35+ Sample Employee Vacation Request Forms

What Is an Employee Vacation Request Form?

If an employee would like to have a time off from work, one of the documents that must be filled-out is an employee vacation request form. This particular document is used to make sure that the vacation of an employee is properly recorded from the very beginning. An employee vacation request form contains a number of information ranging from the basic information of the employee up to the specifications of the vacation being requested. Simply, it is necessary for an employee vacation request form to be used so that all involved entities can have a reference to look into whenever the attendance performance and vacation leave usage of a particular employee needs to be reviewed, documented, or evaluated.

Purpose Of Creating an Employee Vacation Request Form

If they feel that their bosses truly encourage them to take a vacation, 80% of Americans are most likely to use the vacation leaves that they are entitled with (source: ustravel). To help you relay or show your support to your employees when it comes to matters involving vacation, it is important for you to develop an employee vacation request form. This document can reflect your willingness to consider vacation requests especially if there are no constraints involving operational requirements and workforce scheduling. Here are some of the other reasons why it is essential for a business to create an employee vacation request form:

To remind the employees about the policies and regulations that they should follow when it comes to taking a time off from work: Without a strong policy for vacation leave request, filing, and usage; employees can easily decide to not work on certain days without giving prior notice. The usage of an employee vacation request form can help professionals remember that there is a standard procedure that they should follow if they want to use any of the leaves that they are entitled with.To properly document the vacation leave of an employee: The vacation leaves of your employees should be properly and accurately recorded in their employee time sheet forms. Aside from this document, you can also use an employee vacation request form to track all the approved and declined leaves of any of your employees. This can make the documentation of employee attendance and the creation of payrolls easier.To ensure the quality of the business’ dynamics especially when it comes to workforce scheduling and employee engagement:  Your employee vacation request form, when made and used accordingly, can help you promote a healthy relationship with your workforce. This is very important especially if you want to have a workplace culture that prioritizes the overall health of the employees while ensuring that the business is in good condition.

Basic Employee Vacation Request Form Content

When making your employee engagement strategy, you have to look into the overall experience of your employees while they are employed to your business. This includes the time that they are given to enjoy a vacation. Even if vacations are given to employees for the betterment of their overall well-being, you have to make sure that you are still making decisions that can positively affect your business in many more ways than one. With this, we would like to suggest for you to make an employee vacation request form. Below are the standard information that you can usually see in a simple employee vacation request form.

The basic details of the employee: Know the employee who is requesting for a vacation. Getting necessary details about the employee can ensure the human resource department that they are dealing with the right person and that they are getting vacation leave credits from the right employee record.The reminders about the filing of the vacation request: It will not hurt if you can include a thing or two about the proper filing of vacation requests. Reminders should be short, informative, and clear so you can maximize the space or layout of your employee vacation request form.The date/s of the requested vacation leave: It is imperative for an employee vacation request form to contain the specific date/s in which an employee will be away for a vacation. Getting this information can give the management the ability to review operational needs and other variables that can support the decision on whether a vacation leave will be approved or not.The identification on whether the vacation leave is paid or unpaid: Not all vacation leaves are paid. This is the reason why you have to be particular about this matter when developing the content of your employee vacation request form. Presenting this detail can help the HR department know the amount of salary that an employee should get for a particular payroll in consideration of his or her approved vacation requests.The space where the human resource department can specify on whether the vacation request has been approved or not: Just because an employee has submitted an employee vacation request form does not mean that the request will be accepted or approved. Allocate a space where the decision for the vacation request’s approval will be placed so that all the entities who will look into the document can be well-guided about the matter.

7 Steps for Making a Detailed Employee Vacation Request Form

Vacation leaves are given to ensure that employees can use some time to have a break and focus on the development of their work-life balance. Since the operations of the company can be affected with the absence of an employee who will be on vacation, it is important for the management to be strategic in terms of balancing the process requirements of the company and the schedules of the remaining workforce in the workplace. To begin your endeavors of standardizing a process for using vacation leaves, we highly-recommend you to use an employee vacation request form. Here are the simple steps that you can follow if you want to make a detailed employee vacation request form:

Step 1: Use an Employee Vacation Request Form Template for Formatting Purposes

The request for leave of absence template that you will use play a vital role when it comes to ensuring the efficiency of your employee vacation request form’s format and overall presentation. Select from a number of employee vacation request form templates so you can have one that best fits your formatting requirements, needs, and demands.

Step 2: Put the Header of Your Company on Top of the Form

To make the employee vacation request form truly your own, make sure to develop a company header or use an existing one. Place the header of your business on the uppermost part of the employee vacation request form to ensure that all stakeholders can be aware of the document’s purpose of usage.

Step 3: Ask for the Details of the Employee Who Is Requesting For a Vacation

Get the name of the employee who would like to request for a vacation leave. In some cases; the employment or contract type, the department where the employee is deployed, the daily tasks and assignments of the employee, and the individual’s employee number may also be asked. Seek as much information as you can depending on the management systems that you are using for the recording of your employees’ vacation leave credits.

Step 4: Get the Necessary Details About the Request for Vacation

Make sure to record the date when the vacation leave request has been filed especially if you have a rule about the duration of time in which a notice should be given prior to the actual vacation of the employee.  Aside from this, ensure that there is a precise and accurate specification of the dates when the vacation leave will start and end. Ask your employee to write the date when he or she is expect to return to work after the vacation. For purposes of time keeping and salary computation, it may also be necessary for the number of work hours that an employee requested for a time off to be included in the vacation request form’s content.

