Free Excel & Google Sheet Employee Vacation Planning Template

Define your operational needs, communicate them to your teams and ask your employees to plan their vacations in advance (or to avoid planning them during specific periods of the year).

If team members can’t take PTO on the same dates, make sure everyone knows how vacation planning works in the company. Organize meetings to schedule vacations while respecting everyone’s availability and supporting business needs.

To avoid vacation-related conflicts, frequently communicate and remind employees of the organization’s vacation management policy. Define how many days in advance vacations must be submitted for review and approval. Ensure team cohesion so that vacation days are coordinated beforehand in order to minimize rejection of vacation requests.

Remember that once a leave request has been approved, you should never cancel it – even when faced with unforeseen organizational circumstances or in the case of poor vacation scheduling. Take the time to review each request in advance so that every employee can enjoy their time off to the fullest.

PTO management software offers every employee self-service access to their time bank and vacation requests with just a few clicks. Team vacation calendars are also available to gain visibility on vacation planning. Vacation approvals can be made in a matter of seconds and calculations are automated to avoid conflicts, validation delays and multiple email exchanges.

Despite your best efforts to efficiently plan employee vacation, you will be faced with unplanned or emergency absences at some point or another.

Make sure you have a close-knit, flexible team that will be able to remain productive when unplanned absences occur. Avoid overloading your teams and reorganize the distribution of tasks according to emergencies and current needs. If the situation turns into absenteeism, KPIs and HR reports can help you identify the situation and resolve it strategically.

It’s essential to have a shared vacation schedule among your team, department or organization. This schedule should be accessible to all employees, and sent out by bulk email at the start of the summer vacation period, for instance.

Don’t hesitate to refer to your organization’s vacation policy to remind all your employees of the best practices they should apply when asking for PTO. You can also encourage your employees to communicate their vacation dates to colleagues in advance and to schedule absence messages in order to avoid requests and misunderstandings when they are away.