The holidays bring plenty of joy, but for employers, they can often bring headaches. This time of year, many managers are fielding multiple vacation requests. Handle these requests wrong, and you can end up causing internal friction among your sales reps and prevent your company from properly serving your clients.

Abe Turner, a senior performance consultant for Insperity, says managers can approach holiday PTO requests by following a few simple tips. We share his guidance in this issue of Promotional Consultant Today.

1. Put your PTO policy in writing. According to Turner, putting a formal policy in place will prevent unpleasant surprises for employees and help you better handle holiday time-off requests. Some things to think about include how long each employee can be out at a time and how far in advance they must request PTO. Be sure to document all vacation requests in each employee’s personnel file, Turner adds.

2. Create a vacation calendar. Whether you use a paper or digital calendar, this is an invaluable tool that everyone on your team can use to see who is out and when. When everyone can see vacation dates in one central spot, it reduces surprises and shifts responsibility to employees to plan better. Turner says you can open the calendar for the year at once or divide the year into halves or quarters. The goal is to get employees signing up for vacation time as early as possible.

3. Regularly communicate about time off. There’s a lot going on during the holidays, making it even more important to communicate upcoming vacations to your team. Turner recommends sending emails to your team ahead of major holidays and reminding them about policy and approval procedures.

4. Empower employees to problem-solve. Rather than choosing which vacation requests have the most merit, encourage your sales reps to resolve any vacation conflicts that may arise. Turner says most employees will naturally work out any issues among themselves.

5. Incentivize employees to work with each other. If you find that some employees do not want to switch their vacation dates to accommodate a colleague who may need the time off for an unexpected reason, Turner advises offering incentives to make it worth their while. You could offer them a floating holiday or pay them a bonus, for example.

6. Allow for roll-over vacation time. Another idea for handling holiday vacation requests is to allow flexibility, when possible, for rolling over vacation time. Some states prohibit use-it-or-lose-it PTO policies, so double check laws in your state.

7. Maintain objectivity. It’s important that your team members understand your approval of vacation time is not based on favoritism or discriminatory factors. Turner says it should be as simple as it sounds: Those who sign up first for vacation are the ones who get their dates approved.

With the holidays quickly approaching, your sales reps may want to take vacation at the same time. While you don’t want to be a Scrooge and deny them a well-deserved break, you also need to be sure the business runs smoothly. By considering the points above, you can be sure you address PTO requests with fairness and flexibility.

Compiled by Audrey Sellers

Source: Abe Turner is a senior performance consultant for Insperity and an adjunct marketing instructor for Lee College.