Step 5: Specify the Existing Vacation Leave Balance of the Employee

Creating an employee vacation request form can help you have a reference whenever there is a need to review the remaining vacation entitlements of the employee and other related concerns. Make sure to present the current vacation leave balance of the employee as well as the number of vacation leave credits that he or she will still have should the request get approved. Doing this can help your business fix any record discrepancies and misunderstandings about vacation leave credits in the fastest time and most effective way possible.

Step 6: Insert a Few Reminders About Vacation Leave Requests

Include excerpts from the handbook of your employees so that certain policies about vacation leave requests can become more memorable. There is no need to put every single thing about your regulations in the form since it is expected that you have already provided all the necessary supporting details and documents to your employees that can make them fully-aware of what to follow and abide to.

Step 7: Allocate Signature Blocks for the Employee and the Entities Who Will Review the Vacation Request

To finalize your employee vacation request form, put signature blocks at the bottom part of the document. Let your employee sign the form once he or she is already done writing all the information that he or she needs to provide. Do not forget to use a number of signature blocks for the human resource department and the manager or supervisor of the employee.

Advantages of Using a Comprehensive Employee Vacation Request Form

When disseminating employee questionnaires, it is essential for you to use at least one that deals with the concerns and comments of your employees about your policies on vacation requests and other related matters. You can also seek for their opinions and suggestions with regards the usage of an employee vacation request form. If you want your workforce to have a more positive outlook about the request form’s usage, make sure that you will present a number of benefits that can convince them to do so.  To help you with this, a few of the advantages of using a comprehensive employee vacation request form that you can share to your employees and other stakeholders include the following:

Using an employee vacation request form can lead to the proper documentation of the employee’s work attendance: An employee vacation request form can come in handy not only for the employees who would like to take a vacation but also for the human resource personnel who will take care of the employee’s attendance record. In terms of counting the days where an employee needs to be paid, an employee vacation request form can be beneficial when it comes to proper salary computation. Hence, it can enable the human resource department to avoid giving an employee in vacation any unnecessary pay cut.Having an employee vacation request form can make it easier for the management to know and measure all necessary information about an employee’s request for vacation: An employee vacation request form can be used to identify any changes that need to be implemented so the vacation of an employee will not affect the performance of his or her team. Even if the employee vacation request form will be answered only by one employee, the information that he or she will provide can help the business evaluate the timeliness of the prospective vacation in relation to the needs of the department and the organization.Developing an employee vacation request form can make the processes of vacation request and approval more transparent and efficient: With the appropriate usage of an employee vacation request form, the minds of employees can already be conditioned that not all of their vacation requests will be automatically approved. This is very important especially if the company wants to show how transparent, fair, and objective they are in terms of assessing an employee’s request for vacation.

Dos and Don’ts for Creating the Best Employee Vacation Request Form

Whether an employee is asking for two days of vacation or a week of paid leave, it is very important for you to use an employee vacation request form. When making the said document, you have to let yourself be aware of certain guidelines that can help you have a highly-usable output. Here are some of the things that you must keep in mind if you are already planning to develop your company’s own employee vacation request form document:

Do’s

1. Do Use a Template That Can Help You Organize Your Employee Vacation Request Form’s Content Presentation 

Some companies develop their employee vacation request form from scratch. There is actually nothing wrong with this especially if you feel confident about your skills on document development. However, templates are there to give you a jump start for the creation of an effective employee vacation request form. Hence, do not overlook the availability of this reference whenever you are tasked to make the employee vacation request form that your organization will use.

2. Do Select a Simple Language That Can Make It Easier For Your Employees to Provide the Information That You Need

Do not complicate things. By using a language that is easy to understand and that your employees can surely relate to, you can make sure that you can get all the important information that the management and the human resource department will be needing to process the request for an employee’s vacation.

3. Do Make Your Employee Vacation Request Form Relevant 

For your employee vacation request form to be taken seriously by your employees, you have to make sure that the details of the document are aligned with your employee vacation policies. Aside from this, you have to show to your employees that you are truly using the document. With this, never forget to include signature blocks where the people who will either approve or decline the request may affix their dated signatures.

Don’ts

1. Don’t Include Your Company’s Vacation Request Protocols, Rules, and Policies in the Employee Vacation Request Form

The vacation leave entitlements of your employees and the details about vacation requests should be written in their employment contract and not on the employee vacation request form that you will be making. You have to make a vacation request form as concise, precise, and brief as possible so that the human resource department can efficiently and easily use it. If you want to remind your employees about a few things related to vacation requests, you can include a note for them to refer to the employee’s handbook or the contract that they have signed.

2. Don’t Copy All the Content Presented in a Pre-Formatted Form Template

It is a fact that we recommend you to use a suitable template for the effective formatting of your own employee vacation request form. However, it is important for you to take note that not all the generic items that you can see in a pre-formatted template can be applicable to your business’ vacation request policies and requirements. Hence, you have to be keen when looking into all the details of the template that you will refer to. Doing this can enable you to make sure that the content of your output will not overlap with the existing regulations and rules of your organization.

3. Don’t Use Any Threats That Can Hinder Your Employees to File or Request for a Vacation 

Your employee vacation request form should not be overwhelming to the point that it already scares your employees to have time off. Be professional and formal when making your employee vacation request form as this can help you make your employees feel more valued, supported, and appreciated.

Do not feel pressured or intimidated when filling up an employee vacation request form. This document is used by the human resource department for reasons that can surely benefit you as well. Having this document can enable them to easily execute any changes that needs to be done – from rescheduling or adjusting the shift of other employees so that the operations of the company will still be effective and efficient even if you are not around up to fixing your attendance performance so you can be paid accordingly especially if you have used your paid vacation leaves. With all of these, we hope that we have helped you appreciate the availability and actual usage of an employee vacation request form.