# Workplace Surgery: The unlimited holiday trap

- **Episode:** [176](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/176.md) (2025-03-04)
- **Type:** workplace-surgery
- **Tags:** unlimited-holiday, time-off, ambiguity, policy
- **Time:** 41:58–45:55 (start 2518s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/176?t=2518](https://truthliesandwork.com/176?t=2518)

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[41:58] Leanne Elliott: We don't like ambiguity. We don't like uncertainty. We don't know how to deal with it, how to react to it. It's just not, it's not great. The intention behind an unlimited holiday policy is really, I get it, I get it. But again, it's one of those things that it's not really an unlimited holiday policy, is it? Because if it was really an unlimited holiday policy, I'm just, I'm on holiday all the time
[42:20] Elaine Smith: What are you going to do about it?
[42:21] Leanne Elliott: It's not, is it? Do you know, we were talking to Ed Sweet-Williams about this. Do you remember in his episode, Alan and Candy Kittens? At the time, I don't know what it is now, but at the time had an unlimited holiday policy, and they were struggling with the same challenges that some people were taking— more their concern was some people were not taking enough holidays, were not building in that rest and recovery time. The fact is, we have a statutory number of holidays in the UK for a reason, to make sure people get that rest and recovery time. That is, that not just the simple thing as part of your policy? You have to take a minimum of X number of holidays, or actually rethinking the whole policy and kind of going, do we want unlimited holiday or we just want to call it 30? Would that everyone be happy with that? It's hard if you're a middle manager because you've, you've not put in this policy by the sound of it, and you've probably not got the, the power to overrule it. But I think you're well within your rights and really responsibilities as a middle manager to go to your senior leaders and say, these are the problems I'm seeing. This is the impact it's having. This, I've spoken to my team and we actually think that this would be a better solution. And ultimately, the people that are maybe taking more holidays, well, as long as they're still hitting all their performance measures, as long as they're still delivering the work they need to in the time that they've got available to them, that, that is what the policy allows. So, you know, it's talking to people about why aren't they taking their holidays? Is it because they don't feel able to deliver the outcomes in the time that they've got, that it does disturb their productivity, that they just feel bad about taking a holiday?
[43:54] Elaine Smith: Mm-hmm
[43:56] Leanne Elliott: We often see that as well with people who, who are new to the business, might be reluctant to take holiday. It's as much about having those one-to-one conversations with your team to understand why people feel comfortable to take more leave and why they're not. And then taking that to your managers and saying, I know this policy was put in with the best of intentions. I think it needs more clarity. I think it needs more guidelines, or I think actually it needs to be scrapped and replaced by this. It's totally understandable. It's very common from what I've heard with other organisations that have an unlimited holiday policy. This is just a bit of snagging. It's a bit nitpicking. It's about figuring out what's working, what's not, and how to make it better. And I think that's, as we've just said, that's management 101, isn't it? What's working, what's not, and how to make it better
[44:35] Al Elliott: Yeah, absolutely. And you've got your own team, so you could just speak to your team and go, right, well, look, it's in theory unlimited, but let's all agree that we're going to take a certain number of days in, in this team. This is how we do things around here. Um, and just agree it. Um, And I think, I think Leanne's right. It's the problem with unlimited is that there's always gonna be someone with the biggest cigar. There's always gonna be someone who's going to take more time off. And then that just puts— we talked about last week, um, the guy who came in when I worked in an office, the guy who came in, did 2 hours and more sales in 2 hours than the rest of it. We, you'd have thought that would rising tide. Didn't. It just made us feel really resentful. So yeah, there's, there's a, there's 2 parts to this. There's how do we manage unlimited, um, holiday time? And then there's All right, if that's the expectation, if that's like the barrier, that's what the company has said, then potentially you can implement a different policy in your team and just keep it quiet. I'm not saying go out there and say, this is not the policy, this is now company policy, but it's your team, you know, just make it how you want to. Okay, Leigh, question number 3, the HR battleground. HR professional caught in the middle of a company war
[45:43] Leanne Elliott: Fight!
[45:44] Al Elliott: Fight, fight, fight. So my workplace has become extremely polarized over a recent company decision to eliminate flexible working hours for certain departments
[45:54] Elaine Smith: Mm-hmm