How to manage annual leave in a small team

Set the holiday rules before requests arrive

A useful annual-leave policy starts with five decisions:

1. When the leave year starts and ends.
2. How much leave people receive, including any contractual extra.
3. Whether bank holidays sit inside the allowance or on top.
4. How leave is requested and who decides it.
5. What can carry over, and in which circumstances.

Put those decisions in the employment terms or a short policy that people can actually find. Say whether you record leave in days or hours, how much notice usually helps and what happens when several people want the same dates.

The policy should be clear enough to guide an ordinary request without pretending to predict every exception. If the team changes working patterns, opens in another UK nation or adds contractual leave, review the rule rather than relying on an old spreadsheet formula.

Calculate from the actual working arrangement

Calculate leave from each person's status and actual working pattern. A regular part-time worker still receives 5.6 weeks based on their own week. The statutory minimum for someone working three equal days a week for the full leave year is 16.8 days.

In Great Britain, irregular-hours and part-year workers use a specific accrual method for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024. Use the current GOV.UK calculation guidance for those arrangements. Northern Ireland has not adopted that reform, so use the separate nidirect route for a worker there. HollyHR's holiday entitlement calculator covers supported regular weekly patterns, including starters and leavers.

Record the inputs behind the answer:

• leave-year dates
• regular days or hours, or the applicable accrual basis
• statutory and contractual allowance
• bank-holiday treatment
• start or leaving date when relevant
• carry-over and manual adjustments

Holiday pay is related, but it is not the same calculation as holiday entitlement. Pay can depend on hours, overtime, commission and the worker's circumstances. Keep payroll responsible for the pay calculation and give it the leave information it needs.

Make leave requests easy to decide

Tell people how to ask, who will respond and what managers consider. In a small team, the useful factors are usually approved leave, pending requests, important cover and any fixed business closure. Avoid unwritten rules that only appear after somebody books a trip.

In Great Britain, a worker normally gives notice at least twice as long as the leave requested, plus one day. An employer refusing or cancelling dates normally gives at least the length of the leave, plus one day.

Northern Ireland uses a separate rule. A contract can also set a different one, so check the terms and the current GOV.UK booking guidance or nidirect guidance for the worker's location.

Entitlement and timing are separate questions. A manager may need to discuss different dates, but the business must still make it possible for the worker to take their statutory leave. Reply promptly, explain a refusal and suggest alternatives where you can.

Keep decisions fair and private

Managers need enough information to understand team cover. They do not need a public explanation of why somebody is away. A shared calendar can usually show that a person is unavailable without exposing medical, family or other private detail.

For each request, keep the dates, duration, decision, decision-maker and any brief operational reason that is genuinely useful. Apply the same published rule consistently, while leaving room to consider individual circumstances. Fairness does not mean every request receives the same answer; it means the relevant factors are handled consistently and the answer can be explained.

If a request raises a difficult equality, sickness, family-leave or contractual question, pause the ordinary workflow and use the right current guidance or advice. A leave calendar should not make that decision for you.

Keep a record you can explain

A dependable record connects the allowance to the activity that changed it. As useful operating evidence, keep:

• the original allowance and calculation inputs
• leave taken and still pending
• carry-over from earlier leave years
• adjustments, with a date and reason
• holiday pay and any payment in lieu on leaving
• the resulting balance

In Great Britain, employers must keep annual-leave and holiday-pay records made from 6 April 2026 for at least six years. The statutory record covers holiday taken, carry-over, holiday pay and payments in lieu, including the components used for holiday pay. Acas lists the required information. Keep the calculation inputs as well. They are not additional statutory fields, but they let you explain how the balance was reached when hours, leave or pay later change. The new duty does not extend to Northern Ireland.

Do not silently recalculate old leave using today's working pattern. Record changes when they happen so you can explain what applied at the time.

Handle carry-over before the leave year ends

Your policy should say whether an agreement allows ordinary unused leave to carry over and how much. In Great Britain, some carry-over is required when a worker could not take leave because of long-term sickness or statutory leave. It can also be required when the employer did not give a reasonable opportunity to take leave or did not explain that unused leave would be lost. Acas sets out the Great Britain rules by circumstance.

Northern Ireland has separate carry-over guidance. nidirect explains the ordinary position and exceptions. Check the correct jurisdiction before moving a balance automatically.

Do not wait until the final week of the leave year to discover a large balance. Review untaken leave early, remind people of the policy and make sure workload or repeated refusals are not preventing them from taking time away. At the start of each leave year, confirm carried balances and remind people how to request leave.