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Work vacation - new managers policy (1 Viewer)

elguapo07

Footballguy
Due to some recent restructuring I report to a new manager. We get an email last week from our new manager with this long email and word document outlining his vacation policy.  Basically he needs his entire staff to submit ALL of their days by the end of January. His rationale is that this will ensure we have sufficient coverage throughout the year and during key time periods - summer and the holidays.

I find this a bit excessive to ask your entire staff to plan out all their vacation days so early in the year. His email went on to say while he will allow for some flexibility in regards to changing days under certain circumstances, he made it clear that once your days are in, that's it.  

Am I being unreasonable to think this is a doosh move by my new boss?  How doss your vacation policy with?  I've been with the company for 25+ yrs and this is the first manager I've ever heard of at my company that does this.  

 
Dumb

Our company president at my last job tried that, my boss just told me to put something down but he wouldnt hold is to it

I kind of see them point if everyone tries to take the same week off, but it should be used for planning only and not be rigid 

Can you ask HR or his bosses if he can even do that? 

 
Year out is unreasonable. 

My old office's policy was no less than two months in advance, getting peers and superior to sign off on the missing days to ensure coverage.

Worked well. Always some positioning and conversation needed for shared school holidays like spring break, but generally worked well. A year is insane.

 
Yeah just tell hr
I thought of that but I'm not the type to run to HR.  I was warned by people that used to report to him that this guy is a clown, think the shark move is to transfer to a similar group within the division as I lose any battle with him since he outranks me. 

 
We are asked to put in a leave request well in advance of significant vacations.  They like to have the request a few months in advance, at least.  I always give at least 6 month notice.  It is almost always granted.  The boss will look at upcoming research field trials to make sure they are covered.  There have been instances of vacation requests being denied even if requested well in advance, but that is rare and is frowned upon by management.  I've never had that happen to me, and would push back if it did.  The general message from on high is that if you have an employee who is so critical, or a role in a trial with so little redundancy, that you can't approve leave requested 6 months in advance, you are not building your organization properly.

For a day or two here or there a few week's notice is generally the norm.

 
This would suck.

For a week or something we give a month or so.

So you have to know if you want to take a random Wednesday or Friday off  8 months from now?  STOOPID

 
Unnecessary legislature. If you request days when there isn't sufficient coverage because others already beat you to it then tough ####. If coverage is that great of an issue then this is optimal and the only policy that really makes much sense given the circumstances. 

 
How many people report to your boss?  Have everyone submit the same days off for the year.
I'm one of 6 direct reports and then some of his direct reports manage people so I'd say 25 people overall are subject to his cutting edge mgmt style. 

 
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Unnecessary legislature. If you request days when there isn't sufficient coverage because others already beat you to it then tough ####. If coverage is that great of an issue then this is optimal and the only policy that really makes much sense given the circumstances. 
Coverage is only an issue if 3 out of 5 people on a team take the same days off during a busy time but that rarely happens as teams coordinate theirs days off.  From talking to people that used to work for this guy, I guess he was hired from a competitor and views himself as the next great manager at our company.  Consensus is that he is a joke and yet he is somehow still allowed to run amuck. 

 
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I know you said you aren’t the type to go to HR - I’m not either but would you rather go now and get it reviewed ahead of time for everyone or wait until he denies one of your requests to change and have to make it all about you?  I’d talk to some of your co-workers and jointly approach HR about it.

 
For week or longer vacations I think it is reasonable to give a few months notice but having to list every vacation day for the year is BS.   What;s so hard about denying a request for a day if you find you won't have adequate coverage?

 
Part of a manager's job is figuring out how to deal with being short staffed. Asking for vacation plans for the whole year is crazy. If I knew of vacation plans I'd turn those in now but otherwise I'd just tell him that you don't have our plans finalized yet and you'll give him plenty of notice when you do.

 
Coverage is only an issue if 3 out of 5 people on a team take the same days off during a busy time but that rarely happens as teams coordinate theirs days off.  From talking to people that used to work for this guy, I guess he was hired from a competitor and views himself as the next great manager at our company.  Consensus is that he is a joke and yet he is somehow still allowed to run amuck. 
I mean, that's certainly normal. I work on a small team too and while we get stretched thin when we are down to 2 as l oong as it's not a busy period we function just fine. And no one is crazy enough to request off that time of year anyway.

