Do you have a holiday crisis in 2021?

Thanks to Coronavirus, fewer of us than ever hopped on a plane last year for those blissful trips in the sun.

Many of us made do with ‘staycations’ at home, or even (when possible) trips away in the UK.

Even if you did do all this, chances are you still have holiday allowance left over – especially if you spent any time on furlough in 2020. The thought of spending all day at home, then spending your holiday there too, is enough to put off most people.

So it’s unsurprising a report has revealed the extent of cancelled annual leave in 2020.

According to the report, which used data from over 300,000 employees, 28% of UK workers cancelled annual leave in 2020.

The report also found the two months with the most cancelled leave were April and May (which, just in case you’ve managed to suppress it, is when the UK was in full Lockdown).

Why is this a problem?

To avoid a complete standstill in December, when workplaces began to return (before the next Lockdown), many employers enabled holiday to be rolled over to 2021.

In most cases, a set-date to be used was made. For small businesses this is sensible but depending on the number of people in your workforce, many businesses could be looking at a productivity crisis in spring and summer 2021.

Making sure you know when the holiday is planned and how many employees your business can have off at one time is vital.

Using a Time and attendance system to help organise this will help keep requests in check, as each employee can be given a set role, meaning you can outline how many people need to fill those roles on each shift before approving time off.

Mental and physical health

If you’ve been fortunate enough not to have to furlough employees or fall if you into the key worker category, your employee mental and physical health is another aspect to consider.

No one should work without an extended break for a year. Annual leave gives your workforce downtime to restore and recover, so you should always encourage employees to take time off.

To help keep time off requests fair, especially now an un-lockdown roadmap has been unveiled, make sure to talk to your employees about ensuring productivity stays high and your expectations to flatten the curve of annual leave requests at once.

To see uAttend holiday management software in action, book your free demo today.