While we want to treat everyone equally, the reality is, certain logistics can be impacted by team members who have kids. For example, PTO requests all coming in for the same period of time like Spring Break.

If you just let things happen, you'll likely find yourself in a situation you're unprepared for with an unhappy team.

Picture 5 of your 7-person team requesting off for Spring Break week. What do you do? You most likely can't say yes to everyone. If you don't head this off with a plan, you might be sitting a few weeks out with 5 of your team expecting to be off work that week.

This situation is true around major holidays regardless of child status as well!

Here are some suggestions for how to navigate this:

1. Know the times of the year where this is more likely to happen and set reminders to address with the team well in advance (families often plan over a year in advance for vacations).
2. Approve PTO for high-demand times based on performance.
3. Set-up a high-demand rotation: every other year half get SB, if someone gets SB one year, that don't also get Christmas.
4. Make this about high travel season management and not about whether or not someone has children or their marriage dynamic.
5. Set clear expectations on when a decision will be made on PTO approvals - needs to be reasonable, so people can book trips.

There is no perfect answer here, but not doing anything is definitely the wrong approach. Gather information from your team, look at PTO reporting - where are your hot spots in the past?), and then find a solution - be willing to adjust.

Chat soon!

Erin

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