how can I make our vacation policy as fair as possible?

by Alison Green on April 17, 2025

A reader writes:

I am the director of a small, public-facing unit. We have a full-time staff of 10 and several part-time workers. I am struggling with our leave system and how to make it as equitable as possible.

Current policy (that I inherited) is that employees can put in all leave for the following year beginning in November of the previous year, and first-come first-serve wins. We have some employees who quickly take a lot of the prime spots, particularly around spring break and holidays. Not everyone can plan ahead like this, however, and so some of our people then get little to no time around the holidays because we have to have coverage for open hours (including weekends). It’s also a problem because I don’t know what staffing may look like that far in advance to know how many people can be off.

It’s also difficult because so much of it feels nebulous and hard to enforce. For example, one employee took seven work days off in the middle of a two-month-long initiative that they oversee (which happens every year at the same time). So, it’s hard to say they can never have that time off, but yet it creates some hardship when they leave in the middle of it every single year. Also difficult to turn into a policy is that it’s hard when certain people are off at the same time because of specific job responsibilities, and two of those people are the two who tend to request most of holidays in advance.

In other words, no one is doing anything wrong, but it would be nice to make sure that employees who can’t plan a year ahead (or were not hired until mid-year) also have options for holiday time. I also understand that first-come first-serve is really the easiest to have hard and fast rules around. I don’t want it to be subjective, but some aspects are kind of subjective!

For what it’s worth, it doesn’t adversely impact me because I’m not a part of the coverage computations. Also, to be completely honest, part of my issue is the sense of entitlement I get from a few employees that I have to give them all the days they want because they beat everybody else to the punch, which is my own issue to work through.

If I change it, I know it’s going to rock the boat, so want to make sure I have thought through all the things before making changes.

Yeah, this is a bad policy if it means that the same people keep claiming all the most prized vacation slots and no one else can ever have them. That’s not fair to others, and it’s going to demoralize and frustrate large chunks of your staff.

The biggest change I’d recommend is this: identify the most desirable time off slots throughout the year, say that no one can have all of them unless there’s still no competition for them X months out (maybe three to four months, depending on what’s practical for your team’s circumstances), and ask people who are submitting requests for the entire year up-front to rank their preferences when submitting. That means they’ll get some of those most-desired slots but not all of them, because you’ll hold some of them open for people who don’t submit a year ahead of time. (You’ll still need to have some later cut-off date for those slots so that people can plan with confidence — but it doesn’t need to be November for the entire following year.)

As for the person who keeps taking a week off in the middle of their two-month-long initiative every year: you don’t have to approve every vacation request someone submits just because they got it in before anyone else claimed that time. If the time off falls at a particularly bad time for their particular job, you can push back. In some cases that might mean saying, “That’s the one time of the year when you really can’t take a week off because of X key piece of your job.” In others it might mean a conversation — “It would be rough to have you out that week because of X. Do you have any flexibility on when you do this?” and “To make this work, I’d need you to come up with a plan for ensuring XYZ is taken care of before you go. Can we talk about whether there’s a realistic way to do that?”

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  1. Frosty*

    The most equitable vacation scheduling system I’ve encountered begins with employees selecting vacation weeks based on seniority. In the first round, starting with the most senior employee, each person chooses two weeks. Then, in a second round, the order reverses—starting with the least senior employee, each selects one additional week. This “snake draft” approach is like the initial settlement placement in Settlers of Catan.

    There were certain chunks blocked off and any remaining holidays could be picked after that. It ensured that most people were getting a fair shake at their ideal weeks without a few people picking all of the best dates.

    1. Pescadero*

      The most equitable vacation scheduling system I’ve encountered begins with having enough staff that this sort of a thing is never a problem.

      1. Phony Genius*

        I could have 100 staff to do the work of 10, but if all 100 want the same week off, it’s still not equitable.

        1. Boof*

          Yes I’m not sure how it’s possible to ensure everyone doesn’t want the same time off unless you like, build it into the hiring offers? Otherwise it doesn’t matter how much you’re overstaffed most of the time if everyone wants burningman off or whatever

          1. Beany*

            Not an option for some types of work — e.g. emergency services or any of their support infrastructure.

            1. andy*

              Those don’t play these games with those super popular vacation spots and either rotate (or some variant of it) or go by seniority or by number of kids.

                2. Jules the 3rd*

                  Yeah, joke.

                  I’ve known people in multiple hospital / fire / ems services, and they all do holiday vacations by ‘volunteers first, then rotation’. A friend of mine volunteers for Xmas and Tgiving because he’s single, his immediate family is nearby and flexible, and it pretty much guarantees him the week of the extended family’s annual summer reunion. If he can’t get it via rotation, he can get it from the people who owe him for tgiving and xmas.

              2. Mgguy*

                My wife is a nurse, and I’ve always thought their holiday policy makes sense even if it can get a bit convoluted. 24/7/365 staffing is of course mandatory, and people don’t stop getting sick just because it’s a holiday(although tend not not schedule non-emergency surgeries and thing like that around Christmas, etc, and will also try to clear as many out as they safely can ahead of holidays).

                Basically all the holidays except for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s day, get tossed into a bucket. Depending on your seniority, you have to work X number of them(I forget the exact break-down). For the set of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day you need either 1 or 2 of the 4 depending on seniority. You can ask for your preferences, but ultimately staffing needs make the decision. Our first few years together she worked every Christmas, but hasn’t had to in a few years now(she usually works new year’s day).

                Of course too, once the schedule is set, which they do a year or so out, they are allowed to “trade” their assigned days just as long as it’s two people of equal level(i.e. two RNs on the same floor) trading and there’s no coersion, guilting, etc. My wife was originally assigned to Easter this year, and a co-worker wanted to trade Labor Day(i.e. my wife work labor day, the other work Easter). My wife gladly too the trade, but of course wasn’t in any way obligated to.

            2. Lime green Pacer*

              Also hospitality-related industries: hotels, restaurants, and their suppliers/support businesses. When I worked for a restaurant supply company, there were two periods where nobody was allowed vacation time: the Christmas-New Year period. and the weeklong major local event (100,000 daily paid attendance) that we had the food service supply contract for.

          2. doreen*

            That works in some situations – but that’s not the only popular week. Any school vacation (spring recess, the week between Christmas and New Year’s, “Jersey week”* ) will be popular. Weeks with a holiday will be popular. Fridays before a three day weekend will be popular. There are few businesses that can close any time all or nearly all of the employees want to be on vacation.

            * There’s a teacher convention in NJ in early November. Schools close for at least two days, some for the whole week and lots of people go on vacation then. Disney etc has lower rates in the fall and schools aren’t closed in the other states.

        3. commensally*

          Then you either close that week, or if you can’t close that week, you make it a condition of employment that you work that week.

          But it’s extremely unlikely that literally everybody wants the same week off, even for Christmas or something there’s usually a few people who want the excuse to skip celebrating. And if you can’t handle most of your staff off for a holiday week that’s going to be slow anyway, then you’re understaffed.

          3. NotAnotherManager!*

            You know that not ever business is slow over the holidays, right? I work in an industry driven by external deadlines, and we had six major deliverables due the week between Christmas and New Year’s just last year. Some of those deadlines are statutory (meaning even the external party to whom they are due does not have the authority to move them). So, yes, we did have to turn down some of the 80% of our team that asked for time off during that week to get meet those deadlines.

            I guess you’ve also never been in an emergency room or urgent care over any holiday because they have quite a crowd. Hospitals don’t exactly send their patients home over the holidays because of staffing. I assume you’d also like the first responders to show up if you have an emergency that week as well, and retail and restaurants often do more business than on average those weeks.

            1. commensally*

              That is when “If you can’t close that week, you make it a condition of employment that you work that week” in my first paragraph applies, sorry, I didn’t think I needed to repeat the caveat.

              There are four possible conditions for “The week everyone wants off”:
              1. You don’t really need to be open that week and most of your employees want off. You should close.
              2. It’s a relatively slow time, or at least a time where you can let optional things wait until the new year, you can be open with only a few employees. You add a few extra incentives to work that week if you really need to (but usually working a laid-back week and saving leave is enough for a few people if you treat them well otherwise.)
              3. It’s a busy time. You make it a condition of employment that this is your busy time and you’re only offering leave in exceptional circumstances. (this is standard in my experience of all the jobs you mentioned.)
              4. You’re so understaffed that only a few people being out makes things untenable even with normal workload. You hire people.

              The problems only happen when management won’t let you implement the correct solution for your scenario. Which is, admittedly, frequent.

      2. Dinwar*

        If you have enough staff that you’re never under-staffed, you have too many staff for the slow times. Some teams can do this because the workload is relatively constant, but for many this simply isn’t possible. And demanding impossible standards is inherently unreasonable.

        1. Craig*

          this is what we have annualised hours and toil for though I understand thats actually illegal in us due to red tape

          1. TOIL means Time Off In Lieu*

            But that’s just an optimization – the company can, at worst, pay double time for the employees to work overtime in busy weeks and/or popular times to take off. Minimum wage is so low in most of the US that paying double doesn’t have to be that much.

      3. Short Sleeves Please*

        This is so easy to say. If you’re in a non-profit, library, nursing facility, etc., with a specific amount of staff. The budget isn’t going to magically accommodate extra employees.

        I really wish people wouldn’t assume that it’s corporate greed keeping the number of employees small. Firms with fewer than 10 employees account for 78.5% of all US companies. S corps are more than 69%.

        1. A*

          I think the letter this morning about 2 laptops per employee is another example of people just really overestimating the margins most organizations have.

      4. Daisy-dog*

        Even people who don’t celebrate Christmas and don’t have kids want the week between Christmas & New Year’s off. All the staffing in the world doesn’t fix that and not every business can close. (Some can and choose not to….)

        1. Elizabeth West*

          Yeah, because so much stuff is closed. Clients, etc.
          Of course, it depends on what your business does. ToxicExJob did not close down that week, but I liked working it because most of our clients took the week off and I could get my yearly filing cleanup done without the phone ringing.

      6. Sandwiches*

        Has that been a real thing that you’ve encountered in your working life? Overstaffing usually isn’t a financially viable option for most businesses. I’d be very curious to know the industry–I’d like to see if a pivot is possible!

      7. NotAnotherManager!*

        Great, now do holidays, especially the winter ones for industries that do not have the luxury of shutting down between Christmas and New Years. Runners up are Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Labor Day, and Memorial Day.

        I’m pretty sure HR would blow a gasket if we started asking candidates if they celebrated Christmas and would need time off the same week that nearly everyone else in the company requests it.

      8. Can’t think of anything clever*

        I worked in police/fire dispatch for 30+ years. The last center dispatcher staffing was 110 people. We could have had 500 people and the reality is they weren’t all getting Christmas Day off! There are many 24/7 jobs where that’s the reality.

      9. Hearts & Minds*

        I’d love to be overstaffed, but I run a 911 dispatch center and we’re severely restricted by budget and City leadership’s (erroneous) conviction that we already have too many FTE positions at our municipality.

      10. AnotherOne*

        My office handles it pretty well by being really honest about whether we really need every group staffed at all time, or is it okay if both llama groomers take off for a week. Someone else can cover if there’s an emergency but the worst that happens is no llamas get groomed that week.

        There are some groups that have to have coverage. The feeding crew can never be completely out, but even during their busiest season, they can probably manage down a person for a couple of days.

        That’s meant people have gotten to have June weddings even if its the worst time for their group for them to be out. Or all entire department could take Christmas week.

        Despite an official policy that everyone can’t be out at once.

    2. Annie*

      I’ve found that this means the most senior people get the highly prized time off every year, which isn’t much different than the people who know they’re going to be off at certain times getting that time off via first-come, first-served.

      My Dad told me a story about how that was the case for many years at his work, but then the lower seniority people (including one particular person that rubbed my father the wrong way at work) pushed to get so that every other year the next senior people got their first pick.

      It so happened that my father retired right before the change, so the 2nd level seniority person got bumped to the top seniority level when the vacation priority changed from top seniority to 2nd level seniority, so he didn’t get the best vacation time.

      1. Sloanicota*

        Yeah, the reason seniority isn’t a great system is it often means the same person gets the best vacation every year, for eternity (essentially). The junior people will never get more seniority than the seniors, unless somebody leaves, which they often won’t in a system like this where seniority is a huge benefit. I don’t mind being the new guy and having to work Thanksgiving my first year. But if I have to work Thanksgiving every year until Bob leaves or dies, I’m going to be job searching.

        1. Dogmomma*

          Sloan, it works if you rotate people through. if you got your choice this year..you don’t get it next yr. and manager keeps track of requests. vacation and holidays if applicable

    3. Sandwiches*

      This still requires everyone to know what their time off needs are at the time of the “draft” which is part of the problem with the current system.

