How do I plan my team's capacity around leave and holidays?
Capacity planning around leave works when holidays and booked leave come out of the plan before anyone books hours against it. PeopleMuster's resource allocation grid does that by design: each person is a row, each day a column, and approved leave shows as L and company holidays as H in the same cells you plan hours into.
Most capacity plans live in one spreadsheet while leave lives somewhere else. Your plan says Sara has 40 hours next week; the leave calendar says she's off Thursday and Friday. Nobody made a mistake, and the project still slips, because the two documents never met.
Start from available hours, never from headcount. Multiply your people's expected working day by the working days in the period, then take out company holidays and booked leave. On an 8-hour day, a 20-day month with one holiday and two days of leave leaves 17 days, or 136 hours, for that person.
PeopleMuster does those subtractions on the grid itself. Approving a leave request marks the days as L on the capacity plan straight away, and dates on the company holiday calendar appear as H. You plan hours into what's left. Four bands (Under, Partial, Full and Over) follow your expected working day, so an overbooked Tuesday stands out.
Group the grid by projects instead of people and you'll see which client loses hours when someone is away. A billable filter narrows it to client work. If you'd rather scan a list, the data table view gives the same numbers as rows.
Leave a margin for the absence nobody has booked yet. Sick days arrive without notice, and a plan with every person at Full on every day has nowhere to put one. Planning most days at 7 of 8 hours keeps an hour a day, five a week, for the unplanned.
Look at the grid at the moment of approval rather than at Monday's stand-up. You're best placed to see the gap when you're the one approving. A glance at the plan before pressing approve turns a surprise into a decision.
Related questions
Do public holidays come off the capacity plan automatically?
Yes. Every date on your company holiday calendar shows as H on the resource allocation grid. A holiday week looks shorter before anyone plans hours into it.
What does the plan show once leave is approved?
The approved days appear as L on that person's row the moment the request is approved. The planner sees the gap at once and moves the work to someone with hours free.
Can I plan capacity by project instead of by person?
Yes. The grid groups by users or by projects and switches between week and month. You also get an Allocation Timeline and a Data Table view of the same hours.
How much buffer should a capacity plan keep for sick days?
About one hour in eight is a workable starting point. Planning people at 7 hours of an 8-hour day holds back 5 hours a week each. Across a small team, that absorbs a sick day without replanning.