HR Practices: What’s involved in administering vacation time?

07/30/07

Question: I need help in understanding my role as human resources supervisor when it comes to administering vacation time. Can you help? Answer: While you no doubt have a vacation policy that allows a certain number of days off based on time worked or years of service, administering time off can still be a touchy subject. That’s because vacation time should be approved based on business need. Companies must be able to maintain continuous and efficient service for customers and effective processing of the workload. If granting vacation at a specific time would present an undue hardship on the company (such as during a busy season or during the summer when others are likely to be absent), that time should be rescheduled for a later date that is convenient for both the employee and the company.

Your job, then, is partly that of arbiter or referee—who gets to take off vacation and when, and whose request takes precedence over another’s. The important thing is to have good reasons for your decisions and to treat everyone fairly and consistently based on objective criteria like seniority, rank, or dates the parties involved last took time off.

Note: Some employees like to take time off whenever they want. Make sure your vacation policy says time off is subject to supervisory approval. It should also say that an employee who uses vacation time without approval by his/her supervisor is subject to disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment. If employees take time off without approval, you may be able to consider them to have abandoned their positions—grounds for termination in some companies.

As with any policy, make sure you enforce it consistently—treating each situation arbitrarily can open you up to legal liability in no time.

These products will make it a lot easier to keep vacation time off from becoming a major headache:
Vacation Request & Approval Records
Vacation Tracker
Gradience Handbook Manager