      1. Hannah Lee*

        and the schedule of the “draft” in this OP’s case is entirely driven by the first person to make their vacation plans. There’s not a heads up of “hey, management will be reviewing vacation requests and allocating weeks beginning December 1st, so be sure to submit your high priority requested vacation dates by that date.” it’s just Jenny with her advance planning getting her year calendar in order.

        (Planners wanting to plan in advance isn’t an issue, even though not everyone has that luxury. It’s that the company’s non-system allows the planners to get all the primo dates and other people get none, year after year)

    4. Cascadia*

      At my old college student job where we needed coverage every single day of the year, holidays included, we did a draft. We did it at the beginning of the school year (so September) and all employees drew a number. There was a list of all the holidays and based on the number you drew, you had to sign up to WORK a holiday (so opt in!). Went through the whole staff in this random number order, and then when the last person finished we went in reverse order for choosing holiday two. This worked really well for all of us. Once holidays were assigned you could still try and swap with someone else, and there was usually someone who wanted extra shifts. Plus any actual federal holidays ( as opposed to working spring break or the like) were paid time and a half, so they were definitely desirable for some.

      1. Clisby*

        Yes, holiday coverage should always start with asking people which holidays they’d be willing to work. That eliminates a fair amount of competition up front, because plenty of people are willing to work some holidays. I worked for years for daily newspapers, and we always did this. For example, the only holidays I cared anything about were Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, so it was common for me to choose working on Christmas Day (no spouse/kids, so much more fun to visit my family on Christmas Eve and head back to work mid-afternoon Christmas.)

        A second rule was that you were blocked from taking off certain holidays year after year (unless enough people volunteered for them.) So if you took Christmas off one year you couldn’t take it the next. Same for Thanksgiving. (Can’t remember about New Year’s – never cared about that.)

        Parents got no special preference.

        I don’t remember how they handled things like school break – probably didn’t pay attention since those weren’t times I would be likely to want a vacation.

        2. BadMitten*

          My college job had something similar… you had to work at least one holiday—Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, NYE, or New Years Day. Since I was out of town the 2 weeks around Christmas and New Year’s I did Thanksgiving. Worked out well and we got time and a half.

        3. MigraineMonth*

          You can also add benefits to entice more volunteers. I worked in food service at a retirement community, and one of my favorite Christmases was spent working. The meal was moved to the middle of the day (rather than the usual dinner), the service was simplified so we needed fewer staff, and all the residents were in a festive mood.

          We were also paid double, which always helps.

      2. Mgguy*

        Old job at a big state university had really attractive holiday pay-

        Basically no matter what, you were paid 7.5 hours for the day(standard workday, since “full time” there was 37.5). If you actually worked, hours worked were paid time and a half over the holiday pay you were actually receiving. That mean that if you worked a full 7.5 hour day, you’d be at 2.5x.

        My department hosted a conference that ALWAYS fell on labor day. They needed staff to just be an on-the-ground contact, and in my role I was kind of the automatic choice to work it. I never had anything going on labor day, grew to really enjoy working with the people who ran the conference and getting to participate in some capacity as time allowed, so was always happy to work it. It was often a 12 hour day for me, although it tended to be a busy morning and evening with a lot of mid-day down time, so it really was a pretty easy day(I’d get caught up on the rest of my regular work for the week, but couldn’t get too deep into that as I needed to basically be available to the conference people). That would usually be a really nice paycheck for me since I’d have have 7.5 hours at 2.5x, another 4.5 at 1.5x, and it would throw me into overtime for the overall week so would pick up another 2 hours at 1.5x…

    5. sofar*

      This penalizes folks who switch jobs. If you’re parked at the company for 10+ years, you shouldn’t get vacation time over people newer to the company. In this job market, people hop companies more.

      1. Landry*

        Hard disagree. More vacation time and prime slots comes with showing loyalty to a company.

        1. A. Lab Rabbit*

          Loyalty to a company is completely misplaced. They will get rid of you in a moment if they decide they don’t need you.

          Having fair vacation policies is part of what encourages people to stay.

          1. mysterious and important*

            I agree. I think it’s ok to increase the *amount* of leave according to tenure, as long as new employees start out with a reasonable amount. But I don’t like the idea of determining when/how that leave can be used based on seniority. With increasing the amount of leave, you at least know you have the option of eventually reaching the if you stay. You can’t control how many of your colleagues are more senior to you – no matter how long you stay, there’s a good chance that you’ll never get first crack at the most popular holidays because there’s likely someone who has been there longer.

            1. mysterious and important*

              *you at least know you have the option of eventually reaching the *maximum* if you stay. My kingdom for an edit button.

            2. Elle*

              Very much this. Simply doing seniority = choose first feels wrong. Seniority corresponding to stuff like amount of PTO or bonus % feels reasonable, however. I kinda think only things like that should be tied to seniority.

        2. Antilles*

          Of course, that’s only true if you happen to be the most senior person in the department and therefore always get the prime slots.
          If only one person can get Christmas off and the department includes someone who’s been parked for 10+ years, then the guy who’s been here 9.9 years is in the same “don’t get to see my family on Christmas” boat as the guy who’s been here 9 days. All that ‘loyalty’ of 9 years doesn’t mean jack squat because only one person can take off Christmas and Ellie the Eternal Employee has pre-emptively claimed it forever.

          1. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

            this is sort of fan fiction though because there are very few businesses that make 90% of their staff work on Xmas and working for that company is essentially signing up for that. I’m not sure how much more of a benefit it is for Mr 9.9 years to get Xmas off once a decade.

            1. Antilles*

              Sure, most companies aren’t going to make most of their staff work on Christmas itself, but plenty of companies will be open during Christmas *week* and expect to be operating at full capacity (or something relatively close) during the rest of the week.

            2. Emily H*

              I worked for 7 years in a library that was open the day after Thanksgiving, and for all of those 7 years, I was the least senior person at my branch – so I never got to have that day off, and although we were closed for Thanksgiving, I couldn’t see my family, because I couldn’t travel and make it back in time. It really didn’t feel like a fair system at the time – although I understand that the people who had stuck around for 20+ years felt that they had earned it! But yeah, I wish we could’ve done it as a lottery or draft so that I could have occasionally traveled on Thanksgiving.

              This is just to say, it’s not really fanfiction – there are really people in these situations!

              1. Librarian manager here*

                yep- I worked every day after Thanksgiving, every Christmas eve, “boxing day”, good Friday, Friday before Labor day, Easter Monday, Spring Break (public library , we were mobbed) summer reading for a decade. The senior people had thirty years AND about 6 weeks vacation.

            3. GreenApplePie*

              Hospitals/healthcare is one of the biggest employers in the US, and they certainly can’t get away with having a skeleton crew just because it’s a holiday. Sometimes a holiday even calls for extra help (ex. fireworks-related mishaps in the ER)

        3. Beth*

          So you’re OK with losing the ability to take Christmas off if you get laid off and have to start at a new company? That would be many people’s reality if this was the norm and access to holiday PTO was seniority-based everywhere.

        4. Zona the Great*

          I don’t think loyalty to one’s company is A Thing anymore. Employers are not loyal to us. No pension, no paid lunch, etc. Now someone who is loyal to their company is likely to be underpaid and missing out on advancement.

        6. sofar*

          And if you get laid off? You don’t get to spend holidays with your family in the same way someone else does simply because they are luckier?

        7. A*

          This was true in a different time, a different place, with a different working culture.

          It is not true in the year 2025.

        8. StressedButOkay*

          My vacation time is a benefit that I earn as part of my compensation – not because I’m loyal to my company.

        9. Kella*

          You’ve got it mixed up. In the past, companies invested in ways to motivate employees to stay with the same company for multiple decades, such as seniority-based benefits. But in the last few decades, companies discovered that laying off higher-level employees and hiring new lower-paid employees regularly is cheaper than investing in longevity. Companies are the ones that determined “loyalty” no longer has a concrete monetary value on it, in the world of employment. You can’t make loyalty the requirement of accessing good benefits *and* lay people off every few years and expect good morale.

        10. Chirpy*

          If the person above you has been there for 30 years and is likely to be there another 10-20 at least, it doesn’t matter if you’ve been there for 10 years, you’ll never get a good holiday in that system.

    6. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

      I’m glad that I never worked at that “equitable” company or another similarly “equitable” company because (1) frequently, I wanted a couple of days off at a time, not an entire week, and (2) I liked to go on trips to “away” football games, and the schedule was released in May for the upcoming season, and it would take a little time for the company that organized the trips to make the arrangements and advertise the trips. There wouldn’t have been a way for me to know in January (or in the previous November) when the trips would be.

    7. Beth*

      I don’t think going by seniority is fairer than going by who planned first. Either way, you can easily end up with the same few people getting the best weeks off every year. That’s great for them, but a real burden and a morale hit for everyone else.

      On most of the teams I’ve been on, PTO for popular weeks like holidays has been managed by the manager rather than by a single standard. They ask the whole team to put in any PTO requests a few months ahead of the holiday, then review all the requests at once. I’ve been surprised at how often they can approve all requests! There’s usually at least a few people who don’t celebrate a holiday or don’t have travel plans. Also, many of our customers are also busy with family/travel during holiday weeks–we can get away with lower coverage than usual.

      When there is a conflict, the manager decides who gets their PTO approved. They look at considerations like seniority, who’s gotten other prime weeks this year, who got the holiday off last year, whether anyone has flexibility on their PTO dates, etc. This obviously needs a trustworthy, unbiased manager. But I think it’s worked out more fairly than going by a single rule–it allows for a lot more nuance and a lot more factors to be taken into consideration.

      1. Opaline*

        This is what my job does and it works great. You can’t book the two weeks over Christmas and New Years off until October. Everyone puts in holiday requests to the manager saying which days they’d like off and and which they’d be happy to work, and she works out if we’d have enough coverage. If too many people want the same day off, she’ll negotiate it between them.

    8. Despachito*

      This does not seem very equitable because it is always the senior staff who gets the best pick.

      What I’ve seen working even with mildly unreasonable people (I actually managed to enforce it because I was most junior and was sick of never having larger chunks of vacation around Christmas and New Years Eve) was:
      1. identify the most coveted times (for us that was typically Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Easter
      2. the first year the pick was according to seniority (we were three and the office required the coverage of one, so it meant two people could go on vacation and one had to stay)
      3. the following years the first pick was on the person who did not have that vacation the previous year.

      This meant you had the vacation you preferred at least twice in three years. I can’t think of anything more just than that.

    10. linger*

      Why does the entire leave schedule have to be decided a year in advance when you don’t know your staffing needs more than a month in advance? That really needs to change.
      The easiest change to implement (for the staff, though not necessarily for OP as it does increase the admin time) would be to have holidays booked only one month out at a time. Then people who don’t know their personal schedules until a month out, or are only hired midyear, are not greatly disadvantaged relative to those who have plans 12 months out. And it’s still first-come-first-served, so those with fixed plans still know to get in first.
      And (unless leave can roll over indefinitely) then follow up proactively (e.g. at 3 month intervals) with staff who still haven’t booked any leave to ensure they’re not left out completely by year’s end.
      (N.B. I am assuming you can leave enough slack in your staffing schedule to cover some absence (either pre-planned or sudden) For Good Reason at times other than the popular holidays — e.g. for graduations, weddings, family illnesses; and that you can handle some pre-planned events of this nature by arrangement outside the booking system.)

      1. Dogmomma*

        when I was still working, we had to have vaca requests in at least 6 months in advance & 2 people off at a time + worked every other weekend and holiday. ..a very busy ICU. Surgery didn’t stop dt illness or vacation. So this affected the OR, doctors, perfusion team, biomed and our ICU. In 2 yrs we lost 7 people to death, and there were several serious illnesses, plus days off…we all pitched in to fill the holes and somehow everyone was able to take their vacation. I still don’t know how we did it. We all worked our butt’s off and I’m very proud about being part of that team!

    11. GreenApplePie*

      In my experience this usually results in situations where leadership is constantly absent and their absence is both disruptive to operations and breeds resentment among lower level staff.

      I’m very grateful that my current job operates on the federal holiday schedule…

    12. A bee by the sea*

      Yes I think this is the way to go. When I worked at a residential school where round the clock coverage was mandatory including weekends and holidays, for the end of year holidays they took the 2 most popular weeks (thanksgiving week, Christmas week). Every staff was guaranteed to get one of those weeks off. Everyone ranked their preference for those weeks and then the weeks were approved in order of seniority. Sometimes when we had surplus staffing the most senior staff would get both weeks off but that was rare.

