Managing Holiday Staff Cover - Keeping Quality High When Key People Are Away

Keep Calm - if you can!

Holiday season in care homes can feel like trying to conduct an orchestra where half the musicians keep disappearing for a week at a time. You know everyone deserves their break—and you want them to have it—but maintaining your usual standards with a rotating cast of cover staff and agency workers requires more planning than most of us would like to admit. So how do you keep things running smoothly without turning yourself into a human scheduling spreadsheet? 

Start Planning Early (But Not Too Early)

The temptation is to sort out summer holiday staff cover in January, but experience tells us that's often a mistake. People's plans change, circumstances shift, and what looked perfect in the depths of winter might be completely unworkable by June.

A better approach? Start the conversation in March, but don't lock anything in until April (too late for this year, but worth bearing in mind for 2026). Give people time to think, discuss with family, and come back with realistic requests. One manager told us she learned this the hard way: "I used to pride myself on having the rota sorted by February. Then I'd spend the next four months constantly reshuffling

when people's plans changed."

Create a Skills Map for Staff Holiday Cover Planning

Not all absences are equal. Losing your activities coordinator for a week is different from losing your most experienced night carer. Before anyone books anything, map out your team's key skills and identify where you'd be most vulnerable.

This isn't about labelling anyone as indispensable—it's about being realistic. If you've got three people who can confidently handle medication rounds and two of them want the same week off, you need to know that in advance, not the day before they leave.

Build Relationships with Reliable Agency Staff

The best holiday cover isn't found in July—it's cultivated throughout the year. When you find agency staff who fit well with your residents and understand your routines, keep their details and try to book them for regular shifts even when you don't desperately need them.

Think of it as an investment. A care assistant who knows that Mrs. Thompson prefers her tea weak and that Mr. Davies gets anxious if his routine changes is worth their weight in gold when your regular team member is on a beach in Spain.

Prepare Handover Notes That Actually Help

We've all seen handover notes that say things like "resident requires assistance with personal care." Well, yes—but what kind of assistance? How do they like things done? What are their particular preferences or anxieties?

Encourage your team to write handover notes as if they were explaining things to a friend who's never worked in care before. Include the little details: "Janet likes to brush her own teeth but needs someone to check she's got all the toothpaste off" or "Joseph gets worried about his medication if you're running late, so just pop your head in to say you'll be with him in five minutes."

Plan for the Unexpected

Holiday cover is hard enough when everything goes to plan. But what happens when someone calls in sick during a week when you're already running on reduced numbers? Have a conversation with your team about emergency cover expectations. Who might be willing to cut a holiday short in a real crisis? Who could work an extra shift at short notice?

This isn't about creating pressure—it's about having honest conversations. Most people are happy to help in a genuine emergency, but they need to know what you might ask of them before they're lying on a beach somewhere.

Keep Some Flexibility in the System

Finally, resist the urge to plan every single day down to the last detail. Leave some wiggle room for the inevitable last-minute changes, the unexpected sickness, or the realisation that your brilliant plan doesn't actually work in practice.

Managing holiday cover well isn't about perfect planning—it's about good enough planning with enough flexibility to adapt when things inevitably go wrong. Your residents need consistency and quality care, but they also benefit from having a team that's properly rested and recharged.