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Managing employee Christmas leave

6 Nov. 2025

The festive period can be an annual challenge for managers, juggling employee holiday requests. Striking a balance between fairness, maintaining adequate cover and understanding the legal implications around Christmas leave is necessary to ensure a smooth process and happy workforce.  

We’ve put together a few tips to support you in this challenging period, including considerations and how to approach the process. 

1. Set clear policies and deadlines 

If you want to ensure you have a stress-free holiday management process the key is to communicate your policies in advance. This communication should be really clear to avoid any ounce of ambiguity amongst the team.  Here are a few tips: 

• Implement a Holiday Request Deadline: Set a date by which all requests for the Christmas period must be submitted. This allows you to assess your staffing needs and manage overlaps prior to peak holiday periods.  
• Establish Fair Approval Criteria: Outline how requests will be handled if too many employees ask for the same dates off. Common, fair methods include: 
• First-Come, First-Served: Encourages early booking. 
• Rotation System: Ensures that staff who worked last Christmas get priority for the time off this year. 
• Departmental Limits: Set a maximum number of people who can be absent from any one team at a time. 
• Communicate Blackout Periods: If your business has a peak time where leave cannot be taken (for example, the final week of December for retail), ensure this is clearly marked and communicated as early as possible. 

2. Encourage taking leave throughout the year 

To avoid everyone requesting similar time off, you should encourage staff to take regular breaks throughout the year. Regularly review what’s remaining of their leave and remind them of their remaining entitlement. This could be included in regular company wide communications to reach as many employees as possible consistently.  

3. Incentivise staff to work during the festive period 

If your business requires you to maintain skeleton staff over the Christmas period, consider offering non-contractual incentives. This could include:  

• A bonus 
• Extra day of annual leave to be used later (Time Off In Lieu),  
•  Festive meal for those working paid by the company 

Frequently Asked Questions 

How long is Christmas break for employees? 

The length of an employee's Christmas break is not set by law, but by your company's policy and their annual leave entitlement. 

• Mandatory Closure: If your company decides to shut down for a specific period (e.g., the days between Christmas and New Year's), you have the right to enforce employees to take annual leave to cover this time. However, you must give notice that is at least twice the length of the leave period you require them to take. For example, if you require five days of leave, you must give ten days' notice. 
• Statutory Leave Limit: While employees are entitled to a minimum of 28 days of paid leave (pro-rata for part-time staff), it is up to the employer to dictate when that leave is taken, provided minimum notice is given and the policy is fair. 
• Flexibility and Fairness: The "break" is often determined by how many annual leave days an employee chooses to use. Encourage early planning and consider flexible working arrangements to help staff manage their commitments without compromising business operations. 

Do you have to pay employees for Christmas day? 

This is a highly common question, and the answer often surprises people. According to Gov.UK, in the UK, there is no automatic legal right for employees to have paid time off on Christmas Day or any other Bank Holiday. 

• Statutory Entitlement: Full-time employees are entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks (or 28 days) of paid annual leave per year. 
• Bank Holidays and Your Contract: Whether an employee is paid for Christmas Day depends entirely on their employment contract. 
• In addition to Bank Holidays: The contract may state an employee gets 20 days' annual leave plus the 8 public holidays (including Christmas Day). In this case, the day is paid and is not deducted from their annual leave balance. 
• Inclusive of Bank Holidays: The contract may state the 28 days' statutory leave includes Bank Holidays. In this case, the employee is paid for the day, but it is typically deducted from their annual leave balance. 

Tip: Check your employment contracts and staff handbook. If staff are required to work on Christmas Day, the rate of pay (e.g., normal pay, time-and-a-half, or double pay) is also governed by the contract; there is no statutory right to enhanced pay for working Bank Holidays. 

For further tips, read our article on hiring and managing seasonal employees during the Christmas period.