a long time: “I’ll take August, you take September.” That works while there are five of you sitting in one room. After that the agreements start to crack in predictable places:
- First to ask, first to go. The best weeks go to whoever is quickest, not to whoever needs them most - and it is the same people every year;
- Clashes surface too late. That three of the four people in support are off at the same time comes out after the tickets are bought;
- Days pile up. People who do not plan their rest do not take it, and by December there are balances to carry over, let expire or pay out - the trade-offs we covered in the carry-over article;
- Nobody outside the team knows who to count on. Clients, projects and neighbouring teams find out about absences on the day they start.
A schedule for the year does not cancel flexibility. It gives you a starting point - and agreeing a change to a plan is much easier than negotiating from a blank page every time.
The preparation calendar
The most common mistake is starting in December, when half the team is already thinking about the holidays. The work splits into five steps, and the first one comes two months before the new year:
The dates are only a guide; the order is what matters. Rules come before wishes, wishes come before the draft, and the draft is shown to people before it is approved. Two or three days for objections defuse most of the resentment before anything is published.
Rules come before wishes, not after
If the rules appear after people have sent in their wishes, every “no” feels personal. If they come first, they are simply the frame everyone plans inside. Four rules cover almost everything:
- Minimum coverage. How many people must stay - for the whole team or for each role. For example, “at least 70% of the department” or “at least two of the five in support”;
- Blackout weeks. Weeks when leave is not approved: the year-end close, the seasonal peak, a big launch. Keep them few, and give each one a reason;
- At least one long break. A week here, two days there - and the person never actually rests. Many companies ask that at least one part of the leave is two weeks or longer;
- How many at once. A plain cap - “no more than two from one team” - is often clearer than a percentage.
How to collect wishes
One date from each person is the worst format: wherever dates clash, you can only refuse, with no alternative to offer. This works better:
- Two or three options, ranked. “First choice 4-15 August, second choice 1-12 September.” Building the draft then becomes matching, not refusing;
- Windows instead of exact dates. “Two weeks in the second half of July” leaves room to manoeuvre; “14-27 July” does not;
- A clear deadline. 15 December, for instance. Anyone who has not answered by then gets suggested dates, which they can change within a week;
- Do not forget the quiet ones. The person who will “decide later” most often ends the year with the biggest balance and the most fatigue.
When everyone wants August
Summer, school holidays and the week between Christmas and New Year always have more takers than places. Write down how those weeks are shared before anyone asks - and make the rule simple enough that anyone can check it themselves.
Rotation is the fairest approach: split the team into a few groups and let the groups choose the busy weeks in turn. Next year the order shifts - whoever chose last now chooses first.
Seniority or job title as a priority looks logical, but it fixes the same order forever: a new hire would wait years for an August. If summer genuinely matters more for some people - parents of school-age children, people whose families live far away - make that a separate rule with a name, not a quiet exception.
And let people swap weeks with each other as long as coverage does not suffer. Most clashes are settled by a swap without a manager ever getting involved.
After approval the schedule keeps living
An approved schedule is not carved in stone. Children get ill, projects slip, people leave and join. To keep the schedule from turning into a file nobody opens, three things help:
- Changes go the same way as requests. To move your leave you ask; the manager sees what the change does to coverage and approves it or not;
- A quarterly review. Compare the plan with the leave people actually took. A big gap by September is a signal to talk now, not in December;
- New people go into the schedule straight away. Someone who joins in March should get their own weeks, not whatever is left after everyone else.