Time-off request form and policy template for a small restaurant

Time off goes wrong in two ways. Either the rules live in the owner's head, so every request is a negotiation, or the rules are strict on paper and broken for whoever asks nicely. Both feel unfair to the people who didn't get their day.

This post gives you both halves: a policy you fill in once, and a request form for each request. Put the policy in your employee handbook and have every new hire read it.

This is general information, not legal advice. Paid sick leave, family leave and holiday rules differ by state and city.

What the law decides, and what you decide

Federal law leaves most of this to you. The US Department of Labor says the Fair Labor Standards Act doesn't require pay for time not worked, such as vacations, sick leave or holidays; those are a matter of agreement between employer and employee (DOL, Vacation Leave).

Federal family and medical leave usually doesn't reach a small café either. A covered employer under the FMLA is one "who employs 50 or more employees for each working day during each of 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year" (29 CFR 825.104(a)).

State and city paid sick leave is different. Many states require it, and those laws often limit how much notice and proof you can ask for when someone uses it. Your vacation rules can't override them. Our state pages summarize each law: California, New York, Illinois, Washington (coming Oct 21), Arizona, Colorado, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico (coming Nov 18). Some cities add their own, such as Chicago, New York City and San Francisco.

That's why the policy below keeps planned time off (vacation, personal days) separate from sick and safe leave.

The policy: fill in the blanks

1. Who it covers. All hourly and salaried staff at ________. Paid time off starts after ____ days of work (unless your state's sick leave law says otherwise).

2. How to ask. In writing: the request form below, or ________ (app, email). A text to a coworker isn't a request.

3. Notice for planned time off.

Requests that miss the notice period may still be approved if the schedule allows. They're decided last.

4. Blackout dates. No planned time off on: ________ (for example, the day before Thanksgiving, Mother's Day weekend, a local festival). We post the list for the year by ________.

5. How many people can be off. At most ____ people per day, and at most ____ per position (for example, one barista and one cook).

6. How we decide. Requests are answered within ____ days. When two requests clash, we decide by: ☐ first in ☐ rotation (whoever got the last contested day waits) ☐ seniority. We'll tell you why when we say no.

7. Before the schedule is posted. Requests approved before the schedule for that week is published are built in. After that, find cover through ________ and the manager approves the change.

8. Partial days. Ask for a start or end time on the form ("leave at 2 pm"). Same notice rules.

9. Cancelling. You can withdraw a request any time before it starts. If shifts were already given to others, they keep them.

10. Paid or unpaid. Paid time off is ________ (hours per year, or how it's earned). Unused time ☐ carries over ☐ doesn't, up to ____ hours. Without paid time left, approved time off is unpaid.

11. Sick and safe leave. Call ________ as soon as you know, before the shift if you can. Sick leave follows ________ (your state or city law, or our policy if there's no law). It isn't subject to blackout dates or the notice in section 3. Food workers with certain symptoms must report them; see our illness reporting form.

The request form

Manager's decision

A decision log

One line per request, kept for the year. It's how you show the rotation is real.

Two common mistakes

• Approving by text in the hallway. Then nobody can find it when the schedule is built. Everything goes on the form, or in the app.
• Treating a sick call like a vacation request. Asking a sick employee for two weeks' notice, or a doctor's note for one day, can break a state sick leave law. Keep the two processes apart. Our call-outs guide covers the sick call.

Where Mays fits

• Requests from the app. Staff go to Schedule → Time off, tap +, pick the dates and a Category (Vacation, Sick, Personal, Unpaid, or one you add) and add a note. Requests from staff are for whole days; for a partial day, a manager uses Add time off on the web and picks Partial day. See Requesting and approving time off.
• Your notice and blackout rules, enforced. Advance notice for time off in Scheduling → Settings refuses requests that come in too late (one number of days for every request). Scheduling → Time Off → Blocked Days → Add blocked day blocks a date, so staff can't request it off. Requests a manager adds aren't held to either rule.
• Decisions in writing. On Scheduling → Time Off, open a request, add a Decision note and click Approve or Decline; the employee is notified either way. In the app, it's under Schedule → Approvals. Every request waits for a manager. The Calendar tab shows who's off each day, and an AI suggestion on each request looks at who else is off; it's a hint, never a decision.
• On the schedule. Approved time off marks any shift the person already has on those days with Time off and lists it in the warnings before you publish, so you can reassign it.
• Paid time off. Under Time off & PTO accrual, admins add categories, choose how each one is earned (No accrual, Fixed per period, Per hour worked or Annual grant) and Adjust balances. Staff see their balances in the app. Where the paid sick leave rules in Labor law compliance are on, a sick request inside a new hire's waiting period or past the yearly limit is refused with the reason. See PTO policies and balances.

What Mays doesn't do: it has no limit on how many people can be off on the same day, and notice is one number for every request, not longer for longer trips. Check the Calendar tab before you approve, and keep section 3's longer notice on paper.

Write it once, decide it the same way

Fill in the policy, publish the blackout dates for the year, answer every request in writing within the days you promised, and keep sick leave on its own track. People accept a "no" much more easily when the rule was there first.

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