    13. mCB*

      I don’t think going by seniority is equitable at all. If by seniority you mean how long people have been at that particular company, that’s not equitable for people hired into the company in senior roles. They shouldn’t have to start at the bottom (again). Also this method would just lead to the same problem LW is raising – that a few entitled people keep claiming the best times.

    14. Sleeplesskj*

      That’s not equitable at all. We have very low turnover in our workplace. The person with the least seniority has been here seven years and would ALWAYS have last choice with that method. The person here the longest has been here 22 years – they would ALWAYS have first choice. Big nope.

  2. menopausal ninja*

    I’m a physician and we have to cover holidays – you need to treat this like a call schedule!

    Holidays (including things like our school district spring break) have an entirely separate vacation request system and one of my coworkers (BLESS HER!) makes sure that our holiday time off is balanced

    Everyone has to work *some* holiday time. She also pro-rates it a bit — because I take the entire week of Christmas every other year, I never have to work thanksgiving, for example.

    1. Griffin Diore*

      I’m also a physician, and I make the call schedule for a group of 8. I’ve been doing this for the past six years, and everyone takes their fair share of holiday and “prime” time off. Sometimes that means that Dr. X won’t get to take vacation at Christmas because it’s their turn to cover that holiday.

      I’m amazed that onyone would ever think that “first come, first served” is an equitable and fair solution for vation/leave time or holidays required to work.

      1. Dogmomma*

        nurse here & I agree with both you physicians. Sounds like health care has this down pat. I certainly had to ” start over ” on the rare occasion I changed jobs. However I also bargained for specifics in m6 time off at hiring, and never had a problem.
        who in the world can’t make sure time off isn’t fair to all employees? although closed btwn Xmas and New Years sounds wonderful..but not every year lol. Guess it depends where you live.. snow country..or near the beach ⛱️

      2. MigraineMonth*

        I don’t think the solution was used because it was fair/equitable, I think it was just the easiest solution for the previous manager to implement.

    2. Three cats in a trenchcoat*

      Ugh, the fact that my outpatient director makes unfair call schedules* is a HUGE source of resentment among the newer physicians to the team. When there is no budget to hire people less senior than you (potentially ever), systems based on seniority start to feel a lot less fair.

      *5-6 of us work 2 holidays/yr, several work 0 holidays. even if he just took a midweek holiday instead of losing a weekend it would make me dramatically happier

    3. HannahS*

      I’m also a doctor and I totally agree with treating holiday times as a separate schedule.

      We arrange it like this:
      In my region, there are six long weekends (excluding a 2-week Christmas/NY block which is arranged separately.) Early in the year, everyone has to choose 1-2 long weekends that they’re willing to work, and a coverage schedule is made.

      In the fall, you state your preference for either working a week that includes Christmas, or the week that includes New Year’s. The person scheduling tries to take everyone’s preference into account, and if it’s not possible, then you get dibs the next year.

      All other times of year are first-come/first-serve.

    4. cncx*

      Daughter of a nurse here and this was my first thought too, treat it like a call schedule.

      Another idea I had, from the days my mother made call schedules, is similar to what you said: people who had Christmas off one year worked Thanksgiving and couldn’t take Christmas off the next year but could take Thanksgiving off, or whatever makes sense in this case. People were allowed to trade without bullying once the call schedule was made, and the schedule was held to be final law if someone started arm twisting to trade.

    5. MSD*

      I’m not a doctor but that’s what I did with my team. Kept track of holiday time off separately and rotated who had to cover particularly the week between Christmas and new year. One other thing we did was to eliminate project “go live” on January 1. Projects that “started” on 1/1 had to “go live” (be moved into production) by 12/15 . This eliminated lot of need for coverage Christmas week.

    6. Jay (no, the other one)*

      Yup. Also a doc. I don’t celebrate Christmas so I always work the holiday – sometimes that meant a week on call, sometimes 4:oo PM 12/24 to 8:00 AM 12/26, depending on the job. In addition to giving me comp time to cover one of the Jewish holidays, it also meant I didn’t have to go visit my (non-Jewish) MIL. I have never worked New Year’s Day. I did have to work Thanksgiving once or twice and those years I didn’t cover any other holiday time. The other holidays rotated – if you worked July 4th one year, you didn’t work it the next year unless you wanted to.

      Before my daughter was born I often volunteered to work most of the Federal holidays. I don’t like to travel on holiday weekends and the comp time was totally worth it to me. Once she came along I stopped doing that because I enjoyed having time to spend with her.

    7. Nightengale*

      physicians of AAM unite?

      Right now I am the only provider in my subspecialty at my huge health system so I have actually been on call for 5 years. I’m in an outpatient only specialty and I don’t actually get called all that much nights and weekends, which makes it feasible although not acceptable.

      But I’m here to plug how my residency program handled winter holidays. Everyone got off either the week around Christmas or the week around New Years. People submitted their preference. If there were more people wanting one or the other I think they did a lottery with seniors getting preference as well as people who hadn’t gotten their choice the year before (I always wanted and got New Years.)

      1. Me*

        I think that this works for physicians and nurses because it’s obvious that SOMEONE has to cover Christmas/Thanksgiving/New Year’s. I don’t think most physicians think they are going to get every major holiday off every single year.

        Having a different rule for major holidays and other in-demand weeks is the best system. And if no one consistently wants to do a specific holiday or week, giving people an additional incentive (like getting an additional personal day) makes sense.

    8. Artemesia*

      I am stunned that any workplace would not realize that holidays are important for families and thus not have a system where people share coverage — to let one person, whether senior or first to sign up have 2 or 3 prime holidays before anyone else has a change is ugly.

      1. Allonge*

        It’s not just that though. People who know their plans in advance will not find it fair to have to wait months with buying plane tickets or make sreservations because not everyone does. IN hte end, not getting to see your family because you did not get the days off and not getting to see your family because you cannot afford the tickets andy more does not feel that different.

        I totally agree that there should be some rotation. But ‘I know I want to go home for Thanksgiving; I want to buy tickets while they cost X rather than 4x’ is not an unreasonable thing either.

        1. Hannah Lee*

          But the “how far in advance do I get to know I have the holiday off” is a separate issue than “the same employees book the most desirable days off before anyone else has a chance to, year after year” which is what OP is dealing with.

    9. Trawna*

      Reading this stream I’ve just realized that I learned about equitable vacation and holiday scheduling from my surgical nurse parent. Would that all managers knew this system!

  3. Chocoholic*

    When I worked in healthcare, we tried to make holidays equitable by posting Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, and asking for people to sign up to work 2 out of 3 holidays, with the intent being we’d try to give each person their preferred day off. It worked pretty well for us.

    1. Silver Robin*

      I like the idea of “sign up to work” rather than “choose which to take off”. It ends up doing the same thing, and there is still a rush, but does flip things to “what can I do” rather “what can I get out of” (there is a better way to phrase this but my brain is not cooperating)

      1. Laser99*

        I agree, this is preferable. I have worked with people who would volunteer to work holidays to avoid their in-laws. (“Sorry hon, I have to work Easter, you’ll have to go to your mother’s without me!”

        2. Silver Robin*

          Absolutely crossed my mind that I would do similar if needed/available…but we get those holidays off by default at work so no such luck.

    2. A Simple Narwhal*

      My mom is a nurse and this is how it worked at her hospital too. She always volunteered to work Thanksgiving and New Years because it guaranteed she’d get Christmas off, which was more important to her. By asking people to choose the holidays they did want to work it meant they always had coverage and everyone always got at least one major holiday off.

      1. Dogmomma*

        that’s not necessarily fair. I was told by a co worker i should work every Xmas bc i was single/ no kids. I told her I wasn’t an orphan.
        hospital so every other w/ e & holiday & our HN was veryvfair with the schedule. I was there 10 yrs and did not always get my choice..also fair

    3. Ari Flynn*

      I always preferred this method. I don’t have any human dependents and my furry children can’t read a calendar, so I don’t mind covering around Christmas/Thanksgiving. But I do have friends that throw parties for Halloween and NYE, so I ask for those nights off.

      1. Good Enough For Government Work*

        Yep, same. I celebrate Christmas but don’t have kids, so while my org is shut on Christmas and Boxing Day I’m always happy to cover the rest of it for my colleagues who do have children.

        By contrast, I *do* like parties and lie-ins, so I always ask for New Year’s and a few days after. Always seems to work out well.

    4. Grim*

      Yeah, that’s pretty much how my ward does it too. Everybody HAS to sign up to work either Christmas or New Years (we’re in Australia so Thanksgiving isn’t an issue), and you have to put your name down for Christmas if you got it off the previous year. Of course, there’s a decent number of people who don’t celebrate Christmas/don’t mind working that day for various reasons. For me, I like that it’s usually a pretty quiet day at work, and we get paid extra, so I’m more than happy to work a morning shift on Christmas every year if it means someone who really wants that day off can take it. It’s probably a lot extra effort to organise the December roster and make sure it’s fair for everyone, but it seems like the best way to get coverage without anyone feeling too hard done by.

  4. L-squared*

    As a child free person, I’ll say, this is one of the few times I’ll stick up for parents.

    They do often know a year out when they’ll need things like spring break and certain holidays off. I can for the most part, take a vacation in spring time whenever I want. Parents are kind of handcuffed.

    But I would agree for things like Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, etc, that you know people may not plan that far ahead for.

    Also, are people complaining about this, or are you just trying to change it to change it

    1. see you anon*

      I’ve heard about times where prioritizing parents and their requests fall apart when a team is mostly parents. This was the case when my mom was a manager for a patient-facing team. Some folks were really on the ball with planning vacations around major school holidays months in advance, while others planned closer to the date. This resulted in a fair amount of squabbling over who got March break off, when everyone had kids out of school during that time, that they’d love to spend with their families. I think the solution was something similar to what Alison recommended to OP.

    2. QED*

      I feel like this applies to spring break, but not most other vacations/holidays. Parents have school schedules, so they know when their kid is off for Christmas break way in advance and put in for the whole week, but people without kids may not know what their family’s plan is over a year in advance and may not want the whole week depending on that plan. And in terms of summer, a lot of parents I know are also “handcuffed” for vacations based on their kids’ camp schedules, which they know way in advance, but other people also want to take vacations in the summer, and may make their decision as to when in summer based on prices, weather, their travel companion’s availability, etc.

      In general I think people should be able to take PTO when they want to take it, but if you need someone there for coverage, then there has to be a more equitable system to divide the undesirable coverage than first-come, first-served. Some kind of holiday rotation?

    3. Cmdrshprd*

      “They do often know a year out when they’ll need things like spring break and certain holidays off. I can for the most part, take a vacation in spring time whenever I want. Parents are kind of handcuffed.”

      I say this as a parent, that is generally okay, but parents should not get absolute dibs/priority. It’s fine to give them spring break every year as long as others don’t need it also.

      If parent Bob needs the 3rd week in March every year and no one else needs wants it fine, let them book in advance, but if kid free John ends up needing that same week for say a destination wedding, or parents wedding anniversary trip, parent Bob should not get priority, in fact since they have gotten that week 3/4+ years in a row they should be bottom for that week.

      If you get certain holidays off one year you should be at the bottom of the priority list the next unless no one wants it.

      1. L-squared*

        I feel like this is fine within reason.

        Like, if Bob requested it already, then John decides 1 month out in advance, you shouldn’t take it away from Bob.

        1. Cmdrshprd*

          I agree with you on that.

          But if Bob has it “booked”/requested 5+ months out, and John requests it 3 or 4 months out, and Bob has gotten that same spring break week 3 years in a row, John should get the priority.

          Pure first come first serve a year out is not fair, but doing it quarterly is reasonable.

      2. Beany*

        This still assumes that John knows about his once-off need as far in advance as Bob knows about his regular one. There has to be some kind of time-restriction on advance claims. I’d suggest 3 months.

    4. my niblings are awesome*

      I am single, child free, and I even like my family, but I live a ten hour drive away from my closest sibling. We get together about 2.5 times a year- Thanksgiving (every other year), Christmas, and a long weekend in the summer. The idea that I would miss being able to see loved ones that I see so seldom so that my coworkers with kids and a spouse and family in the area could take 1-2 weeks off never sat right with me.

    5. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

      In fact, if you don’t have kids, you should deliberately AVOID scheduling vacation for spring break for your own sake. Because hundreds of stranger’s kids also on vacation do not add to the peace of a trip.

      1. Librarian manager here*

        I may not have kids but often have to work around the schedule of siblings with kids and schedule my time off in those “high demand” holidays. I would not take kindly to the parents who feel more entitled to ‘prime time’ vacation days looking askance at my PTO requests because I don’t have children.

