Three engineers, three festivals, and one on call rota that has to be covered every single day.
Every year, Diwali, Christmas and New Year fall within a few weeks of each other. Every database team I have run has been small enough that not everyone can be on leave at the same time. For a long time I handled this the way most managers are taught to. The leave requests came to me, I looked at them, and I decided.
I tried hard to be fair. I kept notes on who got which holidays last year, and I balanced it as carefully as I could. But every time, my fair and well documented decision ended the same way. Someone did not get the days they wanted, and they were unhappy with me for it.
The problem was not how fair I was. The problem was that I was the one deciding. When a manager decides, someone always loses, and that person does not blame the situation. They blame the decision, because the decision has the manager's name on it. You can be as fair as you like and still end the quarter with someone on the team quietly unhappy with you.
What I do now
I set the rule, and I let the team decide the calendar.
The rule is about coverage, not about people, and it is the only part I keep. There must always be enough people available to cover production. Production does not stop for festivals. Who takes which days, as long as that rule holds, is not my decision anymore.
The first time I did this, I expected to be pulled back in within a day. Instead, the team just talked it out between themselves. One of them said, "You take Diwali, it matters more to you than Christmas does to me. I will take Christmas. I will cover New Year this time if I can have it next year." It took about ten minutes, and the calendar was done.
What is different here is that nobody lost. When I decided, one person lost. When they agreed on it themselves, both of them owned the decision. The engineer covering New Year is not unhappy with me, because he made a trade he thinks is fair, with a colleague who now owes him one. They both remember the deal better than any spreadsheet I could have kept.
Why it keeps working
When I was the one making sure things were fair, it felt like I was keeping score on everyone. When the team does it themselves, it becomes a habit they follow on their own. They remember who covered last winter without anyone telling them. They sort it out before I even see the calendar. They even protect each other's leave when other teams ask for help during holidays, which is something no rule of mine ever managed.
There was one more thing I did not expect. Working it out together brought the team closer. When someone gives up their days so that a colleague can be with family for a festival, it changes something between those two people. They have shown each other, not just said it, that they will cover for each other. That is exactly what you need later during an incident, when covering for each other is the whole job.
The real message underneath all this is simple. I trust you to sort this out like the professionals you are. Letting them decide is itself a way of showing respect, and people notice when they are treated like adults. They give that respect back.
Where this does not work
This does not work in every team, and I would not be honest if I said it did.
It only works if the team already feels safe speaking up. If you hand the calendar to a team where one loud person dominates, that person will take December every year, and the quieter people will tell themselves they did not really mind. Letting the team decide does not create fairness. It makes whatever culture you already have stronger. If the team respects each other, you get the kind of conversation I described. If they do not, you have just made the unfairness automatic and removed the one person who could have stopped it.
So the order matters. Build respect in the team first, and only then let them decide these things themselves. I still keep two things with me. The coverage rule, and stepping in if a deal ever breaks that rule. In all the years I have run teams this way, I have almost never had to step in.
The calendar gets sorted on its own now. Nobody has missed a festival in years, and nobody thanks me for it, which is how it should be.
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