With a third of UK employees having more than half their holiday allowance left to take, e-days the absence intelligence company, has found that 65% intend to use this up before the end of the year. With less than a month until Christmas, this raises some significant concerns over staffing resources for the remainder of the year.

Data gathered by e-days highlights that UK employees will either choose to extend their Christmas holiday, or work shorter weeks in December. With fewer than six weeks remaining of the working year, organisations need to prepare for 40% of their staff being absent in the build up to Christmas, making end of year targets and customer obligations difficult to meet.

Looking ahead to 2021, businesses will need to plan for the 35% of staff who are planning to roll over their holiday allowance into the new year, presenting similar resourcing challenges.

Steve Arnold, CEO, e-days comments: “This kind of data shows us that there are real operational challenges for businesses over the next few weeks, after an already difficult year. Businesses need to plan for absenteeism and look ahead to 2021 to see what the ‘debt’ or resourcing impact might look like.

In addition, in a year where mental health issues have been on the rise, the problem to business is deeper than just staffing issues. Time to relax and recuperate needs more than a day or two here and there, and stress levels too are likely to increase among ‘working staff’. At this time more than ever, staff leave needs some real consideration and planning.”