      2. Ally McBeal*

        Concurred. One of my coworkers was traveling for work through the Charlotte airport (crowded on the best of days) during spring break and texted me about the absolute horror show it was.

  5. Festively Dressed Earl*

    I wouldn’t just say “not all of them” but give everyone a specific number of prime vacation times they can ask for a year in advance, and make sure to include public school breaks.

    1. Cinn*

      This is what I was thinking. Let’s pretend that there’s 6 holiday days everyone wants every year, say that you can only book up to three off per year (that far in advance). If the team is big enough that realistically people could actually have 5 of them off because there’d be enough coverage to only work one holiday a year, say that you’ll discuss specific coverage options a couple of months before each holiday. Yes, that’s more work that first come first served, but it stops the situation my partner had where he ended up being the on call guy every major holiday one year.

      Or, flip it as other commentators have suggested. Work out how many holidays each worker should cover per year, and ask them to volunteer for which ones they’ll work. So you get coverage that way instead.

      1. Dogmomma*

        you will never get people to volunteer fairly imo. there always one that think it doesn’t apply to them!

        1. Jerusha*

          Simple solution to that, though: If you don’t volunteer for the required number of holidays, you will have the required number of holidays assigned to you.

          Possible refinements: Will they be allowed to switch with others? Or if they make you assign them to holidays, are they stuck with them?

          And no-showing a holiday shift (especially an assigned holiday shift) is grounds for discipline (possibly even termination, depending on your disciplinary structure) barring truly extraordinary circumstances.

          1. Cinn*

            Yeah, in my head I was assuming the kind of things you’ve detailed here. No getting out of it by not signing up to things, you will be assigned a holiday duty so it’s in your interests to cooperate with your coworkers. And also keeping a rough track of who did those holidays last year so Jane isn’t covering Christmas every year (unless she’s actually happy with that because then she gets an important holiday for her off every year instead, but you get my drift. A different person should have the draw the shortest straw every year.)

  6. greenland*

    When I worked in a job with a serious busy season, “blackout dates” were sent in advance, where it was expected that no one would be able to take more than an occasional sick day during that month-or-two period. If you have major bookended initiatives, that would be a reasonable policy — that staff on the key initiatives can’t take more than 2-3 days off during that window, regardless of whether they called dibs first.

  7. OuttaLuck*

    We end up with a similar issue here…. My team has less than 10 people, and we CANNOT have more than 1 person off at a time. Boss’s rule.

    Everyone has at least 2+ weeks vacation time, and we can submit it starting Jan 1st that year. The problem is that half the team has kids, so they plan their spring breaks and vacay time right at the beginning of the year, so everyone else is stuck picking things as they come up with plans. Two people travel a lot, and have plans made for more than a year in advance (international travel).

    I’ve never gotten to take the week of Christmas off, because it’s “claimed” by Jan 2nd by someone with kids and time-in-role senority, even if we are all equals in role title.

    1. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

      “My team has less than 10 people, and we CANNOT have more than 1 person off at a time. Boss’s rule.”

      But what if someone will be out sick for a while? Does that mean that the employee who previously booked (and paid for) a vacation at that time is told “Sorry, you can’t go on vacation?” At one of my previous companies, the members of a certain department (not my department) were told that only one of them could be out at a time. Right before one member was about to go to Russia (on a vacation previously approved and paid for), his co-worker became seriously ill. He was told that he couldn’t go to Russia. He said that he would quit. Guess what! He was allowed to go to Russia! And the department managed just fine without him and without the seriously ill employee.

      What if someone is out on vacation, and during that vacation, someone becomes sick? Is he/she told that he/she MUST come into work that day, because they “CANNOT have more than 1 person off at a time”? Or would all of you find someway to cope with the situation?

      1. Great Frogs of Literature*

        I would assume (hope) that the rule is for planned absences. (And not counting semi-planned things like a fairly urgent surgery that still gets scheduled in advance.)

        When I was managing a small team, our rule of thumb was “If possible, we always want at least one of these five senior people to be around, so no more than three of them should plan days off for the same time, and that way we still have wiggle room if someone gets sick or has a childcare emergency or something.”

        It didn’t work perfectly, but we also didn’t absolutely NEED that coverage, we just didn’t like to leave the newest hires all on their lonesome, so it worked well enough.

      2. Dogmomma*

        vacation is treated differently than being sick on a holiday. if you call in on your holiday to work, there’s no holiday pay( & you know that up front) & you get to meet with your manager for a warning..and it’s tracked and you go on from there. if it’s a serious illness,/ accident you have no control over, that’s different. But there are people who call in sick so they don’t have to work their holiday(s).

    2. HannahS*

      I’m not sure I get it–couldn’t you claim Christmas off in January, even though you don’t have kids? Before I had kids, I’d plan my vacations around the school year with the intent of avoiding school vacation times (for a quieter, cheaper vacation.) At least in my country, school schedules are publicly available.

    3. Antilles*

      I think the lesson there is that you should prepare the form ahead of time and ambush your boss in the parking lot at 8:00 AM on January 2nd. Or, if the form can be submitted via email, figure out Outlook’s “pre-sending” option and have that form emailed out at 12:01 AM on January 1st.
      But what if you don’t know what you’re doing? Doesn’t matter! You want to take time at Christmas, so you can just preschedule it. Just claim the time even if you don’t have a specific plan, then figure it out later. Heck, if you later decide actually I don’t feel like Christmas, you can just cancel it and re-open that week for others.

      1. asloan*

        Yeah my family stinks at pre-planning and after my office started a “first-come, first-served” system I just booked that week off and figured I’d barter any extra days for cigarettes when the time rolled around. But it was a stupid system, I just lived in it.

  8. SD95*

    In my mom’s unit they had a system where they had list of everyone and the person’s name at the top got first choice of vacation days. Then number 2 would pick and so on. The following year, person #1 dropped to the bottom of the list and everyone would move up a spot. It’s not foolproof but it gave each person an opportunity to get their top choices. Granted her office had less than 10 people so it wouldn’t really work if you have a larger team. But giving everyone a better opportunity will lessen any resentment that will build up.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      It’d be kind of annoying to be a new hire and realize it’s going to take, say, eight years before you can get your top choice of vacation days, though. And what if you’d been there for seven years and ended up leaving right before you got your top pick? I realize, of course, that it’s likely you’d still get your top pick if the folks ahead of you didn’t choose those days already, but I still don’t see how this is all that great of a system.

      1. Cmdrshprd*

        “It’d be kind of annoying to be a new hire and realize it’s going to take, say, eight years before you can get your top choice of vacation days”

        Yeah it would suck but a method has to be chosen some way, that I think should be expected as a new hire and something to factor in when switching jobs. No system is perfect, but that is about as fair as I think you can make it.

        Pure seniority sucks because the people at the top will always get first dibs. But. a rotation system is better. Maybe a mix of rotation and who had what holiday off the previous year, can’t get it off the next year unless no one else wants it.

        If other people already at the comp ay have been waiting 2/4 years to be first it certainly wouldn’t be fair for a new hire to jump the line.

        1. Dogmomma*

          you will never get people to volunteer fairly imo. there always one that think it doesn’t apply to them!

  9. Looper*

    Make a list of “popular” times, get all through requests for that time in, and then rotate through. Jim got Xmas and Spring Break in 2025, Jim does not get Xmas or Spring Break again until everyone who wants to gets a Xmas and Spring Break. Break your calendar into blocks and only accept requests for certain blocks during a certain time.

    I have worked in 365 day industries my entire career, you can make PTO equitable if you plan and maintain a system and put in the work required. Doing scheduling SUCKS, but after pay it is one of the most important aspects of your employees’ jobs and one that people will leave over.

    1. Borealis*

      As someone who also works in a 24/7/365 environment, this is the best way to manage it. No seniority, no first come first serve, everyone gets a turn. You can pick what order it goes in by drawing names out of a hat. Works very well.

    2. Lily Puddle*

      This is how we manage it my department. It’s a department of three, and we’re public-facing and need two people here every day. We have a list of major holidays, and we rotate each year who gets which major holiday. If I got Thanksgiving off this year, I don’t have it again for the next two years. If I really want it next year, I can trade one of my holidays with the person who has Thanksgiving. Do I like not having the big holidays off every year? No. Is it fair that the person with the most seniority (me) or the highest-ranking person (also me) isn’t getting to take all the major holidays? Yes.

  10. MissMuffett*

    Perhaps you can do something where leave books open, say 3 or 4 months in advance of the month, so no one has to know their entire year’s plan on Jan 1 each year, and this also accommodates new hires. This is also plenty of time to book plane tickets in all but the most extreme circumstances, I think.
    You can also maybe have special rules around major holidays, like no one gets the full week. You can take the 5 days before/including Xmas or the 5 days including/after and that way, some of Xmas coverage/vacation is shared (example only! I know Christmas moves and this specific thing might not be feasible every year but just as a way to start thinking about options.)
    Looking at how call schedules work is also really useful. Even senior docs know that some holiday coverage – every other year or whatever – is just part of the job.
    For the person always taking a week off in the middle of their initiative, I think you can decline that request or have them amend it to like, a long weekend, but you’ll have to give a lot of notice (like this year, for next year’s change) so they can have time to adjust and plan around it.

    1. Great Frogs of Literature*

      I had a job where no one was allowed to take meaningful vacation during the six-week-long busy period (barring unforeseen emergency circumstances). A day or maybe two was okay, but we were told when we got the job offer that this was a no-vacation time.

      It was annoying a time or two because my family likes to do a thing during that period, but we managed to move the family thing (it’s only about ten people) and it was fine.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        At my last job, at a small nonprofit, the CEO got weirdly passive aggressive in one of our staff mtgs about “someone” taking a vacation during our “busy” time of year, which was about mid-Aug through Nov when we had a lot of fundraising events. But, like, we were pretty busy all the time, we just had more weekend events during that period, and no one ever said we weren’t supposed to take vacation during that time period. When he said this a whole bunch of us talked to each other about it, because we weren’t sure who he was talking about (because a whole bunch of us had taken vacation then). And boy were we all mad, because it’s not like we could postpone family events just because we had a lot of work events during that time too. My uncle, for instance, couldn’t move his 90th birthday party to some other day, nor could my colleague change the date of her kid’s college’s parents’ weekend.

        Also we had “unlimited” vacation time, which we here on AAM all know is a farce anyway, but if you’re going to whine about people using their vacation time, maybe don’t then also say it’s “unlimited.”

        My point, though, is that if there’s a time that no one should take vacation, then tell your employees that well in advance, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to tell someone they can’t take *any* time off in two months just because they’re in charge of a large initiative. I think if it were a one- or two-week thing, sure, but two months is a long enough time that someone could easily be deputized to fill in for a bit if necessary.

        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          Also meant to say that the fact that OP’s workplace requires people to know their vacation schedule up to a year in advance is wild. I still don’t know when I plan to take my summer vacation, which is only two-to-four months away. What kind of workplace need that much advanced notice about PTO? So bizarre. If nothing else, OP, I hope you can change that policy.

          1. doreen*

            I didn’t read it as that the employees have to know a year in advance – it seems that employees can put in their requests for 2026 starting in November of 2025 and they can request time off with less advance notice as long as that time is still available My son had a job where he had to submit vacation requests in by November of the year before if he really wanted wanted a particular week but if he was willing to take whatever was left, he could request it two weeks in advance.

            As far as why a year in advance, sometimes jobs with a lot of people/locations work that way so that if everyone at Location A wants off Christmas week someone from Location B where almost no one wants Christmas week off can fill in. It’s easy when you are talking about 2 locations, but I’m sure it’s a lot harder when you are talking about 50 or more locations.

      2. Craig*

        this is where different leave policy’s can come in useful. I had compassionate leave for my grandmother’s funeral. everyone understands compassionate or sick leave isn’t for a holiday.

    2. Hyaline*

      See, I hate the “you have to wait for 3 months before to request vacation” because there are legitimately things that you might have to commit to well in advance of that–being in a wedding, coordinating with family for a reunion, even just booking in a popular destination. I think it would be incredibly demoralizing to have to put plans on hold or risk getting vacation requests denied. Just stop letting the same people monopolize all the prime PTO request spots.

    3. another Hero*

      Eh, a children’s librarian running summer reading may know it’s to take time off in the summer and still reasonably ask to do so–because that’s when other people they want to see can get time off, that’s when the weather’s good where they want to go, that’s when things happen that they want to do, etc. Two months is a big block at some times of year.

      2. children's librarian*

        yes and…
        That’s what finally tipped me out of public library work- absolutely no coverage from June through August. My supervisor never covered programs for me but insisted on 2 programs a day for the entire summer.

