Planning operations during holiday periods

Ahead of the holiday period, you, as a manager, need to plan holiday leave and staffing well in advance. This makes it possible to balance operational needs with employees' right to holiday leave. During extended periods of consecutive leave, it is especially important to consider how staff absences may affect the workload and the organisation's ability to perform its tasks sustainably.

General information about holiday leave 

• Employees are required to take a minimum of 20 days of annual leave during the year. 
• They also have the right to a continuous period of four weeks' leave during June-August, unless there are exceptional reasons to decide otherwise.
• When employees remain in service during the holiday period, you, as a manager, must ensure that the regulations on daily and weekly rest are complied with. This includes a minimum of 11 hours of daily rest and 36 hours of uninterrupted weekly rest. 
• You can view the number of remaining holiday days for yourself and your employees in PA-webben (Primula). 

Holiday leave regulations are governed by the Swedish Annual Leave Act (Semesterlagen) and the Terms and Conditions Agreement (Villkorsavtalet). Karolinska Institutet also has local agreements relating to holiday leave. 

Work environment and prioritisation during reduced staffing 

When staffing levels are reduced, priorities may need to be reviewed. Therefore, you should assess tasks, deadlines, and expectations to ensure the workload remains reasonable for those in service. Pay particular attention to work environment risks that may arise during periods of low staffing, such as solitary work, high workload or insufficient day-to-day support. 

Well-thought-out staffing and holiday planning help to ensure both operational continuity and a healthy, sustainable work environment throughout the holiday period. 

Read more: 

• Guidelines on Solitary Work
• Occupational Safety and Health

During holiday periods, it needs to be clear who is responsible for different matters within the operation and who acts as the contact person at different times. As a manager, you are responsible for ensuring that cover is in place for managerial roles and other key functions, and that responsibilities are clearly communicated to deputies, employees and relevant external contacts. 

If you will not be approving or authorising matters during your holiday leave, please ensure that deputies are appointed in the relevant systems (for example, in UBW) and that they have sufficient knowledge to carry out the tasks. This applies to coding, authorisation and delivery checks. 

Also, make sure communication channels function during periods of absence, for example, by using shared functional mailboxes, clear out-of-office replies, and call forwarding where needed. This helps reduce the risk of cases being delayed or becoming unclear during the summer period. Clear responsibilities and well-defined contact channels help maintain a sustainable work environment and demonstrate respect for holiday leave - both your own and that of others. 

• Add a substitute in UBW (in Swedish)
• Set up an out-of-office reply
• Refer your phone calls

Ahead of the holiday period, please ensure that invoices and other administrative processes are handled promptly, so that cases do not remain pending over the summer. 

To enable the half-year financial close to be carried out correctly, all supplier invoices - particularly invoices exceeding SEK 100,000 - must be coded, approved and authorised in accordance with the applicable cut-off date of 2 July at 12:00. During the summer, adequate cover therefore needs to be in place throughout the entire invoice process, including both invoice approval and authorisation. Please also note that, as an authorising manager, you cannot hold the role of invoice approver at the same time. 

Economy

Remember to plan for the period after the holiday as well. Please allow time for handover, follow up on decisions and a shared restart of the operation.