The company’s vacation schedule for 2025

Vacation Schedule – an informational and analytical document that determines the order of granting annual paid vacations to company employees throughout the calendar year.

This document is mandatory for all employers regardless of the form of ownership or the number of employees, including individual entrepreneurs. The exception is companies located in active combat zones. For such companies, documentation can be simplified in accordance with Article 7 of the Law of Ukraine dated 15.03.2022 No. 2136-IX “On the Organization of Labor Relations under Martial Law” (rada.gov.ua).

The vacation schedule must include all employees of the company hired under an employment contract, including part-timers, remote workers, and employees with fixed-term employment contracts.

The preparation, approval, and adoption of the vacation schedule are regulated by Article 10 of the Law of Ukraine dated 15.11.1996 No. 504/96-VR “On Vacations” (rada.gov.ua) (hereinafter – Law No. 504), which states that:

“The order of granting vacations is determined by schedules approved by the owner or an authorized body in agreement with the elected body of the primary trade union organization (trade union representative) or another body authorized to represent the labor collective, and communicated to all employees. When drawing up schedules, the interests of production, personal interests of employees, and opportunities for their rest are taken into account.”

The legislation does not establish a standard form for the vacation schedule. Therefore, each company has the right to draw up this document in any form. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the norms of Law No. 504 and the requirements of the National Standard of Ukraine “Unified State System of Documentation. Unified System of Organizational and Administrative Documentation. Requirements for Document Formatting” (DSTU 4163:2020).

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ALGORITHM FOR PREPARING THE VACATION SCHEDULE

STEP 1 Survey employees within structural units and agree on their proposals for planning rest periods

STEP 2 Collect and summarize proposals from all structural units on granting vacations to company employees

STEP 3 Develop a draft vacation schedule by the HR department (or the person responsible for HR administration)

STEP 4 Sign the final version of the vacation schedule by the head of the HR department (or the person responsible for HR administration)

STEP 5 Approve the vacation schedule by the head of the primary trade union organization (or an authorized representative of the company’s labor collective)

STEP 6 Approve by the company head by affixing the appropriate “Approval Stamp”

STEP 7 Familiarize all company employees with the content of the vacation schedule

STEP 8 Effective from January 1, 2025

STEP 9 Amend the schedule in case of employee dismissal and hiring of new employees

FORMATTING THE VACATION SCHEDULE

The vacation schedule is formatted on the company’s general letterhead or on blank A4 sheets of paper.

When formatting the vacation schedule, it is necessary to consider that:

• the full name of the company in the vacation schedule is indicated in accordance with the charter or regulations of the company;
• the document type name – VACATION SCHEDULE, is printed in capital letters in bold font;
• the date and registration index of the vacation schedule are affixed on the day of its approval. The registration index of the vacation schedule is assigned according to the journal or electronic registration and monitoring card intended for the registration of internal documents;
• the place of drawing up the vacation schedule must correspond to the name of the settlement where it was actually drawn up;
• in the heading to the text of the vacation schedule, the year for which the vacation schedule is valid is indicated, for example: for 2025;
• the text of the vacation schedule is formatted as a table consisting of eight columns, which indicate:

1. Surname, initials of the employee
2. Position (profession) according to the staffing table
3. Type of vacation
4. Number of calendar days
5. Work period for which the vacation is granted
6. Planned vacation period
7. Actual vacation period
8. Note (for example, to enter information about the reason for postponing the vacation, employee dismissal, etc.).

It is advisable to systematize the surnames of employees and workers in the text of the vacation schedule primarily by the company’s structural units, and in non-structural companies – by their areas of activity. Therefore, the text of the vacation schedule is divided into sections, the names of which correspond to the names of structural units or areas of activity of the company. Within each section, the information can be systematized at the discretion of the management in one of the following ways:

• by the surnames of employees in alphabetical order,
• by the hierarchy of positions from the manager to the worker,
• by the period of planned vacations;
• the vacation schedule is signed by the head of the HR department (the person responsible for HR work in the company);
• the approval stamp consists of the following elements: the word “APPROVED” printed in capital letters without quotation marks and punctuation marks, the title of the position, signature, first name, and surname of the head of the primary trade union organization or an authorized representative of the company’s labor collective, the date of approval;
• after approval, the vacation schedule is approved by the company head. The approval stamp consists of the following elements: the word “APPROVED” printed in capital letters without quotation marks and punctuation marks, the title of the position, signature, first name, and surname of the company head, the date of approval;
• the note on familiarization of employees with the vacation schedule consists of the following elements: the words “Familiarized with the vacation schedule:” (printed without quotation marks), signatures, first names, and surnames, dates of familiarization. This requisite is allowed to be formatted on the reverse side of the last sheet of the vacation schedule.

In companies with a staff of more than 50 employees, it is advisable to provide an additional column “Signature and date of familiarization” in the text of the vacation schedule instead of the requisite “Note on familiarization with the document.”

If some company employees work remotely or are sick or absent from work for other reasons, they still must be familiarized with the vacation schedule under signature. The vacation schedule can be communicated to such employees in the manner agreed upon by the employee and the employer in the employment contract (agreement) – through the company’s electronic document management system, corporate email, Viber, etc. The fact of familiarization in this case is the receipt of a message from the employee about familiarization with the vacation schedule with the date and signature (preferably QES or EDS).

To enter information about granting vacations to new employees who will be hired after the approval of this document, it is necessary to provide several blank lines in each section of the text.