Planning summer leave without emptying the department

Echipa HR 365 · reviewed 2026-09-04 · 5 min read

Summer planning is settled in January, not in May. What gets decided early is one thing: how many people must be present each week, in each function. With that threshold announced, requests largely organise themselves; without it, every request becomes a separate negotiation.

Minimum coverage: the figure to set first

Not “how many can be away”, but “how many must be here”. The difference is not semantic: the first phrasing invites exceptions, the second is a condition. It is set per function, not per department — a department of ten with three away can work perfectly or not at all, depending on which three.

How you calculate it, in two hours

1. Manager — lists the functions in the team, not the people: who does what, as a type of work
2. Manager — for each function, notes how many must be present for the work not to stop
3. Manager — marks the functions covered by a single person — there, leave is impossible without a solution arranged in advance
4. HR — collects the thresholds and publishes them when planning opens, not afterwards

The tie-break rule, announced in January

When two people ask for the same week and both cannot have it, the decision follows a published rule, not who pushed hardest. The rule has to exist before the first clash, or whatever you choose looks arbitrary.

The second criterion is what makes the system bearable in the long run. Without a record of last year, the same people lose every year — usually the least insistent, who are often also the most stable.

The planning calendar

What you do not do

• Do not approve in order of arrival without looking at coverage. The first five requests can empty exactly the same week.
• Do not leave approval solely with the manager, with no visibility across neighbouring departments, if the work connects.
• Do not block entire periods “to be safe”. A broad ban produces requests made around the system and people taking their days some other way.
• Do not change an already confirmed period except in genuine situations. A confirmed holiday means tickets bought.

What you do when a clash cannot be resolved

Sometimes the tie-break rule is not enough: three of four people ask for the same week, all have genuine constraints and none can move. There are three solutions, in the order worth trying.

In order, from the least costly

1. First — split the period: each takes half, if the work bears it. Nobody is fully satisfied, everybody gets away.
2. Second — temporary cover from another team, prepared in advance — not improvised on the day.
3. Third — temporarily reducing activity that week, if it is a slow period anyway. Decided by leadership, not by the manager.

The third option is the one nobody thinks of and is often the right one: in many companies, the week with the most requests is also the week with the least work — because the clients are on holiday too. The check takes ten minutes and can remove the conflict entirely.

Where to start

If planning is already open and you have not set minimum coverage, stop and set it now, even with requests already submitted. It is the one figure without which every approval becomes a separate decision, and separate decisions contradict each other.

If it is the start of the year, follow the calendar: coverage and the tie-break rule published in the same week, then six weeks in which people submit. If it is already May, skip the open submission and go straight to resolving clashes with a rule published now — imperfect, but better than individual negotiations.

In both cases, list the single-holder functions before anything else. They are the ones that will block your approvals and the only ones that cannot be solved during the planning period.

What about people who submit after the deadline?

They are handled in order of arrival, from what is left. What matters is not reopening negotiations for already confirmed periods — otherwise the deadline means nothing next year.

Can I block a period when nobody may be away?

You can, if it is genuinely critical and if you announce it at the start of the year, not in May. A ban announced late collides with plans already made and produces more resentment than it is worth.