First-come, first-served holidays have limitations

One of the contributors to your discussions online advised that the fairest way to allocate leave was on a ‘first-come, first-served’ basis (Personnel Today, 4 April). I would agree, but with some caveats.

We had this very situation in our team some years ago (where everyone had children and wanted to take the school holidays). We brought in the first-come, first-served principle. One of the team then slammed in her holidays for the whole year, and nobody else got a look in.

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The fairest way is to allow this, but insist that only, say, a maximum of three weeks can be booked at a time, and/or that they cannot be booked more than three months in advance.

Marie James
Management recruitment team leader, Royal Mail People and Organisation Development Services