Comments on: It seems like the whole office is off in December. Can anything be done about it?

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 05:50:39 +0000

I’ve had this idea for years. I suggested that vacation should start be used by your anniversary date. It’s a little more simple than trying to coincide with birth months. The only downside is that a lot of companies calculate credits to their balance sheets and it creates somewhat of an accounting hassle having to carry over unused vacation to the next fiscal year.

But, I still think it’s better than having to cram your vacation into the end of December.

By: Jon Jennings

Jon Jennings — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:13:43 +0000

If you’re going to use birth month then a minor tweak would be to have your vacation year FINISH with your birth month. That way, if you’re using up days at the end of the ‘year’ you can treat yourself to a couple of days of doing something special for your birthday.

The extra problem with aligning everybody’s vacation years is that they’re usually also aligned to the corporate year. So people are running around madly trying to hit their numbers before year-end but the office is barely functioning cos half the key people are on vacation.

By: Stewart Brock

Stewart Brock — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:59:38 +0000

I worked in a local authority which used this system and it works well, except that if your birthday falls in, say, February, you are much less likely to want to take leave then than say if your birthday is in August.

A similar system involves your leave year starting on the same date as your first day of employment, and also avoids having to make part-year calculations of leave allowances. In my view a slightly better system than birthdays, so long as you remember your employment start date.

Maybe an even better option would be to let the employee choose any date in the year. People with winter birthdays don’t lose out and you still get a good spread over the year.