  11. NursingaWound*

    As an RN this issue always comes up. Extra pay helps and getting people to sign up before assignments are made. Rotating the most sought after timeframes and holidays. And please for the love of all that’s holy don’t base it on who has kids.

    1. Just Thinkin' Here*

      >>>> And please for the love of all that’s holy don’t base it on who has kids.

      Thank you!

      1. Sashaa*

        I do have kids, and also agree that is a crummy way of prioritising who does and doesn’t get to take leave.

        You just know that the people who love it when their kids are preschoolers will suddenly do a 180 and think it is terribly unfair when they are empty nesters and suddenly can’t book leave.

    2. Anon for this*

      I worked retail at a store that was open every day of the year. We got extra pay for holidays. We never had trouble with coverage. In fact, sometimes I wouldn’t get a holiday a volunteered to work. We got time and half on most holidays plus an additional bonus. We got double time on Christmas Day plus an additional bonus.

  12. Not a Real Giraffe*

    I’m seriously side-eying the person who takes time off in the middle of a major project they oversee. I can understand a day here or there scattered throughout the two-month initiative, but what the OP describes sounds like a significant vacation during a foreseeably busy time. I don’t see this as reasonable and encourage OP to push back on the timing of this request.

    1. NotAManager*

      Eh, in my job it’s definitely something that can happen. I’m a children’s librarian, it’s completely conceivable for a staff member who oversees the summer reading program to have a spouse who is a teacher who can ONLY take a long vacation in the summer. I know there are some libraries that won’t let staff use ANY vacation time during the summer to avoid this exact scenario, but it’s not great for morale and, honestly, even if it’s tight, we can usually make it work if someone wants/needs vacation time during the busy season.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        No vacation at all during the summer? Absolutely not. That’s really a terrible policy. You librarians are saints.

        1. NotAManager*

          Ha, that’s very nice, but we’re definitely not. That *used* to be the policy at my library, but hasn’t been for the past ten years, it’s way better to prevent resentment and burn-out. We’re lucky in that we have a decently sized staff who can cover for each other, some libraries only have one children’s librarian (or one degreed librarian who does everything) which is why those policies exist – no librarian = no programs.

        2. Dogmomma*

          my husband drove school bus. so the only time we could take vaca to visit family was in the summer.
          Have y’all BEEN to South Texas in AUGUST. overnight temps in the 80s and it’s 104° and up during the day.
          Windows had shades sheers, curtains, drapes..closed all. the. time.
          We’re from WNY, so it’s almost always overcast. Finally somewhere where the sun shines and nobody can go outside in the afternoon.
          interestingly, EVERYONE had BLACK cars and trucks. lol

        3. children's librarian*

          yep- no librarian. no programs. Summer Reading is the biggest high profile programming. So no PTO until after labor day.

      2. Sic Transit Vir*

        LOL, my first thought reading the letter was “This sure sounds like a public library and the children’s librarian wants to take a week off during Summer Reading”.

        Thankfully our (very small) children’s staff always manage to take a little bit of time off in the summer, we just make sure we don’t overlap so at least one of us is around. If I couldn’t take any time off during the insanity of Summer Reading, I’d probably strangle someone by mid-August.

      3. another Hero*

        yeah, this is the exact scenario I assumed the letter was about lol. two months of vacation ban matters more at some times of year than others, logistically, and “initiative that they oversee” is a range of scales of commitment (summer reading not being a small commitment! but it doesn’t mean a children’s librarian should be stuck at work all summer).

    2. Sparklefizz*

      There is the possibility that the break in the middle is essential to them being able to see this project through, and/or it’s for some personal reason that’s keeping them afloat mentally in general. In which case there could be more hardship created if they don’t take that week away. I’ve seen my share of people who did more harm than good to a project when they clearly needed a break.

      1. Cmdrshprd*

        “There is the possibility that the break in the middle is essential to them being able to see this project through,”

        Its a two month period, I could understand if it was a longer period like say 3/4+ months. But setting it in the middle, and taking a full week off seems like a lot.

        I think it would be very reasonable to say you can take a day or two here and there but during the two month period you can’t take a whole week off.

        If. two month busy period is too much, that role might not be the one for you.

        It’s like a tax preparing trying to take a week off during March and April or between Feb 15 to April 15.

    3. mlem*

      It does seem odd, but there *could* be a reason — their busy period aligns with tax season and the employee has to be a primary caregiver in an overlapping school break, for example, or the employee’s religious observance always falls *somewhere* in an assigned responsibility, for example. (I say this just to note that there could be nuance that doesn’t fit in a letter length, though, not to guarantee that the employee’s behavior is definitely right.)

    4. Beth*

      We don’t know what happened there–often taking PTO during a major project is unreasonable, but sometimes it’s not! Taking a 1.5 week vacation might not be appropriate during a busy period, but taking a few scattered days of PTO and then getting knocked out by the flu is more of a case of unfortunate timing than unreasonableness. Or maybe that week and a half of vacation is actually OK if it’s for your sister’s wedding. Or maybe it’s not really vacation, it’s leave to support a family member post surgery, and rescheduling isn’t an option.

      This is why a manager should have discretion. It’s fair to reject many PTO requests during major work periods, but sometimes life happens, even in busy periods.

    5. Speak*

      I take a vacation to go to a yearly event that runs for 2 weeks at the end of July / beginning of August every year and sometimes I am on committees that mean I have to be there specific days. This event I go to isn’t something that will change their dates for me or anyone else because of the large amount of planning and people involved. Fortunately for me the event is local enough that I can drive there in several hours, but other people fly in from around the world to get there, so they couldn’t just show up for a day and go home then back again a few days later. The employee or their spouse could be involved in something like that and has no choice as to when they need to take a vacation time.

    6. Funbud*

      The OP mentioned that this person takes the same week off EVERY YEAR during this project. I’d be tempted to ask why. It could be something related to their spouse or children but it could be something like “We always go to Lake Gnatbite the second week of July !” which isn’t really a valid reason if as mother employee is requesting that week off.

      1. Lily Potter*

        One word (or us it two?): timeshare.
        If someone has a vacation timeshare, chances are good that it’s exactly the same week every year

    7. Lily*

      I think it really depends on the job and alternate coverage that is available. If the leader of the project I’m working on took 7 days off in the middle of the project (also a similar period of total time) – no one would blink an eye.

  13. sofar*

    For Thanksgiving/Xmas, you alternate years. Got Thanksgiving off last year? You’re working it this year, but you’re off Xmas and vice-versa.

    Or, for hot spots/popular dates, give the skeleton crew a comp day for any other time in the year. And/ or a per-diem bonus for working that day (that’s how we get people to work happily for the Thanksgiving – Cyber Monday weekend). I happily worked the whole Thanksgiving Weekend (and Xmas Eve, too) b/c I got comp days to use when flights were cheaper AND got some more Xmas gift $$$.

    1. mango chiffon*

      I feel like the Thanksgiving/Christmas switchoff only works if people see both those holidays as important. I’ve never celebrated Christmas, but I do Thanksgiving. I’d be annoyed if I was forced to take off for Christmas for no reason while I missed out on family time for Thanksgiving.

      1. Silver Robin*

        Yeah, the only way this would work is if folks got to choose to do one or the other permanently.

        Also, the LW did not mention specific holidays; we can assume it is *likely* that Thanksgiving/Christmas come up a lot if this is the US, but like…some of us do not celebrate Christmas. I do Thanksgiving/New Years. And then also Pesach and High Holidays…my job does not require coverage currently but I have happily worked Sun – Thurs in a previous role so I could have Shabbat or taken on Christian holiday shifts so other folks could be at home. The only reason I have Christmas off now is because it is a federal holiday and the whole org takes those days off.

        Focusing on the data of which days end up being most popular requests is going to be a better approach than preemptively assuming any given holiday is the one folks want. Come up with a rotation or bidding system that gives folks a chance to claim their top X choices and then work from there to fill in gaps.

      2. Beth*

        I hope they’d allow people to swap if they wanted. My family doesn’t do much for Thanksgiving but always gets together for Christmas – I’d happily swap with someone like you!

  14. NotAManager*

    I work in a public library and our leave system works similarly – people can start putting in requests for the next calendar year in December of the previous calendar year, on a first come, first serve basis, then (if multiple people want the same block of time and they can’t be accommodated) the person with the most seniority (as determined by date of hire) gets priority. That’s assuming the vacation requests all come in at once, if a newer hire has already gotten approved for the week between Christmas and New Years and someone more senior puts in for it at a later date, the person whose request was already approved keeps their vacation time.

    Using this system people are rarely denied, but we have a pretty decent mix of religious observation and kids vs. no kids so it’s not like everyone wants/needs the same holidays or vacation weeks off to account for childcare or celebrations.

  15. Dawn*

    I would literally leave over this policy, just to help you understand how your staff is going to see it.

    1. A. Lab Rabbit*

      Same. It’s one of the reasons that small orgs can have problems hiring, and it’s also why I never want to go back to working for a small org.

    2. not nice, don't care*

      Same. It looks like a big middle finger to less senior employees. And requiring folks to plan leave a year in advance is not practical.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Yeah, that is actually the wildest part of this, IMO. I don’t know when I’m taking my summer vacation this year, for instance. To ask me to have already known that on January 1 is impossible.

  16. Mockingjay*

    Why do you have to sign up for leave a year in advance? Corporate policy? Or “we’ve always done it that way (but never thought to wonder why).”

    First, separate holidays and leave.

    If it’s a coverage-based job, use a rotating system for holidays and weekends with no exceptions (avoids arguments). Slot everyone in and rotate through. If you work Christmas one year, next year you get Christmas off but you work Thanksgiving instead. Etc. People learn to plan around a schedule if they know it’s immutable. OP will need to be FIRM.

    Next, have people put in for leave quarterly. This is much more manageable in terms of planning for both you and your employees. Then you can address any conflicts, including overlaps with holiday coverage.

    I do have a question for OP: have you looked at your staffing levels? It seems to be a fairly small group – 10 FTE and several part-timers – but is that really enough people to provide consistent coverage without denying people leave? Leave is part of employee compensation and while the job might have coverage blackouts, most employees reasonably expect to be able to take leave when they choose. Is there that much adverse impact by one person taking off during a crucial period? That’s a bigger problem and a leave rota or lottery won’t solve that.

    1. I should really pick a name*

      They don’t have to sign up a year in advance.

      The earliest anyone can book vacation in year X is in November of year X-1.
      It doesn’t mean they have to book it that early (unless it’s a popular date).

      1. not nice, don't care*

        They have to sign up for the year as soon as possible, since it’s first come first served.

        1. doreen*

          Really only if they want a popular date – once my kids were grown I tended to take not particularly popular dates for actual vacations. ( I might have taken Christmas Eve, but I wouldn’t have wanted the whole week) There wasn’t any competition for the second week of March or the last week of January so in this situation , I wouldn’t have needed to sign up far in advance .

    2. Beth*

      Having to sign up a year in advance is more of a de facto rule than a de jure one. No one meant to make that a requirement–but since it’s first come first served, if you don’t book popular dates as early as possible (aka a year in advance), you won’t get them.

    3. Hyaline*

      I’m not sure, from the letter, that actual holidays are even on the table here. The LW talks about time *around* holidays, not the holidays themselves–I think they’re trying to say that time adjacent to major holidays is a popular time to ask off, so tends to get snapped up by the “plans a year out” people. They may or may not be requiring people to work Christmas and Thanksgiving and Fourth of July, but the days before and after those holidays are popular times to take off.

      1. ItsAllFunAndGamesUntil*

        We have people in my department who look ahead for every Tuesday or Thursday holliday for the next year and swoop in as soon as they can to schedule off all the “hanging” Mondays and Fridays for the entire year. So you tend to have the same 2 or 3 people out of 8 already off those days as a starting point for coverage.

        1. Hannah Lee*

          This! I’ve seen that behavior at a couple of different companies.
          Unless the company has some system in place to prevent that happening year after year, it can lead to resentment, dissatisfaction in all the other people who might have wanted to extend a long weekend occasionally.

          (Plus bonus resentment if the early swoopers cop a neener-neener or “I’m morally superior because I scheduled WAY in advance” attitude about in front of their co-workers, which I’ve also seen happen.)

  17. DramaQ*

    Since we had to have someone come in on holidays at least part of the day and the day after (Black Friday, New Year’s Day) those were separate schedules. We went around at the beginning of the year and picked which days we’d volunteer for with the understanding everyone would have to take a work day and a pull day (just come in and take temps) and everyone would need to do at least one of the major holidays at some point.

