September and August are the two most popular months for UK employees to take annual leave, according to Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals research, which means small businesses are routinely running with reduced capacity for weeks at a time. For a team of five or ten, one or two people away isn't a scheduling inconvenience, it's a genuine coverage problem.
Why this hits small teams harder
In a large organisation, someone being on leave usually means their workload gets redistributed across a bigger pool of colleagues, each absorbing a small, manageable share. In a business with a handful of employees, the same absence often means one or two people picking up an entire role's worth of extra work, on top of their own, for two or three weeks running. That's the point at which "cover" stops meaning a slightly heavier week and starts meaning genuinely stalled projects, slower client response times, and a level of pressure that's hard to sustain even for a short period.
The instinct is often to just push through it, on the basis that it's only temporary. The trouble is that a small team pushed too hard for even a few weeks tends to produce exactly the kind of mistakes, missed deadlines and burnout that create bigger problems than the original absence ever would have.
The options, and why most of them are worse than they look
Asking existing staff to simply absorb more work is the default, and the cheapest option on paper, but it's rarely free. Overtime costs add up, and the productivity dip from an overstretched team often costs more in delays and errors than it saves in wages. Hiring a permanent replacement for a temporary gap makes little sense either, you'd be creating a role you don't actually need once the person returns. Traditional temping agencies can plug the gap but typically come with a slower turnaround and less continuity, since a temp brought in for three weeks rarely has the context to genuinely cover a specialised role well.
The option most SMEs haven't properly considered is flexible, rolling support that can scale up specifically around known absence periods, someone who can be brought in for the exact weeks needed, briefed properly, and stood down again once the team's back to full strength. That requires a hiring model built for genuine flexibility rather than an all-or-nothing permanent commitment.
What this means for your team
If summer leave (or any other predictable absence, parental leave, notice periods, seasonal peaks) regularly leaves your business short-handed, it's worth planning coverage the same way you'd plan any other capacity decision, ahead of time, not as a last-minute scramble in the week someone's already on a plane. A model like FLEX, built around rolling monthly capacity rather than a fixed permanent contract, is specifically designed for exactly this kind of predictable, temporary gap.
FAQ
Why do small businesses struggle more than large ones when staff take leave? Large organisations can spread an absent employee's workload across many colleagues. Small teams often have only one or two people who can realistically absorb the extra work, which creates a much heavier burden per person.
Which months see the most annual leave in the UK? CIPP research found September was the most popular month for UK staff to take leave, with August close behind, meaning many businesses face reduced capacity across both months.
Is hiring a temp through a traditional agency a good solution for short-term cover? It can work, but turnaround times and lack of role-specific context often limit how effectively a short-term temp can genuinely cover a specialised position.
What's a better alternative to overloading existing staff during busy leave periods? Planning flexible, rolling support ahead of known absence periods, rather than waiting until the gap appears, tends to protect both output and staff wellbeing more effectively.
How far in advance should I plan cover for predictable leave periods? As early as you know the gap is coming. Coverage arranged weeks in advance, with proper briefing time, is consistently more effective than anything arranged after the absence has already started.
Sources
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