What to include in a holiday request form (with free holiday form template)

Many new business owners are surprised to learn that time off is one of the most complex aspects of HR, and one that a lot of startups and small businesses struggle to get right.  

This is because manually managing your teams’ leave:

• Takes a lot of time
• Requires all sorts of calculations (especially if you have people working part-time)
• Is prone to mistakes.

If you’re a new business, it’s likely that you’re thinking of using a holiday request form, so I’ve written this blog to help you know what to include and understand the pitfalls. 

And to make things easier for you from the get-go, I’ve also included a free holiday form template for you to download or copy. 

Or copy it below:

Holiday request form template – copy below

For the team member

• Name: Fill in your name 
• Date of request: Fill in today’s date 
• Line Manager: Fill in your line manager’s name
• Time off beginning on: Put the beginning of your time off in DD/MM/YY format 
• Time off ending on: Put the end of your time off in DD/MM/YY format 
• Time off length: Fill in the number of days off you’ll be taking out of your allowance (that means you’ll exclude weekends and UK bank holidays) 
• Type of leave: 
• • Holiday 
  • Funeral/Bereavement 
  • Compassionate
  • Parental
  • Jury Duty 

This request is subject to approval by a manager – this means you’re not to book anything before it’s been approved. 

For the manager 

• Approved by: Fill in your name – if the line manager is off, it can be approved by someone else 
• Decision: Write approved or denied depending on your decision 
• Reason for rejecting time off: Give your team members the reason why the time off has been rejected

Holiday requests forms – what they should include

Holiday request forms may seem like a simple formality, but there are certain elements they need to include. Our free holiday form template contains these already, but here's a reminder if you're building your own:

• Employee's name
• Date of request 
• Employee's line manager
• Time off start date
• Time off end date
• Time off length (how many days they're taking off)
• Type of request (holiday, compassionate, sick, etc.).

Having these in your holiday form will make it much easier to respond to requests.

And, as keeping a record of all time off requests important, it’s also worth adding a section where you can record: 

• Who handled the request
• Whether it was accepted or rejected.

Here’s my go-to method for manually handling holiday request forms at your business:

• Create a folder for all holiday requests — be sure to save every time you receive one via email (this could even be a folder in your email mailbox)
• Review the request, ask for more information if needed, and accept or reject it
• Record the dates of your employee’s absence in your own calendar 
• Add the dates to a spreadsheet (for example, an Excel holiday tracker), so that your team member’s allowance is recorded and updated at the same time.

Are holiday request forms your only option for managing time off?

Managing time off requests with holiday request forms is a great way to be organised, but it does have its pitfalls:

• It's time-consuming
• Mistakes are common (both in recording and calculation) and formulas can break
• Information is scattered across different places (email, calendar, drives and folders).

The problem with holiday forms is that, as the person responsible for approving leave, all responsibility sits with you: 

1. Inputting the request information
2. Calculating the time off
3. Recording the request
4. Communicating the decision. 

Every holiday request form comes with a set of sub-tasks. 

As a fellow small business, we realised this early on at Charlie and decided to build a better solution for managing holiday requests into our software. So now you can opt out of all the manual processes associated with holiday forms, and use an automated leave management system like Charlie instead. 

Why Charlie works better for small businesses than a holiday request form

Charlie’s a complete HR solution is designed to meet the needs of startups and small businesses, so it comes with leave management built in.

Charlie automates everything you’d otherwise have to do manually with a holiday request form.

With Charlie, your team members ‘self-serve’ and do all the data entry themselves when they submit a request. They can see how much holiday they have allocated and submit a request for. 

• Type of holiday
• Dates 
• How long they’re gone for.

All that’s left for you to do is approve or reject their request.

There’s no need to check calendars, as the software flags any overlaps (the system tracks all time off, not just holidays), and automatically updates and resets leave allowances.

Your team can view  all of their holiday requests (approved and pending) and cancel or modify them, so there's no need for you to do anything there either.

Charlie also adapts to different holiday policies and holiday years, so it works for every business. 

By simply having to approve or deny requests, Charlie removes the need for extra paperwork and manual calculations. The system sends automatic notifications when holiday requests clash, so it’s a great way to plan holidays for your team.

There's no need for you to cross-check calendars, as our software also provides an easy overview of your business’ leave calendar – everything you need for your small business in one unique place.

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Handling requests once your holiday form is up and going

Create a holiday policy

It’s important that everyone on your team is aware of any policies around holidays. Even though some are pretty obvious, it’s better to set clear expectations and leave no room for confusion or misinterpretation.

Here are some basic guidelines to think about and communicate before anyone on your team submits a holiday request form:

• Ask your team to request their leave in advance – generally, most businesses ask for at least two weeks' notice but you may want to make it longer, depending on the size of your team and volume of requests. 
• Set a restriction on how long a team member can be off – it can be difficult for a business to deal with someone being off for three weeks or more, so you may want to think about setting limits for holidays (this may be different for other types of leave).
• Make sure you remain flexible for team members who have to take time off unexpectedly – take it case by case when it's exceptional circumstances (this will also help you avoid unauthorised absences along the way).

You can also find out more about building your policy in our annual leave policy guide. 

Before we finish, here are some extra pieces of advice I’ve given to my customers over the years. They usually work wonders! 

• Ask your team to set out-of-office notifications on their email, so no business is missed and important messages are handled by someone else when they’re away — this also means they switch off properly and don’t have to check their laptops/phones.
• If your team works shifts, encourage them to work out last minute holiday requests between themselves and try to swap shifts.
• Be flexible. Try to accept that the odd unplanned day off will happen and, if for any reason it’s not possible to grant a request, give a detailed explanation. Perhaps also put in place holiday rollover so everyone gets to enjoy their leave.
• Finally, make sure team members take enough time off. The last thing you want is for someone to end up burnt out. You could even think about putting together an unlimited holiday policy to help with this.

Hopefully, you now have everything you need to deal with holiday requests and understand the pros and cons of holiday request forms for your business. If you’re looking to automate all of this to make your HR effortless, simply sign up for a free trial today.

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