Easter is just around the corner, and as an HR manager in a busy enterprise, you’re likely swimming in holiday requests. Schools are out, there’s a long bank holiday weekend, and nearly 27% of UK adults plan to take a holiday during Easter 2025. No wonder your employees are eager to book time off!
At the same time, many businesses are gearing up for a surge in customers (in fact, retail footfall can spike by over 25% on the Thursday before Good Friday as shoppers stock up.) Juggling everyone’s leave requests while keeping operations running smoothly is a delicate balancing act. How can you keep your staff happy with their Easter holidays and ensure you’ve got enough people working during this critical period?
In this guide, you’ll learn how to manage staffing and holiday requests around Easter in a way that’s fair, efficient, and keeps your business covered. Easter staffing doesn’t have to be an HR nightmare – with a bit of planning (and the right tech), you can make it through the holiday weekend with both your workforce and customers smiling.
6 staffing mistakes businesses make during Easter
Even the best HR teams can slip up during peak holiday seasons. Here are six common Easter staffing mistakes to watch out for – and tips on how you can avoid them:
- Waiting until the last minute to plan – Leaving rotas to the eleventh hour is a recipe for chaos. Consider recycling previous years’ Easter schedules as a template to save time, or use a tool like elementsuite, which schedules staff up to 4 weeks in advance.
- Underestimating Easter demand – Treating Easter like a normal week is a big mistake. Many businesses see customer spikes during the weekend. If you don’t forecast this surge, you risk understaffing and overwhelmed employees. Use sales data or a workforce management tool to anticipate peak hours and ensure you schedule enough people to meet the rush.
- Approving time off unfairly – First-come, first-served might seem fair, but it can backfire if the same proactive people always get Easter off and others never do. On the flip side, denying every request is awful for morale. Avoid playing favourites by establishing a clear holiday policy for Easter (e.g. rotate bank holidays across the team throughout the year). Communicate the policy well in advance so everyone knows what to expect – transparency prevents resentment.
- Poor communication of schedules – Miscommunication can turn Easter scheduling into a mess. If someone’s time-off request slips through the cracks, or a shift change isn’t conveyed, you end up with gaps on the shop floor. Relying on paper schedules or clunky email chains makes things worse. Instead, use a centralised scheduling system that updates in real time. With a modern mobile-first system, staff can check the latest rota on their phones and get notified of changes instantly – no excuses for “I didn’t know I was working Easter Monday!”
- Having no backup plan – Pretending that nothing will go wrong is a mistake. Easter is notorious for last-minute call-ins. If you approve too many holidays without backup, you could end up desperately calling around for replacements on Easter morning. Always have a contingency plan: keep a list of on-call staff or volunteers willing to work if needed. It’s better to be safe than sorry when key staff disappear right before a busy Easter brunch service!
- Not accounting for Easter Sunday closures and reduced trading hours – A lot of shops across England and Wales shut completely on Easter Sunday due to trading laws. On Easter Monday, many retailers adopt reduced “Sunday-style” hours. If you’re not planning around these closures, you risk underutilising staff or making it harder for them to meet contracted hours. Make sure your workforce system accounts for site-specific operating hours and helps redistribute shifts across fewer working days. With elementsuite, for example, you can automate workload balancing and redeploy staff across the weekend to ensure fairness and compliance – even when store hours are limited.
By sidestepping these common pitfalls, you can set the stage for smoother operations.
Managing last-minute Easter holiday requests
No matter how much you plan, you’ll likely face a flurry of “Can I get tomorrow off?” requests as Easter weekend nears. (Fun fact: A YouGov survey showed that many people plan Easter trips pretty late – around 10% decide in the very week of travel). Handling these last-minute holiday requests requires tact and a solid process, but it can be done fairly.
First, check your policy: do you have a cutoff date for holiday requests around Easter? If not, consider setting one in the future to encourage earlier notice. In the meantime, evaluate each last-minute request on its merits. Is the employee crucial to Easter operations, or can you manage without them that day? If you’ve planned well and have sufficient cover, granting a late request could boost employee goodwill. But if you’re already stretched thin, you may need to (gently) say no.
Communication is key here. Respond promptly to last-minute requests through your official channels – ideally via your HR system or scheduling app. Let the person know you’re considering their request and when they’ll get an answer by. If you have to decline, explain the reason (e.g. “we’ve hit the limit of people who can be off over the bank holiday weekend to still run the store”). Whenever possible, offer alternatives: maybe they can take another nearby day off, or swap with a colleague. Using a tool like elementsuite’s Staff Scheduling software can make this easier by showing who’s available to swap and tracking approvals. Systems like this even allow employees to propose shift swaps on a mobile app for manager approval, making everyone’s life easier.
Real-time schedule management during Easter
Even with a rock-solid plan, Easter can throw curveballs – sudden sick calls, a rush of customers, or new restrictions. That’s why real-time schedule management is your secret weapon during Easter. In plain terms, you need the ability to adapt on the fly and make quick staffing adjustments as events unfold.
