With the COVID-19 pandemic coming up for its second anniversary and indications that the UK’s vaccination programme is finally paying off, there are two questions on everyone’s lips: “When can I go back to work?” and “When can I have a proper holiday?”

The two aren’t exclusive, of course, but HR personnel can surely be forgiven for being a little wary about that second question. After all, we’ve spent much of the last 18 months dealing with the longest case of ’empty desk syndrome’ that any of us can remember. Keeping our employers’ businesses ticking over through all this has required care and ingenuity. So we’re delighted to see our colleagues returning to the office, and we’re hoping to enjoy the pleasure of their company through the remainder of 2021 and on into 2022.

Be that as it may, 2022 is shaping up as a bumper year for enthusiasts of leave-taking. Long-term readers of this blog will be aware that we have shared an update on how employees can get maximum time away by scheduling their leave requests against public holidays.

The 2019 guide, for instance, showed how unusually-timed Easter holidays were enabling staff to leverage nine days’ leave into an 18-day late spring break.

62 days off?

2022 is even more of a holiday bonanza because of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June. HolidayPirates demonstrate how savvy employees can parlay 26 days of leave into a full 62 days off work, with nine- or ten-day breaks in January, May, June, August and December…and sixteen in April.

HR professionals who made it through 2020 and 2021 will need no reminder of the potential impact of absenteeism on this scale. Daily operations are affected, stress on other staff members increases, and absent employees may miss important developments, necessitating laborious orientation sessions on their return.

So it’s good to know that LeavePlanner has implemented a setting on its holiday calendar system which allows administrators to set a limit on the amount of leave a staff member can request at any one time. Better yet, it allows you to set quotas so that you don’t have too many staff members off at once.

LeavePlanner pricing starts at just £7 per employee per year. Start your free trial or give our service team a call on 01252 636 070 with any queries.