Charlie O’Brien, Head of People at  Breathe HR, brings over 15 years of HR expertise helping SMEs manage teams effectively. In this article, she explores the timing of staff holidays, why spreading leave across the year benefits both employees and businesses, and practical strategies for making time off a routine part of workplace wellbeing.

We’re all familiar with the holiday squeeze: when colleagues are off, tasks can pile up and projects can stall. During popular holiday periods like Christmas and summer, the pressure put on teams by holiday absences intensifies. It can feel like we’re running an out-of-office relay, with a different person away every few weeks.

In this context, it’s easy for stretched managers at SMEs to assume there’s no such thing as a “good” time for employees to be off. Yet we all know staff need leave for their wellbeing and performance. It’s a non-negotiable. So managers who struggle with the holiday juggle need to figure out a way to manage it right.

Currently, most workers take the bulk of their annual leave in the second half of the year. However, the data shows that this popular period for holiday isn’t necessarily the “right” time for everyone to be off – either for the business or for employees.

Nearly half of workers who hoard their holiday until the second half of the year say they feel burnt out at work by autumn, and more than one in four “holiday hoarders” take an above-average number of sick days in a typical year. It’s clearly bad for them, but workers are still doing it due to heavy workloads, and because taking holiday often isn’t encouraged. Those who take the fewest breaks have long been lauded as the most committed.

By contrast, Breathe HR’s research shows that employees feel happier, more productive and less burnt out when they spread their leave evenly across the year.

This approach has benefits for businesses, too. Happy, healthy staff who aren’t running on fumes perform better. When staff spread leave out, it helps avoid bottlenecks during busy periods which impact overall team productivity. And regular time off can help prevent employee sickness and burnout, which already costs employers more than £100 billion per year.

So how can employers encourage staff to spread their leave evenly and sustainably? 

To help annual leave run smoothly, robust holiday policies and handover procedures are crucial. When colleagues provide detailed handovers and teams receive early notice of absences, they can plan ahead, with minimal disruption. Out-of-offices can become a predictable and manageable part of daily operations.

When it comes to encouraging employees to spread their leave, beyond ensuring the whole team is not off at the same time, businesses shouldn’t dictate when workers can take breaks. However, they should create a culture where staff don’t feel the need to hoard holidays and are empowered to book regular breaks. Here’s how to do it.

1. Regularly remind staff to take holiday throughout the year

Telling staff to take time off may sound unnecessary for some. But with the prevalence of “holiday hoarding”, employers need to go out of their way to shift the culture to ensure staff take regular time off.

Currently, one in five workers aren’t encouraged by their manager to take leave. Managers should encourage staff regularly in company emails, team meetings and one-to-ones to take breaks. They could suggest “microbreaks” (one or two days off here and there) as an option for staff looking to spread out their leave, while still allowing scope for a longer holiday. Tech can also help by tracking staff who have underutilised their leave and prompting managers to step in.

2. Show staff you mean it

Staff are more likely to believe that taking time off regularly is genuinely encouraged when they see leaders doing it themselves. So managers should role model what they’re encouraging, to show staff that taking leave is something the company sees as essential, not just an inconvenient staff perk or an ad hoc reward.

Currently, one in three workers say their workload prevents them from taking a holiday.  So employers must also ensure that workloads allow for time off, and step in if they aren’t.

3. Make holidays easy to book and view

More than one in four employees find it difficult to see how much leave they’ve used and have remaining. When booking leave is easy and accessible, it removes the barrier – AKA, the ‘faff’ – that could make staff less likely to take a break. It also sends a clear message that making sure workers take time off is a priority.

SMEs who make holiday a core part of their HR strategy, prioritise staff leave and encourage them to spread it throughout the year, will turn holidays into a routine, seamless and beneficial part of operations. The “right” time for staff to take holiday will be throughout the year.