Start with visibility. During the Easter period, keep a close eye on attendance and business metrics in real time. If your workforce management dashboard shows an unexpected spike in absences on Good Friday morning, you can react immediately. Or if sales/footfall data (from your POS or foot traffic counters) indicates an unanticipated mid-day surge, you might extend some shifts or ask a couple of part-timers to come in for extra hours. Modern workforce management tools like elementsuite give you live insights into both staff availability and demand, so you’re not flying blind.
Next, make sure any changes you make reach your staff immediately. Posting a revised rota on the breakroom wall won’t cut it in the middle of a busy Easter Sunday when workers in industries including retail, hospitality, restaurants, and more, are often full to the brim. Instead, leverage mobile tools. With a few clicks, you can adjust schedules and push notifications out to your team. For example, if someone calls in sick, you might use the system to broadcast an open shift alert to all qualified employees. The first person who accepts gets the shift, and everyone’s app updates accordingly – all within minutes.
Lastly, empower your managers (or yourself) to make real-time decisions by setting guidelines ahead of time. Decide on questions like: up to how many extra hours can we ask staff to work if needed? Who has authority to green-light overtime or bring in temp workers on the spot? Having these boundaries in place means when a situation arises at 7am on Easter Monday, your team can act fast without waiting for approvals through a chain of command. With the combination of pre-planning and responsive tech, you’ll handle whatever Easter throws your way – in stride and in real time.
Cross-location staff deployment strategies during Easter
If your company operates multiple locations or outlets, Easter staffing becomes a team sport across the network. One store might be short on Easter Sunday while another has a couple of extra hands-on duty. Cross-location deployment is a clever strategy to ensure all sites are adequately staffed by redistributing employees where they’re needed most during Easter.
You can also create a relief pool: a list of versatile employees who are trained to work across different locations. For example, an experienced barista from one café outlet could temporarily work at a busier café location over the Easter weekend. Cross-training is key here – ensure your staff have the skills and knowledge to step into another site without intensive retraining. If you haven’t already, invest in upskilling so employees can handle a variety of roles (as a bonus, this boosts their engagement and growth). Scoffs Group is a great example, see how Scoffs use elementsuite to support their staff to take shifts across different sites here.
Logistics matter too. If someone is covering at a different location, make it seamless: provide clear reporting instructions, ensure the receiving manager knows about the arrangement, and consider covering travel costs or offering a stipend for their flexibility. Using a central workforce management system makes this much easier – you can view and manage schedules for all locations in one place, rather than juggling separate spreadsheets per site. That way, deploying a person from Store A to Store B is as simple as clicking and dragging a shift, with all managers in the loop.
Real-time communication during Easter
During a hectic Easter week, communication can make or break your staffing plan. The difference between a well-coordinated team and utter chaos often comes down to how quickly and clearly you get information out to your frontline workers. Real-time communication is a must – and thankfully, in 2025, we have the tech to do it right (no more phone trees or hoping everyone checks their email in time).
Go mobile-first: Your workforce is likely glued to their smartphones (who isn’t these days?), so meet them where they are. A mobile-first HR technology approach ensures that every important update – whether it’s a shift change, an urgent help request, or a reminder about the holiday policy – reaches employees via their phones instantly.
Keep it centralised and documented: One mistake to avoid is letting all Easter scheduling comms happen through ad-hoc texts or WhatsApp messages to individual managers. Sure, it feels quick, but it can become a tangled web where messages get lost and there’s no record of who agreed to what. Instead, use your scheduling or communication platform so that all updates are in one place. When John swaps his Easter Sunday shift with Jenny, and you approve it in the app, both of them get a confirmation and you have a digital paper trail. No misunderstandings, no “but I told my supervisor I couldn’t come in” mix-ups – it’s all tracked.
Contingency planning for Easter
“Hope for the best, plan for the worst” – that old adage could have been written about Easter staffing! Even with perfect planning, you should prepare for the unexpected. Contingency planning means thinking through those nightmare scenarios before they happen, so you have a Plan B (and C) ready. It’s extra work up front, but you’ll thank yourself if something crazy happens – and even if it doesn’t, you’ll feel more confident going into the weekend.
Start with the most likely issues: staff shortages. We’ve already noted that call-outs tend to spike during Easter. So ask yourself, if three people called in sick on Easter Sunday, what would I do? Maybe you’d tap into an on-call pool (do you have one defined?), or split shifts among the remaining team, or even have managers step in to cover customer-facing roles. Figure out a few realistic backup options and line them up now.
Next, consider operational surprises. What if that Easter sale is twice as successful as forecast and you need to keep the store open later? Do you have the authority (and budget) to approve overtime on the spot? It might be wise to pre-authorise a certain amount of overtime or flex hours for the weekend so managers can extend shifts or add coverage without red tape.
