Zoë Wundenberg | Taking leave over the Christmas holidays can be fraught for workers and bosses

There are often arguments over whether parents with young children should be given preference over singles, or whether you're "letting the team down" by wanting to spend time away from work over a period of time where lots of people want to do the same.

It can create a hostile work environment and plant the seeds of bitterness in the bosom of team morale that can least well after the silly season fairy lights have been turned off for another year.

As a business owner who has also been an employee, I understand both sides of this issue. And there are two sides.

From the business perspective, work still needs to be done, it is often a busier than usual period (depending on your industry) and a dramatic loss of staff can damage business reputation as well as revenue.

However, from an employee perspective, is it really fair that an employer gets to control your choices to see family, be with your children, or take a holiday?

Surely refusing leave is indicative of management "creep" where the tendrils of work seep into your personal life and start to impact your own control over your out-of-hours choices that should have nothing to do with their work?

I think the hardest part of this issue is the emotion that underlies it. The boss may feel abandoned and betrayed, or left trying to hold splitting seams together under great pressure.

The employee may feel disempowered, controlled and imprisoned with their work obligations because they can't afford to be fired or have a bad work reference. The boss may also be counting the pennies and not wanting to take a revenue hit if the employee's absence means loss of income.

It's messy. It's fraught. But it's also legislated.

Fairwork Australia stipulates that an employee "needs to request to take annual leave before going on leave," and the process for doing so is usually set out in the award, registered agreement, company policy or contract of employment.

If you have accepted an offer of employment within the framework of these terms, then you are obliged to meet them.

So the law is on the side of the business, here. There's a surprise.

But, that said, the employer can only refuse an employee's request for annual leave if the reason is deemed to be "reasonable."

One of the memes I've seen circulating is where a boss has put up a sign stating that no time off requests will be accepted between certain dates.

This is unlikely to pass the "reasonability" test as the sign indicates that the boss is unwilling to even entertain requests regardless of their basis.

I was talking about this with my husband recently and he made a very valid point about how the system seems to work.

He said that business should be asking their employees well in advance of holiday seasons who is requesting leave and who is available to work.

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Then the business can provide incentives for those that do work over these popular leave periods.

This got me thinking about the importance of people-centric leadership in workplaces. Signs like the one I mentioned above perpetuate the us-versus-them mentality between management and staff. That single sign said more about the work culture at that organisation than almost anything else could have more succinctly.

It said, "We don't listen! We don't care! We come first! Your needs don't matter!" The way a manager engages with their staff directly shapes how the staff feel about work.

If they consulted with them, encouraged feedback and creative thinking about balancing operational pressures with staff needs, and actually had a leave strategy in place for peak request periods, they may find that they don't need to sacrifice anything and have a team that is highly engaged in a positive workplace culture.

I'll tell you this much for free: those who feel undervalued, and taken advantage of, are rarely as invested and high-performing as those who do feel valued.

Habitually denying leave does not guarantee productivity, but it does promise high staff turnover, which also negatively impacts the bottom line.

It's a balancing act, but you can't achieve balance without both sides working together.