From January 2026, all holiday requests must be booked in days (not hours) using the BrightHR app.
To ensure we always have sufficient cover for the business, every holiday request requires approval from your manager. When reviewing requests, your manager will consider:
- Whether other team members have already booked the same dates
- Any potential disruption to business operations
Managers are required to approve or decline all requests within 14 days of submission.
Your manager will always try to accommodate your request wherever it is reasonably possible. To help with forward planning, we ask that you give at least 3 months’ notice when booking annual leave wherever possible. Our rotas are planned a minimum of 3 months in advance, so early notice greatly increases the chance of approval.
Key rules for 2026:
- Holiday will be approved on a first-come, first-served basis.
- Only one employee per store may be off on annual leave at any one time (except where specific manager rules apply – see below).
- Before submitting your request, please check the BrightHR calendar for existing bookings/conflicts in your store.
- Managers & Seniors: A maximum of 2 managers company-wide may be off at any one time. In addition, within the same store, a Senior and a Manager may not be off at the same time.
Restricted / Blocked Periods (extra restrictions apply): Annual leave is severely limited or completely blocked during the following key trading periods:
- Samsung Launch period
- Apple Launch period
- Black Friday week
- The whole of December (except company-closed dates, e.g. Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day)
During these periods, the “one employee per store” rule still applies and, in most cases, no annual leave at all will be granted unless there are exceptional circumstances and senior management approval.
New Starters & Probationary Period
- New employees are normally not permitted to take annual leave during their probationary period.
- For anyone joining during 2026, you may take annual leave during probation, but only up to the exact number of days you have accrued at the time of the Leave taking place. Example: If you have accrued 2 days, a request for a full week off will be declined.
- All such requests Line Managers must discussed with David for help with accrual calculations.
- No carry-over will be allowed for new starters – any unused accrued leave at the end of 2026 will be lost (Unless they start from October onwards).
Important: Do not book or pay for travel/accommodation until your leave has been formally approved in BrightHR. The company cannot accept responsibility for any financial loss if you book before approval is granted.
We strongly encourage everyone to have at least 50% of your 2026 entitlement booked by 30 June 2026.
Your manager reserves the right to automatically book remaining annual leave days if too many days remain un-booked in any quarter, to ensure entitlement is used fairly and within the holiday year.
Please note: No annual leave can be carried over into 2027 and no payment in lieu will be made for unused entitlement at the end of the 2026 holiday year.
If you have any questions about the policy or need help using BrightHR, please speak to your manager (or David in the case of manager questions).
Thank you for your cooperation