Help with childish colleagues

glitterycloud

Hi everyone,
I work in a small office, there are only 7 of us 1 day worker and 6 shift workers, working alternate days and nights, my office is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week. We are experiencing problems with getting our holiday entitlement. For the past few years we have had a roster in place where names have been picked out of a hat, if you are top of the roster you get to choose when you have your leave throughout the year and then the second placed person goes and so on. This i felt was really unfair to those who were left at the bottom of the roster and had to make do with what was left to take their holiday - normally all the winter months.

Things go better last year when this roster was withdrawn and we have been left to behave like adults and book leave with consideration of others.
There are 6 of us bidding for 30 days each holiday a year.

Well, it seems i work with children as the holiday planner has been nearly filled for the whole year already! With particular people taking extreme amounts of leave and not thinking of others. Looking at the holiday planner there are no full weeks left! I have booked 2 weeks off in sept but that is all it seems i am going to get as we are only allowed one person off at a time.

My boss is now thinking of introducing a system where by in Jan we only have from 01 Jan - 31 Jan to book our 2 weeks off- what!!!
How do i know if and when i will want 2 weeks off, what if i want 1 week or 3 weeks?? I have been told if i dont want to book 2 weeks then its my own fault if i get left out

Does anyone have any other ideas about how to control the holiday planner and ensure everyone is happy??

Conor_3

The system your boss is proposing is what many companies do. You submit the holidays you WANT to choose when to take and then any you've not put down you kind of take a hit or miss with later on in the year.

Perhaps you should be a bit quicker next time..

bandraoi

That sounds like there aren't enough staff to cover you all taking your 30days holiday leave a year.

How many hours are you each meant to work in a year?
How many hours are there in the year and how many people need to be there for each hour?

glitterycloud

Is it normally that all bids go in then at the end of the proposed month the boss will produce a roster with all the leave on it or is it first come first serve during the prosposed month?
colleageues here only think for themselves and what they can get thats why im wondering what goes on elsewhere

glitterycloud

there are 6 of us working 2 day shifts then 2 night shifts, we need 1 person here of a night but at least 2 during the day, we do struggle with covering sickness and leave but always manage with the reliable few doing the overtime and covering. There has always been the attitude of helping eachother out and having allowances for others aswell - until recently and it seems that most are now out for themselves and what suits them instead of majority.

glitterycloud

i sound a bit off - i dont mean to be but i am one of the reliable few, ive just done 20 hrs overtime last week and am covering tonight, spose its just one of those moments where you cant please everyone!!

bandraoi

Well if you were all to work the typical 7.5 hr day, 5 days a week, 37.5 hours a week, 52 weeks a year with 9 bank holidays and 30 days leave, you would be working 1657.5 hours each, or a total of 11602 man hours.

In a year there are 8760 hours, with a second person there for 7.5 hours during the day you get 11497 hours.

Basically you almost need to schedule it so there is always someone on leave. That's going to make the leave system a vicious source of arguments whatever happens.

glitterycloud

wow your good with numbers!!!

~Beanie~

One place I worked at, we had to choose all our holidays for the next year in November of the previous year - how was I supposed to know that early when I wanted off?

We had a list of staff in seniority order - 1st named person chose their main fortnight, then the 2nd person on the list chose their main fortnight etc. Once all main fortnights were done, the list went round again for the next week and so on, until all holidays were down on the list. If the person who had the list 1st didn't want two weeks together and only chose 1 week, that was tough, they weren't allowed to book two seperate weeks.

Everyone was entitled to a fortnight off over the summer - if you have 7 workers then that is 14 weeks so as long as someone doesn't mind 2 weeks in September, they should all fit in over June July and August.

louisehj

I work for a major call centre. Our leave can be booked upto 13 months in advance. If we dont do it as soon as is possible its unlikely to be available. I have always had to book my hols like this!

bestpud

I agree, this is quite a common way of 'allocating' leave, unfortunately.

You were optimistic in thinking people would be considerate imo! Things like that almost always brings out the worst in people. :rolleyes:

My oh was always cheesed off about this in his last job and it stems from him thinking everyone has the same sense of fairness he has. When it comes to the workplace and getting entitlements, most don't! Or if they have it, it seems to disappear once the need to compete takes over!