Staff not taking annual leave: what it signals

Key takeaways

Staff not taking annual leave is usually a sign that the business cannot cope without them. It is not a saving. Almost all UK workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, untaken leave builds a liability, and people who never rest make more mistakes and are more likely to leave.

• 5.6 weeks: the statutory paid holiday entitlement for almost all UK workers.
• 28 days for someone working 5 days a week.
• Untaken leave is usually paid out when an employee leaves.
• The cause is nearly always cover, not commitment.

What does UK law say about holiday?

GOV.UK states that almost all workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks' paid holiday a year, which is 28 days for someone working five days a week. Employers can include bank holidays in that total. There are limits on how much statutory leave can be carried into the next year, and workers must be paid for untaken statutory leave when they leave.

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Why do staff not take their leave?

Staff do not take leave when leaving feels worse than staying. In small in-house teams the commonest reason is that nobody else can do their work, so a week away means a week of backlog to return to.

• No cover: work piles up or stops.
• Workload: there is never a quiet week.
• Culture: managers do not take leave either.
• Sole knowledge: they are the only one who can do key tasks.

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What does unused leave cost?

Unused leave costs in three ways. It is a financial liability, because accrued statutory leave must be paid on exit. It raises the risk of fatigue and error; the Health and Safety Executive treats workload and rest as part of managing work-related stress. And it hides a fragility that will surface at the worst moment.

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How do you make leave possible?

Make leave possible by solving cover first and then expecting leave to be taken.

• Identify tasks that stop when each person is away.
• Document them and train a deputy.
• Arrange outside cover for specialist or high-volume work.
• Plan leave across the team at the start of the year.
• Review balances each quarter and prompt those behind.

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When is low leave uptake not a concern?

It is less of a concern early in the leave year, or where an individual has chosen to save days for a planned long break within the rules. It is a concern when the same people finish every year with days untaken and say they could not get away.

What is the liability in pounds?

Untaken statutory leave has a value that must be paid if the employee leaves. For an employee on £30,000, a day's pay is about £115, so ten untaken days is a liability of roughly £1,150 before employer costs. Across a team where several people carry leave forward, the figure reaches several thousand pounds, and it tends to crystallise at the worst moment: when a long-serving person resigns.

What do employers have to do?

Employers are expected to make sure workers can actually take their leave. In practice that means telling staff what they are entitled to, encouraging them to book it, and not creating conditions in which taking it is impossible. A policy that says leave must be used, combined with a workload that prevents it, does not meet that expectation. Check GOV.UK guidance for the detail of carry-over in your circumstances.

How do you plan leave in a small team?

Plan it at the start of the leave year, not as requests arrive.

• Ask everyone to pencil in their main breaks in the first month.
• Mark the periods when each role cannot easily be away.
• Agree who covers whom, and write the essentials down.
• Arrange outside cover for functions that cannot pause.
• Review balances at each quarter end and prompt anyone behind.

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What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see in accounts teams: one person has carried over the maximum leave three years running. They are regarded as the most reliable member of staff. They are also the largest single operational risk in the business.

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Annual leave checklist

Run this each quarter.

• Report leave taken against entitlement.
• Flag anyone below a pro rata share.
• Ask what stops them taking time off.
• Fix the cover problem named.
• Check your carry-over rules against GOV.UK guidance.

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Next step

Tell us whose leave is hardest to cover. We will suggest a cover plan in a 30-minute call.