Unnecessary legislature. Only fuels negativity within the team. 

 
Tell him that, to be fair, he needs to post his own vacation for everyone to be aware of when he will be available.

The manager is obviously creating rules to cover his own inadequacy to manage.  He should request that if anyone is planning any long vacations, to give him a heads up.  That way, he can see if others who may be covering might be planning to be off at the same time.  If his request is the only way for him to manage his staff, then he is not really a capable manager - unless he works at a nuclear missile launch site and only has two staff members.

 
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I'm not in management (thank god), but I don't see why this is so hard.     If you have a team of 4 and you need at least 2 people on at all times, shouldn't it just be first come first get regardless of when you submit your days.   If you really need a certain week off, you better get it in early.   If you wait to the last minute, if the week is open, have fun.  If its not open b/c 2 people are already off, then sorry, you can't have it;  you should've submitted your request earlier.   

 
My wife work(ed) at a hospital.  Every December we would have to plan out our vacations for the following year.  Not really that big of a deal unless you're the type who likes to travel at the last minute.  

 
Tell him that, to be fair, he needs to post his own vacation for everyone to be aware of when he will be available.

The manager is obviously creating rules to cover his own inadequacy to manage.  He should request that if anyone is planning any long vacations, to give him a heads up.  That way, he can see if others who may be covering might be planning to be off at the same time.  If his request is the only way for him to manage his staff, then he is not really a capable manager - unless he works at a nuclear missile launch site and only has two staff members.
Nailed it.

 
I'm a supervisor for a certain DOD entity and I'm required to ask for it.  I just tell my employees 1) put something down 2) they work at least two weeks in December, and 3) if everyone asks off for the same day the person who asked last is stuck covering.

 
Just put in a week each month and tell him that you will only actually use what is allocated to you.

 
I certainly don't do that.  Submit your request whenever you want.  However, it behooves people to submit as early as possible because a conflict with another employee's time off request can result in my denying your request.  That's really all you need to do.

 
I'm not in management (thank god), but I don't see why this is so hard.     If you have a team of 4 and you need at least 2 people on at all times, shouldn't it just be first come first get regardless of when you submit your days.   If you really need a certain week off, you better get it in early.   If you wait to the last minute, if the week is open, have fun.  If its not open b/c 2 people are already off, then sorry, you can't have it;  you should've submitted your request earlier.   
Exactly this.  If two people submit the same day/week ON the same day, whoever has seniority gets priority.  It's pretty simple, equitable, and everyone understands.

 
I don't think asking for this in itself is an issue but how he handles it.  It's not a big deal to kind of prep everyone to start the discussion but it shouldn't be set in concrete.  Has anyone talked to the guy to see how stringent he will be about changes (assuming it doesn't lead to being short)? 

It's not the way I have done it and if you have open communication within your group it really shouldn't be hard to ensure everything is covered when people go on vacation.  As long as the work is covered who cares when people take vacation.  Good communication solves this problem without issue.

 
We have to wrap up vacation "bidding" (seniority based) by the end of April- for fiscal year June-June. 

My family can't understand why spontaneous vacations don't happen for me unless I'm real lucky.

 
Due to some recent restructuring I report to a new manager. We get an email last week from our new manager with this long email and word document outlining his vacation policy.  Basically he needs his entire staff to submit ALL of their days by the end of January. His rationale is that this will ensure we have sufficient coverage throughout the year and during key time periods - summer and the holidays.

I find this a bit excessive to ask your entire staff to plan out all their vacation days so early in the year. His email went on to say while he will allow for some flexibility in regards to changing days under certain circumstances, he made it clear that once your days are in, that's it.  

Am I being unreasonable to think this is a doosh move by my new boss?  How doss your vacation policy with?  I've been with the company for 25+ yrs and this is the first manager I've ever heard of at my company that does this.  
I think it's dumb but i have seen it happen before.  Especially in sections where there needs to be a certain number of people for a team to function.  

 
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Great having a boss that literally couldn't care less what we do as long as we get our stuff done.  I try to let him know full weeks by about a month in advance I guess.

 
Great having a boss that literally couldn't care less what we do as long as we get our stuff done.  I try to let him know full weeks by about a month in advance I guess.
This is the way all bosses should be and how I handle my direct reports.  As long as you get your work done I really don't care if you take a 2 hr lunch or have to go run an errand during the day.  The key here is hiring good people that are professional and don't take advantage of the flexibility.  There are times when you may have to work 50 hrs a week and there are times when 30 hrs will do.  If your employees are quality people you can treat them like adults and they get their work done.

