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Absence & Leave

Sickness & Unplanned Leave

Unplanned leave is any short notice leave that has not been booked in advance.

It happens, and that's OK. As we, by definition, did not plan for it, our plans will probably be affected by it.

  1. Follow the HR guidelines on communicating unplanned absence.
  2. Additionally:
    • Send a message using Teams to the entire department to inform them that you are not working. This will help the team to rapidly re-plan any work as required.
    • Ensure that any meetings you have are rescheduled or that the organiser knows of your absence.

Engineers

You should always commit and push changes to your working branch at the end of the working day, including descriptive comments about the work in progress. You can never guarantee you'll be in a position to pick up where you left off the next day!

Annual Leave & Planned Leave

Warning

If you are planning to miss a Daily Scrum for any reason, you MUST make sure that:

  • you provide an update of your WIP to the team in advance
  • the Sprint Board is updated with your progress in advance

Requesting Annual Leave

Before requesting annual leave, check the planner for the dates you want to book off.

A first come, first serve approach is applied, so booking early is advised, especially for longer periods of absence.

We need to make sure that each of the delivery teams are able to continue working in your absence, so if other members of your team are already booked off, then you need to have a conversation with your team about the impact this might have. If you determine that the team can continue effectively with the remaining resource you are welcome to submit the request. Use the comments field in YouManage to detail the outcome of the conversation.

Engineers:

If you are on on the support rota during the period that you wish to book off, you should contact the Support Manager and assist them in adjusting the rota (for longer periods of absence) or finding cover (for shorter periods).

  • You must take responsibility for ensuring your request is feasible. DO NOT LEAVE THIS TO YOUR MANAGER TO WORK OUT.
  • The earlier you book, the easier it will be to plan for your absence
  • The Longer your absence period is, the more advanced notice you should give, as a guide you should aim to give AT LEAST 2 x the booking period. (e.g. 2 days off - 4 days notice, 2 weeks off - 4 weeks notice).
  • If there are meetings during your planned absence you must notify the meeting organiser(s). If you are integral to the meeting you should help to reorganise, if you are not then ensure that you work with the organiser to prepare and communicate any required input in advance. This includes all sprint meeting ESPECIALLY THE DAILY SCRUM.

Christmas Period

Christmas period bookings will not be accepted until later in the year, when we will have a clearer understanding of the anticipated workload and resource availability during that period. First come first serve does not apply, as this often yields unfair results.

Specific details of how to submit requests will be communicated with the team when the time comes. Usually around late September.

Please do not request annual leave over the Christmas and New Years period via YouManage until this communication has been made.

Preparing for Planned Absence

Generally, you must ensure that anyone you work with regularly or are likely to be working with around the time of your leave is aware of your planned absence.

Specifically, ensure that each of the following are performed:

  1. When your annual leave request has been approved,
    1. Ensure that your team are aware of this as soon as possible
    2. Take proactive steps to organise and perform any re-planning necessary
    3. Put the leave in your calendar, mark it as out of office
  2. Before the sprint(s) in which your annual leave occurs:
    1. If you are going to miss sprint planning, ensure that your capacity is recorded in advance or request a team member to do so for you.
    2. Ask the team to provide an update on the sprint plan on your return
  3. At the start of the sprint(s) in which your annual leave occurs:
    1. Ensure that your capacity is adjusted during planning
    2. Ensure that the sprint work is planned around your absence, especially where work depends on yourself.
  4. The day before your leave
    1. Set your out of office in Outlook and Teams
    2. Remind your team that you will be on leave and when you will be returning.
    3. Provide the team with an update of your work in progress and provide a handover if required.
    4. Engineers: you must ensure that any WIP code is committed to your working branch and pushed to the remote, including descriptive comments about the work in progress.
  5. Support Engineer: If you are currently acting as Support Engineer when your leave starts, ensure that you provide a clear and complete handover to the Support Manager and the engineer who is covering during your leave.

Returning from Planned/Unplanned Leave

Work with your team to get yourself up to speed. You are responsible for organising this. You must prioritise this and ensure that you understand the current sprint plan and progress, and that you catch up on or reschedule any meetings or events you missed.