Don’t forget safety and wellness contingencies. Easter events can mean bigger crowds and longer hours, which can be taxing on staff. Plan for extra breaks, provide meals or snacks for those working long days, and make sure everyone knows to stay hydrated and take breathers – especially important in hospitality and retail where it gets hectic.
Lastly, loop your team into these contingency plans. Share a brief rundown of “if X happens, here’s what we’ll do.” It reassures staff that management has a handle on things, and it might encourage them to proactively help. For instance, if they know you have temps on standby, a full-timer might volunteer to come in instead if needed, to help the team. A culture of we’re in this together goes a long way.
Post-Easter performance analysis
Once the last chocolate egg has been given out and the Easter rush subsides, it’s time for a well-deserved breather. But for you as an HR or operations leader, there’s one more important step: post-Easter performance analysis. Think of it as an Easter aftermath debrief – a chance to learn what worked, what didn’t, and how this can be useful for the ups and downs that are sure to come over the Easter school holidays!
Start by gathering the hard data. How did your staffing levels align with actual demand? Dive into your reports: sales figures, footfall counts, service metrics, and of course, your workforce stats. If you used a workforce management system, pull up the analytics on things like overtime hours used, number of shifts swapped, absence rate during the period, and so on.
Next, get qualitative input. Talk to your frontline managers – those in the thick of it – about how the Easter plan played out. Did they feel they had enough support? Were there any close calls or frantic moments due to scheduling? What did employees say or how was morale? You might find out that, say, the team really appreciated the free pizza on Easter Monday when they all worked late, or that communication on Good Friday morning could have been better. Some companies send a quick survey to staff, asking how they felt about the scheduling fairness and if they had any issues. This feedback can be gold for refining your approach.
Finally, document your findings. It’s tempting to move on as soon as Easter’s done, but take time to jot down notes while it’s fresh. Update your staffing templates or playbook for Easter with any adjustments. Perhaps you discovered that cross-location staffing was a lifesaver – note which locations paired well. Maybe your mobile communication strategy prevented a disaster – highlight that success and plan to invest even more in it. By keeping a record, you ensure that next year’s HR team (which might still be you, or could be new folks) won’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Checklist for successful Easter staffing
Before you hop off to implement your Easter plan, here’s a handy checklist summarising key steps to successful Easter staffing and holiday request management. Use this to ensure you’ve covered all your bases:
- Plan and communicate early: Publish your Easter shift rota well in advance and remind employees to submit time-off requests by a set deadline. Early visibility reduces last-minute surprises.
- Forecast demand: Review last year’s Easter sales/traffic and use forecasting tools to predict staffing needs. Adjust shifts to match peak times (e.g. extra coverage on Good Friday afternoon).
- Fair holiday policy: Establish a clear policy for approving Easter leave (rotate popular days off, or allow part of the team off each day). Communicate it to all staff to manage expectations.
- Leverage scheduling technology: Use a centralised staff scheduling system (accessible via mobile) to manage shifts, swaps, and requests. Ditch the paper and spreadsheets – automation will save you hours and headaches.
- Enable mobile communication: Ensure managers and staff have a way to instantly communicate schedule changes or urgent needs (such as a mobile HR app or group messaging platform tied to your HR system). No one should be “out of the loop” during the holiday rush.
- Cross-train and share staff: Prep a list of employees who can work across different locations or departments if needed. Cross-training staff gives you flexibility to move resources to the busiest areas on the fly.
- Prepare a backup plan: Have contingency options ready for unexpected absences or surges – on-call staff, temp agency contacts, or overtime approvals. Everyone should know who to contact or what protocol to follow if things change suddenly.
- Take care of the team: Holidays can be stressful – show appreciation to those working Easter. Little gestures (like a catered lunch, or allowing a slightly earlier finish if possible) go a long way. A happy team is a productive team!
- Review and learn: After Easter, debrief with your team and analyze how the plan held up. Note any adjustments for next time, so each year’s Easter staffing gets more efficient and employee-friendly.
By checking off each of these items, you’ll set up your organisation for a smooth and well-managed Easter period. It might not be completely stress-free – but it will certainly be more manageable and rewarding when you see both operations and employees thriving.
Conclusion
Managing holiday requests around Easter is undoubtedly challenging, but with proactive planning, clear communication, and the right tools, you’ve got this! The key is to balance empathy for your employees (yes, they deserve a break) with the needs of your business (customers still need service). By implementing the strategies above – and leveraging solutions like elementsuite’s workforce management, staff scheduling, mobile HR, and even AI for HR for smart forecasting – you can turn Easter from a logistical headache into a showcase of your HR savvy. So as you head into the Easter weekend, take a deep breath knowing you’ve prepared for anything. And if you need a helping hand or a more advanced system to support your efforts, don’t hesitate to reach out for guidance.
Contact us to learn how elementsuite can help you simplify holiday scheduling and keep your business running egg-cellently (yes, we went there) all year round. Happy Easter and happy scheduling!