 
Since when does this guy get to set his own policies and ignore company policy? 

There's got to be some women that will be affected by this. Just wait for one of them to go to HR. If they're anything like the women I work with they would have already been to HR. 

 
I manage 30 people and sort of get this - although a year out is too much IMO. I ask for about 4 - 6 months out just to get a general idea. There's 3 or 4 times a year that really need attention. We recently changed from unlimited sick days and limited vacation to now limited sick days and unlimited vacation and it's chaos. I also have 4 managers I report to. Fun.

 
I manage 30 people and sort of get this - although a year out is too much IMO. I ask for about 4 - 6 months out just to get a general idea. There's 3 or 4 times a year that really need attention. We recently changed from unlimited sick days and limited vacation to now limited sick days and unlimited vacation and it's chaos. I also have 4 managers I report to. Fun.
I should've chosen a career with unlimited vacation. :kicksrock:

 
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I should've chosen a career with unlimited vacation. :kicksrock:
One of those things that sounds nice in a sound bite but is a freaking nightmare. It has more rules than frequent flyer miles in the 90s. You can't take more than 2 weeks in a row, no exceptions - and we had a lot of people from India saving all their vacation for one long trip home than several throughout the year. You have to be back 20 days before taking another day, no exceptions. Of course there are exceptions (and exceptions to the exceptions) and manager's discretion. I've literally had people come to me and say just tell me how many days I can take! They couldn't handle all the ambiguity. 

 
When I first got out of college and was working at Ford I was in a department of 30 people.  We covered all the dealers in the whole country and Canada.  Our schedule was such we need to plan out where everybody was going to be way in advance.  So there is no way we could have 5-6 people off the same weeks in the summer. Everybody seemd to like the system.  Of course after it was planned you could trade with another person if they were willing.

In January if you had 5 weeks or one week vacation you had to pick your weeks.  Top seniority picked first and got their first two weeks on the first round then it went down the list. Second rd went the same way.  I only had one week at the time so I got the scraps.

I got 2 weeks my second year.  I did not mind it because I could plan way in advance if I wanted to go somewhere.  Every year I took the second week in September and went to Mexico or Florida as the prices dropped dramatically when school started.

 
I manage 30 people and sort of get this - although a year out is too much IMO. I ask for about 4 - 6 months out just to get a general idea. There's 3 or 4 times a year that really need attention. We recently changed from unlimited sick days and limited vacation to now limited sick days and unlimited vacation and it's chaos. I also have 4 managers I report to. Fun.
You have 30 direct reports and you report to 4 different people yourself? Does everyone just report to everyone in this company?

 
One of those things that sounds nice in a sound bite but is a freaking nightmare. It has more rules than frequent flyer miles in the 90s. You can't take more than 2 weeks in a row, no exceptions - and we had a lot of people from India saving all their vacation for one long trip home than several throughout the year. You have to be back 20 days before taking another day, no exceptions. Of course there are exceptions (and exceptions to the exceptions) and manager's discretion. I've literally had people come to me and say just tell me how many days I can take! They couldn't handle all the ambiguity. 
I've said this before here in some thread but if/when my company switches to unlimited I plan to inform my manager that I will continue taking the same amount I'm allocated now.

 
You have 30 direct reports and you report to 4 different people yourself? Does everyone just report to everyone in this company?
Everyone reports to one person on site (for day to day stuff) and one person off site (for HR type things). Some managers over specialty areas report to one or two more people related to those areas.

 
You have 30 direct reports and you report to 4 different people yourself? Does everyone just report to everyone in this company?
You forgot to put the cover page on the TPS report.

Did anyone tell you about the cover page?

 
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That sounds pretty nutty. 

While my current job is great in that regard (we can take a vacation day with two weeks notice as long as the person who doesn't have to cover you isn't already off that day), I miss the job I had in my 20s where I could go in that morning, decide to take the afternoon off, and they were cool with it. 

 
I had a manager that required half of our vacation days to be on the calendar right away.  I just didn't comply.  I never plan my vacations  (Maybe every few years I have one that I know of in advance).  I look to see when there are days that aren't requested by others and plan a month or so ahead.

 

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