Free Employee Time Off Request Form Template

This employee time off request form template is a one-page sheet a worker fills in before taking days off: one line per day, the type of leave, full or partial day, hours off, and which job or crew is affected. The bottom half is for the manager: approved or denied, who covers on site, and a check that the schedule and payroll were updated. Free in Excel or CSV, no signup.

Why a construction crew needs one

In an office, one person away means some emails wait. On a jobsite, the only operator with a ticket for the machine being away means the crew stands around, or the pour gets moved. A written request, made before the schedule is set, gives you time to plan around the absence. It also settles the argument later about whether the days were approved, and whether they were paid.

What's in the template

• Employee header. Company, date submitted, employee name and number, trade or position, foreman or crew, first day off, and the day they are back at work.
• A line of leave types. Vacation, sick, personal, bereavement, unpaid, other, so everyone uses the same words.
• 15 lines, one per day off. Date, type of leave, full or partial day (printed in each row so the worker circles one), hours off, the job or crew affected, and notes.
• Totals. In the Excel version, total hours off adds itself up; "days listed" counts the dates entered.
• Employee signature and date.
• Manager section. Approved or denied boxes, the reason if denied, who covers on site, boxes to tick once the leave is entered in the schedule and in payroll, and the manager's signature with the date answered.

How to use it without surprises

1. One line per day, not a date range. "June 2 to 13" hides the statutory holiday in the middle and the half day on the Friday. Day by day, payroll pays exactly what was taken.
2. Fill in hours for partial days. A medical appointment from 7 to 10 is three hours off, not a day. Without the hours, someone guesses at payroll time.
3. Name the job or crew affected. It tells the manager at a glance whether the absence is a problem, and who to call to cover it.
4. Answer in writing, and fast. A request that sits in the foreman's truck for two weeks becomes "nobody said no." Date the answer and give the employee a copy.
5. Tick the schedule and payroll boxes. The most common mistake is an approved request that never reaches the schedule, so the worker is booked on a job while away.
6. Check your province's rules. Vacation entitlement, vacation pay, sick days, notice and which leave must be paid all vary by province, and unionized or regulated sectors can have their own. The form records the request; it does not decide what the employee is entitled to.

What to keep on file

Keep every signed request, approved or denied, in the employee's file with the matching weeks of payroll and timesheets. If a former employee questions their vacation pay, the requests and the timesheets together show what was taken and what was paid. How long you must keep employment records depends on your province.

Paper works for a small crew. Here is where it stops.

With five people, a form in a binder is fine. With three crews and a busy season, the problem is not the form; it is that approved leave lives on paper while the schedule lives somewhere else.

In JobSnap, workers request days off in the app, and a manager approves or denies with a note. Pending and approved leave shows on the crew planner, so you do not book someone who is away, and workers see whether each request was approved without calling the office. The same app holds the crew's timesheets. It is part of the single $5 CAD per active employee per month price ($20 minimum), with a free 30-day trial and no credit card to start.