    It was all kept track of so nobody got stuck working every Christmas holiday or every Thanksgiving holiday.

    The rest of it though was first come/first serve which drove several of us nuts. I could not take time off at the same time as one of my coworkers because one of us had to be there to work in the lab. She would quickly pick all the plum days to be off and since she had more vacation time than me due to seniority it was A LOT of freaking time off. I’d be left with the crumbs and trying to figure out what worked with school and my husband’s job.

    It would have been nice if they had stepped in a couple times and told her no you don’t get X, Y, Z off this year you have to let someone else pick that time off.

  18. The Other Evil HR Lady*

    At one of my jobs where coverage was essential every day (holiday or not), we did it by figuring out who had those desirable holidays off the year before, and rotated. There was a little bit of grumbling, but mostly they understood that it was a fairer system than just seniority or who got the vacation request in first. We did it 3 months out and gave a due date. Some didn’t even want the holiday off! You could do it that way also…

    We listed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, then asked everyone who wanted a holiday off to please number them 1, 2, 3 – in order of which one they wanted the most. TBH, most folks got their first choice once they understood the rules. It was a beast to figure out and it took two of us a couple of days, but we also had nearly 100 people to fit into the slots. It worked and we didn’t have many call-outs (another fear)!

  19. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    Is there not also something related to reviews & advancement here?

    I’d definitely downgrade the professionalism of somebody who drops out for 15% of a project that they are leading.

    Ditto a downgrade on teamwork/collegiality for whoever is always leaving their coworkers in the lurch for coverage.

  20. Rocket Raccoon*

    At my job (food service) we have a two-part system. First, if you work Thanksgiving, you get Christmas off or vice versa, but NOBODY gets both. Second, there are all-hands-on-deck blackout days where nobody gets planned leave (could be for specific positions too).

  21. Meaningful hats*

    Reading through the comments and all the different ways companies handle vacation time is bizarre. At my current company, everyone STARTS with 8 weeks PTO. You can get up to 12 weeks based on length of time at the company. And we just…take time off when we want. We are open most days of the year and there has never been a problem with coverage. If a lot of people happen to take off at the same time, we shift some priorities and work around as needed. It’s never been an issue.

    1. A. Lab Rabbit*

      I’m thinking this is not in the United States? Because many people don’t get any PTO, and those that do get two or three weeks and consider themselves lucky.

      1. Meaningful hats*

        Yes, I am! Due to the nature of our funding, everyone who works here gets paid on the lower end of market rate for their work, so the company makes it up to us with generous time off.

        1. MissMuffett*

          I think you might recognize, then, that your org is an anomaly for US companies, and especially for the OP’s situation specifically. It’s great that you all have this level of flexibility (and enviable PTO) but it’s not really applicable to the OP

          1. Meaningful hats*

            I understand the amount of time off we get is an anomaly. I guess I’m just confused as to why it’s such a huge issue with people who are only taking 2-3 weeks off a year when I’ve seen firsthand that absences of 8-12 weeks a year can be handled without a formal policy and without issue. What are they doing that makes it so complicated?

            If this were an ER in a hospital or something then I’d understand, but just your typical office job, it’s not computing.

            1. Lexi Vipond*

              I feel a bit the same way – I’ve got about 6.5 weeks to play with once the Christmas/New Year closure days are taken out, there are about 15 in my team, and if you spread that evenly over the year you’d get roughly 2 people off each week. Obviously we don’t spread evenly over the year, but it’s rare for even a third of us to want to be off at once.

              We’re technically first come first served, I suppose, but I’ve never really thought of it that way, as I can’t remember ever having to rush to get ahead of anyone.

              I accept that I’m just Not Understanding, but I’m curious about what it is that I don’t understand.

              1. doreen*

                Because people’s requests aren’t spread evenly. I’ve had times where every single one of my co-workers wanted the week between Christmas and New Year’s off – and it was a government agency so closing wasn’t an option. We also got lots of vacation time , to the point where some people wanted the entire month of July or August off. Policy was not more than two consecutive weeks unless there were special circumstances and approved by a regional director – and the reason for that was that if a couple of people took all of July off, and a couple took all of August, there would most likely be people who didn’t get any vacation in July or August.

    3. I should really pick a name*

      If a lot of people happen to take off at the same time, we shift some priorities and work around as needed

      That’s probably why you haven’t had issues.

      Some jobs don’t have the flexibility to do that.

      1. Anon for this*

        Sorry, you must reschedule your burst appendix. All our surgeons wanted Thanksgiving off.

        1. Silver Robin*

          Goodness that gave me a laugh. I dealt with a similar issue recently and needing to wait on surgery because other more urgent surgeries kept popping up. I did not eat for 36 hours and then I only got liquids for like…3 hours before going back to fasting for the morning, it was a rough few days. If someone had told me, “actually, oops, all the surgeons took tomorrow off so we have to push you back again,” I think I might have clawed the offending organ out myself. (Actually, I might have gotten sepsis because the thing was necrotic by the time they got to it but that is not as funny.)

          1. Anon for this*

            Oh no! That sounds terrible. I actually did have my appendix removed on a holiday weekend. Mine had not burst so it was a simple procedure. I spent less than 24 hours in the hospital. (I could have stayed longer, but I wanted to get home as soon as they would let me.) I went to a hospital that is only a Level 4 Trauma Center. The Level 1 hospital is probably 2 miles away so the more severe medical needs go there.

        2. Meaningful hats*

          This just made me chuckle. My surgery a few years ago actually was rescheduled from June to October to accommodate the surgeons’ vacation schedules. Thankfully it was not life-or-death and I could live with the discomfort for a few more months.

        3. another anon*

          Try: the patient went to the ER Monday. Tuesday they told her she has cancer. The oncology team wants more scans before they can make treatment recommendations, but it’s a bank holiday weekend so those won’t happen until next week.

          OK, no routine/screening scans on Sunday or holidays, but not everything is routine, and not everything can wait several days.

          But thank you, fellow anon: I was so aware that I’m scared that I didn’t notice my anger until I started typing that description.

      2. BethPlusBooks*

        Yeah, this. As a library Director, I have three circulation desks that must be staffed, and checking in and packing cargo, and those jobs can’t be done at the same time. I have a daily schedule that easily accommodates one absence, can stretch to handle two, and the minute a third person is out I know I’m spending all day on desk to make it work.

    4. NotAnotherManager!*

      I doubt this would work in most organizations. Mine works specifically on projects, so we can’t just float people in and out for both institutional knowledge and billing reasons. It’s also not going to work on teams that do really different things – if my entire finance team decides to take the week off, it’s not like I can just waltz into their office and figure out how to handle accounts payable on the fly, especially since I don’t (and shouldn’t) have access to the corporate bank accounts.

      Also, the problem with this sort of system will generally be that it’s fine until you get a social loafer in the mix who doesn’t feel at all conscientious about not dumping crap on their coworkers or reciprocally helping when they’re out. And then wants you to show them the policy that says they have to change their behavior.

      1. Meaningful hats*

        That sounds like a problem with an employee, not a problem with the vacation policy. And the solution would have nothing to do with the vacation policy, either.

        1. NotAnotherManager!*

          Yes, obviously the problem employee would need to be removed, my point was that when you don’t have a vacation policy and you run on assumptions and norms, it makes it harder to get rid of someone who doesn’t want to pitch in and help, especially if you have no policy or documentation that says so and they will argue that it’s not their job so they’re not trained to do it. Otherwise, you’re trying to make a case for firing someone for not doing someone else’s job and good luck with that.

          You work in a place where this sort of free-for-all system works, great – but that’s unusual and it’s not helpful advice for the vast majority of workplaces.

    5. Beth*

      This kind of system works great for teams that can move around deadlines until after the holiday and maybe have someone remotely “on call” to handle any emergencies.

      But if your team’s responsibility is, say, staffing the front desk? Then you need at least one person in office every day. Realistically it’s actually probably 2 people minimum, to cover bathroom/lunch breaks. And you need that every day that the company is open–a federal holiday like Christmas probably doesn’t need to be staffed, but the day before Thanksgiving does, Christmas Eve does, your local school district’s spring break does.

      And if you’re, say, running an emergency room, or staffing an event space that gets booked for holiday parties–you may actually need to be fully staffed or close to it. Hopefully your staff would’ve hired on knowing they weren’t likely to get major holidays off, though–that’s not usually a secret in this kind of role.

      1. Meaningful hats*

        Maybe this is something unique to my workplace, but we’ve never encountered issues with staffing around major holidays. A lot of people do take time off then, and the office is usually very quiet around those times, but we’ve always had enough people opt to work on those days to keep the office running. No special incentives needed, no turning down vacation requests or rationing out holidays.

        I prefer working the days before and after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, etc and will continue to do so because it allows my coworkers who travel for the holidays to take that time without stress. In turn, I know that I can take off during the public school’s spring break without issue. None of us plan this intentionally, though. I guess we have a good mix of people with different preferences and needs.

        1. Coverage Associate*

          Yeah, it sounds like your team has lucked out. It sounds statistically similar to my office of maybe 30 people where no one has any food restrictions, no vegetarians, no one with celiac disease, no allergies. It’s nice but not normal in my work or personal experience.

          I don’t know your specifics, but I know how much just my personal vacation habits would change if my parents or in laws moved away, and that could trickle down to my coworkers if I am asking for time off around major holidays when I don’t now. Of course, we would work it out, but some of our teams are only 2 or 3 people, so it could definitely be a negotiation.

          I also have to imagine that there’s some office somewhere dreading the years when western and eastern Easter line up, or at least western Easter and the start of Passover, which is pretty common but could not happen for the first few years of a new team, until, boom, spring coverage is a problem.

  22. LK*

    The way it works in my office is that we get a list of dates we absolutely must hold open and other dates that we should hold if we expect to be involved with that event. After that, vacation requests put in during the first three months of the year are decided by seniority, and any requests coming in after that are first-come, first-served. Our coverage requirements are usually fairly low in across any given role, so there usually aren’t any conflicts.

  23. Sloanicota*

    Some jobs simply must be open 365 (hospitals, law enforcement, homeless shelters). Some are open 365 by convention but I think they shouldn’t have to be (food service, box stores, even grocery stores – you should be able to post in advance that you are closing at noon on important holidays). Plenty of jobs think they are the latter but are not (my old role in customer service). In one role my boss just made a rule that someone from every department had to be there, then promptly flounced off on all the holidays … we were a department of two. I finally got him to agree that “monitoring email” was sufficient and I didn’t have to actually sit in the dark office waiting for imaginary emails that weren’t coming, lol (we had those automatic motion lights and they kept going off). I wish more places would evaluate their options for reducing some services or operating with a skeleton crew.

    1. not nice, don't care*

      My workplace is making those evaluations because we’ve had positions cut and have another wave of cuts coming. Such a relief when badmin finally seem to understand the laws of physics.

    2. Jay (no, the other one)*

      Our local grocery does post closings on major holidays and I’ve always appreciated both the advance notice and the recognition that their employees also have lives.

    3. NursingaWound*

      Nurse here…once did a 12 hour night shift on an empty unit over a holiday in case we got a patient. Had to keep waving my hands around to keep the lights on. :)

  24. KTbrd*

    When I worked retail, we had 3 summer holidays where the store was open over the weekend but closed for the holiday (memorial day, July 4, labor day) and 3 winter holiday “eves” where the store closed early before the holiday (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s). at a designated point in the spring/fall they’d circulate a sign-up sheet and we went in order of seniority to pick which weekend or eve off we wanted. This is actually how we asked for weekends off too. I experienced this as both lowest & highest in seniority and it always seemed fair to me. I wasn’t in one place long enough to know whether one person always got a certain holiday but at least this way you didn’t have one person taking ALL the holidays

  25. RCB*

    In the public accounting world it’s an absolute no-go to take vacation January-April 15th (approx., and yes there are some very limited circumstances, don’t @ me), it’s just understood that’s the way it is, so it’s absolutely not unreasonable to tell someone that there are 2 months a year that they can’t take off if it is core to their job. If it were a majority of the year or something significant like that then of course that’s a problem, but two months a year of not having any vacation time flexibility is not draconian by any measure.

    1. Juicebox Hero*

      Yes, my job has periods of not much alternating with really really busy ones. I was told when I started that the really busy times were off limits for vacations, and that had always been the rule. I do have someone who can cover an occasional day off or an emergency but it wouldn’t be fair to expect her to do my job on top of hers for a whole week when my office is crazy busy.

      I had no issues with that and my coworkers all have to take time off around their own deadlines, so things are kept fair.

