Every December, perfectly sane companies descend into spreadsheet warfare over Christmas leave, but the real casualty isn't productivity – it's when your best developer flips a coin to decide their holidays and starts job hunting in January.
After a Monday morning disaster where half her design team vanished without warning and three client presentations hung in the balance, one Manchester HR manager discovered that fixing leave management isn't about fancy tech – it's about finally admitting your Post-it note system isn't working.
After testing 15 different leave management platforms and implementing systems for over 200 UK businesses, I've seen every promise, every failure, and every "revolutionary" feature that turns out to be anything but.
All UK workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks' paid annual leave (28 days maximum for full-time workers), but major reforms that took effect in April 2024 have fundamentally changed how holiday is calculated for millions of irregular hours and part-year workers.
