Key takeaways:
Leave planning for a team can feel like a high-stakes game of Tetris. As your team grows, the pieces (leave requests) start piling up faster and in increasingly awkward ways. When you think you’ve cleared a perfect line, a new request pops up and threatens to throw the whole board into chaos. You want to make it work, but it just won’t fit. But this game extends beyond the screen. It’s not just a (momentarily crushing) ‘game over’ message you have to face down, but a disappointed or angry colleague. Tetris is tricky, yes, but ensuring everyone gets their well-deserved time off without the whole system (or team morale) crumbling? That’s a real challenge.
This is where leave limits come in. Our clever feature automatically denies requests if they’re at capacity, or warns employees if their requested dates are popular and might not be approved. This means no more uncomfortable conversations, no more painful manual calculations, just instant clarity for everyone.
It’s December, and as everyone sits shivering at their desk, your inbox is overflowing with holiday requests for next summer. Sarah wants the first two weeks of July. However, so does Mark. They’re on the same (small) team. And that’s a month before your quarterly reporting is due; it’s usually all hands on deck. Hmm.
Before you’ve even begun looking at who might be able to be moved around for cover, more requests come in for the same week (there’s a feature on This Morning about cheap holidays before the school term ends, playing in the staff room). You’re manually tracking who wants what and trying to work out who asked first, dreading having to tell most of these people that they can’t have what they want. The staff room becomes a no-go zone.
There are so many requests that a couple slip through the cracks, and flights are booked that shouldn’t have been. You’re left with a choice – really upset someone, or be critically understaffed during a peak period. Whatever you choose, you lose.
Stress levels rise, employees feel unfairly treated, and valuable time is wasted on mediation instead of management.
Now, imagine the same situation but using Leave Dates and its leave limits feature. As soon as Sarah’s request comes in, you see that the weeks are free and there’s scope for someone to be off. Request approved.
The system notes that a minimum staffing limit has been set for those dates in July, and it has now been reached. So when Mark’s request comes in 20 minutes later, it warns him that it might not be available and flags the limit for you. With some jiggery-pokery, you think you can just about make it work and approve Mark’s leave, too. But that’s definitely it, so you update the limit settings to automatically block any more requests for those dates.
There are no conflicting holidays, no angry staff and no scrambling for cover. This feature ensures fair play, protects staffing levels and gives everyone clear, instant responses.
To set leave limits that ensure you don’t have too many people off on the same day/week, you go to the ‘Limits’ tab and ‘Add limit’ to set a maximum number of people on leave. You can set multiple limits with different time frames and scopes – for a team, department, or the whole company.
For example, at the end of the tax year, you might want to limit the number of people from the finance department who can be on leave at once. If you conduct 50% of your business during the Christmas period, you may have a company-wide leave limit in December. Overlapping limits can be set, and each will be evaluated separately; any limits reached will be flagged.
You’ll see a handy visual progress bar showing how close you are to each limit, and you can choose what action is taken when a limit is reached. You could block any new requests for these dates, or show a warning. These warnings or denied requests shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, as your wall chart page will be updated to show any ‘limit reached’ dates highlighted in red for all employees to see.
A life without limits might sound appealing, but when it comes to work, it’s just not practical – or harmonious. Even those unicorn companies with much-lusted-after ‘unlimited leave’ policies will have some restrictions on when and how leave is taken – the risk of everyone vanishing on the same day is just too significant otherwise.
Automatic denials when dates are off limits or already booked help avoid awkward run-ins or grievances – the denial of leave isn’t linked to a person, so there’s no bad guy. The ‘computer says no’, so you don’t have to.
Know your limits, with Leave Dates.
Leave limits is a feature on Leave Dates that sets the maximum number of people who can be on leave at the same time. They help ensure critical staffing levels are maintained while keeping leave approvals fair and transparent.
Yes. Admins in Leave Dates can set limits for a specific team, department, or across the whole company, and apply them to certain dates or busy periods (like end-of-year reporting or the holiday season).
You can either block new requests automatically or show a warning. Employees are notified as soon as they submit a request if a limit has been reached.