  26. North American Couch Wizard Society Member*

    The medical practice where I work submits requests for highly desirable holidays in October of the preceding year for a number of reasons. We do it Alison’s way–people submit a request for their absolute top priority days and the person making the schedule tries to make sure everyone gets at least 1-2 of their top 3. It does require people to plan pretty far ahead but does ensure that everyone gets a shot at the most popular days (day after Thanksgiving being the #1 every year). We typically find a way to accommodate high priority requests for new employees.

    It’s always tricky but we have a wonderful group of people who really go to great lengths to provide coverage for each other so that we can all truly unplug during our time off.

    1. Jay (no, the other one)*

      Maybe it’s because I’ve been working in medicine for 40+ years and grew up in a medical household, but I’ve always looked at my calendar months ahead of time and I like it that way. I HATED it the year or two when I didn’t get my call schedule until the 15th of the preceding month. There weren’t enough of us to trade easily and it meant I couldn’t plan anything more than a month ahead and that just made my life incredibly difficult.

  27. DNDL*

    As a library manager, I feel this in my soul. I’ve had youth services managers want to take entire months during the summer off–our busiest time of year filled with programming that is their job to plan and manage. I’ve had paraprofessionals who have been in the job 10 years longer than anyone else demand seniority for deciding winter holidays, leading to situations where I have to tell someone no, it is in fact so-and-so’s turn to have Christmas with their family or travel for Labor Day.

    My approach, as someone who wants to be fair but also needs to staff a public desk on nights and weekends–

    *Unless it is major life milestone related (wedding, pregnancy, adult child life milestone), no leave further than 6 months in advance.

    *Leave is largely on a first come, first serve basis.

    *I black out leave dates once 2 or 3 people per department have requested it (randomly, end of July is very popular and I had to black that week out for others)

    *Holiday leave may be submitted after Labor Day with people designating a first and second choice. In late September/early October we will inform people what holiday leave was approved. After that, all additional holiday leave is first come, first serve.

  28. Squish*

    The best system I’ve seen is quarterly, there is a lottery for prime dates. You submit your name and your top 3 options and the dates are announced a month before the quarter starts. E.g. For quarter 1, New Years Day. MLK Day and President’s Day are up for grabs. Everyone who is interested puts their name in and their preferred day in order. When your name is drawn, you get your top choice that is still available. Say up to 3 people can have a specific day off, you keep going until all 3 slots are filled for each day. The “winners” are announced on December 1st so they have time to make plans.

    This means the same 3 people don’t get all the good days off because they got there first and shut everyone out. Doing it quarterly means people don’t have to try to make plans a full year in advance. And confirming who got what dates a month ahead still gives time to confirm plans.

  29. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

    My team has coverage needs and very busy holiday periods. Here’s how we do it:
    – Everyone has to work NYE – it’s our most important day of the year. This is disclosed on hiring and we give everyone a $2000 bonus on January 2nd.
    – Thanksgiving and Christmas: Need near-full coverage, incentivized with 1.5x vacation time. With the 1.5x vacation incentive I have never had an issue getting volunteers.
    – Days surrounding major holidays (i.e. thanksgiving week, week before new years): need minimum coverage; we shorten shifts to four hours and require everyone to sign up for two shifts over the course of the week. Folks get 1.5x vacation time for every shift they work. If we don’t get minimum coverage, I would theoretically assign it – but I have never in 13 years of doing this had to assign it.

    In short, I strongly advocate not just asking for volunteers, but providing (modest) incentives for folks who step up. It’s a game changer; I more often have to turn down volunteers than I have to go looking for more coverage. It’s really less expensive to give folks a few extra hours of vacation time or a small bonus than it is for you to spend tons of your time and energy finding and managing the perfectly equitable policy that people still resent.

    1. Former GM*

      Do you find people fighting to work more shifts because of the pay?

      I used to manage a team where holidays were required but because we paid 2x on holidays – my employees FOUGHT to work those days LOL. I had to have sign up sheets and then ensure equal distribution of shifts over holiday weekends. The extra pay went a LONG way

      1. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

        yes! The vacation incentive forced us to implement the “two shifts per person” rule – not because we were struggling to get people to work two shifts, but because we had some people wanting to work, like, eight shifts which was more coverage than we needed. Two per person just happens to work out to the numbers on the team and the coverage we need. When I check in with my team each year, 10/10 team members say they’d rather have the bonus vacation time to use when they want than the days off around the holidays.

      2. Clisby*

        Yeah, when I worked for newspapers we got a choice of either 2x pay or regular pay + another day off later. That’s one reason I worked a lot of holidays (plus, very few holidays mattered to me.)

    2. Leelou*

      Solely out of curiosity, what do you do that means New Year’s Day is your most important day?

      1. mango chiffon*

        I was assuming some sort of event venue since it was new year’s eve specifically

        1. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

          yeah new years eve. We bring in about 40% of our total annual revenue on NYE specifically due to some unique events we run on that day (and event staffing, of course, requires coverage).

  30. Jason Frerichs*

    The only equitable system is to have rotating holidays. If you work Christmas in 2025 you’ll get it off in 2026.

    1. A*

      I don’t think it’s the only equitable system. It is better than the current dibs system, though. There are a lot of ways to manage coverage that are reasonable.

  31. Former GM*

    If any of the staff are of equal level – you can always require switching off each year. I worked at a company where I was an admin with another person and we were the same level. She tried to do the “super advanced request” for holidays and ensuring she would get like 2+ weeks off around Christmas. (And bc she would fly out to see family in the mid west, her return flight would be “delayed” because of weather). After her 3rd straight year of trying this – out HR manager literally went to her and said “I am not approving this until Sally (me) decides if SHE wants time off at Christmas this year”. Other admin was furious because she had already bought plane tickets, but HR responded with “Why did you buy tickets before you had the time off approved? That’s on you”. I really appreciated HR standing up for me.

    Another option is what a lot of places that operate 24/7/365 do (think hospitals). They slips the holidays up into two categories. Group A works one and Group B works the other. Thanksgiving & Christmas are always separated. That way you know in January what holidays you’re expected to work and you can only change that IF you find someone to switch with. It ensures everyone is allowed time off but also has to work some of the other holidays.

  32. errrrr, really?*

    i run a 24/7 help desk that’s understaffed, so i deal with keeping the vacation time fair all the time. i’m also in govt with comp time and lots of vacation time, so it’s a daily chore. but it’s manageable. my system was complicated, but it worked and it felt fair. i would send out a calendar at the end of the year, allowing people in order of seniority to ‘reserve’ the first 10 days of their vacation, only allowing X number of people being reserved at a time. so the highest longevity person would pick first, the second, etc. but they could only reserve 10 days – not all of their accumulated pto. that way the seniormost people couldn’t reserve all the holidays. as each person completed picking their first 10 days, i’d pull up the previous year’s calendars, and if they reserved all the major holidays i’d reach out and ask them to be fair. if they had gotten those days the previous 2-3 years, i’d deny them and tell them to pick other ones. then, once everyone picked their 10 reserve days, i opened up the calendar and people could request pto whenever we were adequately staffed (in my case usually i could only be done 3-4 people at a time) it’s work, but it keeps it fair.

  33. Jackalope*

    My favorite system involved a combo of some of the ideas listed here. 2x per year we would have leave requests input, let’s say from April to September and then from October to March. Everyone had a few weeks to input their leave, and then supervisors would look at what was requested. Let’s say we could have 4 people put on any one day. If 4 people or less requested that day off, everyone was approved. If 5+ people requested it, you could either withdraw or change your leave request or else use your seniority. The key thing here is that if you used your seniority then you’d be bumped to the bottom of the list and whoever was below you on the list would move up. That meant that no one ever got to take all the good holidays every time around. If you missed the 6 month leave request window you could still put requests in, but if the day you requested already had 4 people off you were out of luck. (Sick leave was separate.)

  34. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

    We open official vacation requests for the upcoming quarter a month or two in advance. We’re approved for what we request unless there’s conflict with “office need/coverage” and then the decision is made based on seniority as to who actually gets the day off.

    Luckily the most vacation-y days (like Christmas Eve or the Fridays before a Monday holiday) are super chill at the office because no one wants our services that day, so they’re actually great days to work in peace.

  35. NursingaWound*

    Re: seniority….I worked at a care facility with extremely long term employees. Like 40 years. There was one aide who had been there 39 years but could never get Christmas off because the 40 year seniority person always took it. I just can’t imagine how that would grind to always be second tier to one other person.

    Also? I worked at a hospital with an absolute seniority system, even if the person was very part time. I remember having to wait to get my vacation approved until Sadie worked her*one shift a month* again.

    1. SJM*

      I was in this EXACT same position for almost 20 years. I just wrote a post a couple below this one. It is horribly demoralizing and even though I don’t work there any longer, it still makes me incredibly angry thinking about it. I was a very long-term employee, but the senior employee who was there a couple years longer got all the key vacation days EVERY.SINGLE.YEAR! My bosses failed to see how this was unfair! She also got ALL the benefits and opportunities that were always offered to “the most senior person” first.

      1. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

        You think that’s bad? I once worked in a department where vacation requests were prioritized by seniority. That worked fine, until I was the one in the department with seniority. Then the rules got changed, so that married people had priority over single people. I was the only single person in the department, so I went right to the bottom of the totem pole. And I quickly figured out that if anyone in my department quit and was replaced by a married person, I would still be at the bottom of the totem pole. And they wondered why I quit.

        1. SJM*

          Wow! That is really is AWFUL and beyond unfair!! Good for you for quitting. I should have quit long before I actually did.

  36. Drago Cucina*

    When I became a library director our first-come-first-served vacation schedule was so out of whack. I consulted one of my husband and asked how the OR where he worked did it.

    All prime holiday time rotated. Had spring break off this year? Next year the request is at the bottom of the pile. If there is enough staff two weeks before it can be granted. The same with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Christmas and New Year’s weeks were treated as separate requests.

    The morale went up because suddenly everyone had a chance to take a holiday off.

  37. justliloldme*

    i am very glad I work in an area where ‘coverage’ in the traditional sense isn’t as much of a thing. for prime vacation times we just all take off at the same time. the trade off is we rarely get to fully unplug during those times because we all have a few ‘must do’ job duties that we have to manage, but we have all agreed that everyone doing a few minutes of work on PTO is better than forcing someone to miss family holidays due to coverage needs of the team. (everyone is exempt/salaried)
    it really peeves some other areas of the company who do have coverage needs so they don’t have that same flexibility (which sucks for them and I sympathize) but ‘no really, we will never deny your PTO over the holidays’ is always a major selling point in interviews when we bring in new hires.

  38. SJM*

    This letter literally triggered my PTSD. I had an coworker in a very small group of administrative staff who would select EVERY SINGLE advantageous time for her vacation every single year on January 1st and as the most senior employee, she was in charge of it, and took everything she wanted year after year, no exceptions. As the most senior employee she had a very large amount of vacation time and always took the week of Thanksgiving, the last 2 weeks of December, through New Years and other key times of the year, especially during our busiest crunch time every year that should have been all hands on deck. It was so horrible and demoralizing. Even though I had worked there well over a decade, she was there longer and took all the best vacation times every year. My bosses were not receptive and thought she was entitled to take what she wanted as the most senior employee no matter how miserable it made the rest of the long-term staff to never be allowed a couple days off during Christmas week and other times.

  39. Crooked Bird*

    Is bristling at some employees’ sense of entitlement really LW’s “own issue to deal with”? Why?? She should have no feelings about some people always taking the slots (almost?) everyone wants just because they’re following the letter of the law? “Soft” realities are real too and LW is having an emotional response to a reality. The advice seems good–put that system in place that enforces “no hogging,” and do it before your less temporally privileged employees get any more frustrated by this.

  40. Reality.Bites*

    My brother-in-law used to be an accountant. There was no vacation during tax season, no matter how high in the firm you were, from managing partners on down.

    But someone taking vacation in the middle of the annual initiative they run isn’t really a vacation policy problem. It’s a problem with the employee.

    First come, first served only works for people doing the same job, or who can cover each other. The initiative runner’s vacation needs to be subject to the approval of their manager, not the policy for public-facing staff.

  41. NCA*

    What if the scheduling system was switched to claiming at the start of each quarter, instead of once a year? Three months seems like a reasonable amount of time to know your schedule in advance, it gives more opportunities for people to ‘be first’, and switches it up?

    1. Daria grace*

      That helps for many situations but not all. If you’re planning an international trip you likely need to book more than 3 months in advance

  42. Daria grace*

    Another thing to consider is if you can’t accomodate everyone’s requests for big blocks of leave at popular times, can you be flexible on smaller increments where that would help your employees?

    At a previous employer who chose to understaff despite being mega profitable I could accept that I wasn’t going to get Christmas week off most years even though that would be the norm for many companies here. What really made the situation demoralising would be when they’d then also make it needlessly hard to leave early Christmas Eve to travel to family or to take a single day off mid year for something that was important to me but that I didn’t have a confirmed date for when the leave rosters were determined

    1. Copper*

      As someone whose family all lives at least 12 hours of flying away, it would be really frustrating to me if I could never take a full week (or even 2) off around the holidays. 2 or 3 days off every year or every other year is useless to me because I need a much larger chunk of time to be able to get to my family (and justify the cost of flights). I’d much rather work around/on the holidays 2 of every 3 years (or whatever) to be able to take a full week or two off every 3-4 years over Christmas. I would leave a job over a policy prohibiting that.

  43. Palmer*

    I recommend considering a ticket system.

    You accrue tickets based on seniority (For example: if you have been with the company for 3 years, you get 50 tickets, if 1 year, you get 30 tickets)

    Different days have different ticket costs. Some days could cost 0 tickets because they are never in contest.

    If you want the week of Memorial Day off that would be 6 tickets per day for a total of 24 tickets.
    You could have a concept of letting people outbid others, but that can create bad behavior.
    The scaling rate would be a thing to fine tune and you could look at previous years PTO requests to figure out how much preference you want to let folks have.

    This lets seniority have an impact without only prioritizing seniority.
    You can have tickets on a yearly or quarterly basis and you can let them roll over (but not infinitely, so someone doesn’t accrue enormous numbers of tickets). Accrual lets someone get a sweet week for their planned week or two week vacation compared to someone who is senior because it isn’t happening every year.

    Note: Tickets do not mean you get the time off, it’s just for controlling who gets to take PTO on desirable days.

  44. Dr. Temperance Brennan*

    I get not being able to plan far ahead for vacation but for holidays? I mean even if you’re not totally sure what you’re doing why not just request days off anyway? That’s not really an issue of planning ahead or not, don’t most people know they’re going to be doing something on Thanksgiving for example? Unless this OP is UK based and is using their meaning of holiday I am confused by that being an issue.

    1. Copper*

      I know for me, for example, if my parents are coming to town for a holiday like Thanksgiving, I want it off. If it’s just going to be my husband and I, we personally don’t really celebrate stuff like that much on our own so I don’t care at all if I work or not. So unless I’m planning to travel (unlikely, can’t afford it), or my parents tell me way in advance that they want to come for the holiday (unlikely, they’re retired and don’t tend to make plans far in advance, just when they feel like it), I won’t necessarily know a year out or even 6 months out. I’d likely have a better idea 3 months out.

  45. HB*

    You could start with seniority date choose one week by one week. The next year start with second in seniority etc.

    1. Peanut Hamper*

      No, no, no. This is neither fair nor equitable. Time off should not be based on seniority. Ever.

      1. Me*

        I’m curious why you think time off shouldn’t be based on seniority at all. I agree, though, that it shouldn’t be the only factor.

        At my workplace, everyone is expected to work one of Thanksgiving week, Christmas week, and New Year’s week during your first year (although you only have to work one). After that first year, if you ever get asked to do one of those three holidays, you get to pick which one you are doing (the new hires do the others), and you don’t have to do them again until everyone else has done them an additional time. It’s not perfect, but it seems fair.

        1. Me*

          I forgot to mention also that if you did one of those holiday weeks, whether a new hire or an old one, you got excused from an unrelated annoying coverage issue. So you got something slightly more than you would if you covered a regular week, which helped.

  46. PDB*

    I used to work in TV and I always worked holidays. You had to have like 30 years seniority to get them off. On the other hand in the old days the network catered Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, and before you say,”Oh, those poor caterers” we were making triple time and they were tipped very well.

  47. Susannah*

    This brings memories of my office days.. and relates to yesterday’s letter about people without kids. I was not allowed to take time off at spring break and much of August, because people with kids “had” to have that time off. what mad eat worse was that those days were my downtime in my part of the business… so they were telling me I could not take off when it was slow. Then they’d get mad when I took time off when it was busy. But you know – heaven forbid people with kids don;t have the same vacations!

  48. Hyaline*

    I’m seeing a lot of people answering as though the issue is working *on* holidays, but LW seems to suggest that the issue is time *around* holidays–that is, it’s not clear from the letter if people need to work on Christmas or Thanksgiving or whatever, but a lot of people are wanting to request the days surrounding the holiday off, which is understandable but also frustrating. You could apply a similar system to rotating holidays even if you’re not working the holiday itself, or you could limit the number of requested days off during the block of time surrounding major holidays (someone can’t ask the whole week off–you can ask a max of 2 days or whatever), or set blackout dates where no requests will be considered but you’ll ask for preferred days and do your best, or maybe offer a bonus for working on Primo Vacation Request Dates to see if you can people to self-select into working then.

    But I have to admit–I may be one of the few here who isn’t terribly appalled by this system. Strictly first come first serve is a bit much (rather than “get it in after Nov 1 and I’ll consider and grant early requests by Dec 1”), especially if it’s some kind of bizarre race to turn in PTO requests, but if it’s just open and the early birds are getting the worms, well…? If people truly have their plans set a year out, I’m not offended that they get first dibs on prime request time. If they’re just snapping it up but don’t use it, that would be annoying, but I think you may have some understandable morale dips if people can no longer plan their annual vacation “the same way they always do” based on some vague concept of “fairness”–well, scrapping their plans isn’t really fair to them, either! If others care so much, maybe they could adjust their planning and get requests in earlier….and honestly, when new people come on board, the expectation is often “for this first year, you kinda get the leavings when it comes to vacation requests, sorry” in plenty of places.

    And just deny requests that are for bad times! That part is easy! Sorry, but you can’t take off right in the midst of the rush season, try again!

  49. RedinSC*

    When I managed a team (fundraising) basically what I did was that if someone took the christmas week off one year, they weren’t eligible for that week off the next year unless no one else wanted it, then they could have it, much closer to the time (like planning in Sept/Oct, rather than requesting it in Jan)

    In the 10 years I was there, I took time off at Christmas once, as it is the busiest season, and also took time off once during a big annual event ( we had multiple big annual events and this one I was least involved with). But it was more request what you want, but also keep in mind that you might not get what you want if you had that same time last year.

  50. LifebeforeCorona*

    One person should not be able to snag all the major holidays every year just because they’re fast with the submit button. If you have Thanksgiving, you can’t have Christmas and New Years as well.

  51. Dogmomma*

    everyone signs up for vacation, 6 mo ahead, IF you got your wish last yr, you don’t get it again, til everyone cycles through. same with holidays. Or, you find your own coverage. and if you call in sick if you don’t get your time off. verbal warning 1st, written warning, then termination. if you call in on holiday coverage, no holiday pay. Manager keeps track of all requests. We’ve done it in health care for eons. that’s the only way it’s fair.

  52. Quinalla*

    First come, first serve is easy to enforce for sure, but it doesn’t make it the most equitable system. I like Alison’s suggestions and if you do change this make sure to make it clear that this is a CHANGE as you are correct that folks are following the current system correctly, but you need to change it because some folks cannot plan that far ahead and should also get a chance at the most wanted time off days.

    And yeah, gotta talk to people about if they have flexibility. They don’t always, but when they do it is fine to ask them to shift their week off in the summer to a different week. For my PTO I always make it known when something is flexible in case there are too many people that want PTO that day so I can move mine. Maybe add a way for folks to note that, like flexible until X date when they have to lock down plans.

    It will be more work to manage, but well worth it!

  53. Elara Harper*

    We generally don’t have much of a coverage issue for regular religious or public holidays, due to holiday pay incentives. However, in my locale there are two major week long events that everyone wants off, either to attend or to get out of town during the event, and the earlier one coincides with Spring Break. For those two weeks, we have a lottery system for the maximum number of people we can have out at any time. Three months in advance of each event, you can sign up for the lottery for that week. It is perceived as fair, since it doesn’t rely on seniority, parental status, early planning availability or internal status.

  54. E. Chauvelin*

    This is a library and the two month initiative is summer reading, right?

    Our department has a policy that if you already asked for time off during two other holiday weeks that year, or if you took time off for Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years the year before, you have the lowest priority if there are too many vacation requests to grant all of them for Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years. Generally they try to get all of the requests for those holidays around the beginning of October so they can sort out who gets what, although if you’ve got something that absolutely has to be approved further out going on around that time like a wedding, it’s the manager’s discretion. Usually there are enough of us who make it a point not to take off at busy times if we aren’t traveling that it works well.

  55. Arglebarglor*

    I’m a manager/healthcare provider in outpatient healthcare (think primary care practice with multiple clinics). I think our policy is pretty good. We ask for people to put in their time in three-month increments. The window for those increments opens for 2 weeks about 3 months before the time period (for example, in March we collect PTO requests for July, August, September). Each clinic director reminds their staff to put in for the days that they want during the 2-week window. Days with conflicts (ie 2 staff who want the same day) go to the person with the most seniority. You can also choose not to put your days in and then ask for time off later. However, if you don’t get your time in during the window, then seniority does not apply: for example, during the March window, Junior employee asks for time off around Labor Day and is granted it as there were no conflicts. Then in August, Senior employee wants that same time off. If there is no coverage, then Senior employee is SOL, because they didn’t ask for the time in the appropriate window. Holidays are rotated around (ie the day after Thanksgiving) and we usually don’t have problems with them.

  56. Coverage Associate*

    I am an American with a lot of British contacts. I would love to hear from people with insight into how coverage is managed in places that “shut down” for long periods, like the tour books say a lot of southern Europe does in August. I now understand that while small businesses may close, there is some coverage. Like, I work in insurance, and we can get claims paid from London and Zurich in August, even though those are office jobs and the timing of payment isn’t life and death. I understand that London and Zurich aren’t southern Europe.

    But I don’t yet understand how the coverage works. Does everyone in a certain position take a week to cover? Are they out of office for everything but puritanical Americans? What about domestic insurance claims? People really just wait for their money because it’s August and no one is working?

    We actually work on ransom ware and data breach issues, so even though ours look like office jobs and can be M-F and 9-5, we need to have coverage, I imagine even for southern Europe, because criminals won’t wait for their money.

  57. Coverage Associate*

    Sharing some grumbling I once heard from my secretaries re time off on basis of seniority. I thought it was fair but wasn’t at a level to act on it:

    When companies merge or are acquired, staff can lose their seniority in the “new” company. In the law firm context, some staff jobs are usually lost in mergers, so staff invited to come over/continue are usually happy to be included, but, yeah, they can lose seniority because they are new employees of the acquiring or larger business. I think it’s worth considering for managers to negotiate something as part of the merger talks, especially if the team coming over is large compared to the team that they are joining.

    In my example, the acquired team was acquired to be the firm’s second office in the state, so the existing secretary pool was about the same size as the newcomers. Probably management could have worked out an agreement whereby the secretaries at the old office didn’t always get first choice for vacation over secretaries at the new office. (The firm pooled secretaries by state.)

  58. Love My Laptop*

    It’s quite possibly already been mentioned, but there should also be an “if you had Christmas/Easter/school holidays off last year then you can’t have the same time off again unless no one else wants it” policy. IE, if you missed out on a peak time last year then you’re higher on the list this year for that time.
    Your policy should also be very clear on how much cover is required for different teams or business areas at certain times, and possibly even have additional people rostered as on-call over certain periods to provide additional staff if something happens.

  59. AF Vet*

    Former US Fed –

    Federal holidays everyone had off.

    “Family Days” were the day before our after the holiday that turned it into a 4-day holiday (i.e. the day after Thanksgiving). For those days, the military had the day off and civilians could decide if they wanted to use a day of leave or come in. If every civilian wanted off, the office shut. Those were decided at the command level.

    Wings could, and did, occasionally have a Wing Down Day if we’d met some incredible achievement.

    The two-week period of Christmas / New Year, you were teamed up with someone else at your level, who could already catch your stuff in office when you were out for leave, TDYs, etc. If you want to burn a week or leave, one of you got Christmas Week off, the other got New Year’s Week off. So for this coming year, one of you got dibs for 21-27 Dec. The other got 28 Dec-3 Jan. It rotated the next year. If one didn’t care, the other could take the whole time off, and the one who skipped could take a couple weeks when they wanted. School spring break was reserved so parents of school-age kids got dibs, but everyone could take a week off at other times. They did want you to fill the leave calendar out for the year, to ensure coverage, but they weren’t hard-nosed about it. If you are claiming EVERY school holiday, you’d get denied if coverage was needed – pick the one or two MOST important.

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