Genuine question: how do companies/teams that run services deal with peak vacation periods? E.g. Christmas holidays. Even if everyone wants to take the last two weeks of the year off, you have to have someone keeping the lights on. Also, what happens if a high priority problem comes in? Are the team leads/managers careful not to schedule work around the holidays?
Year-end change freezes are common in anything oriented at businesses.
In general, busy vacation times are claimed as first-come / first-served. It seems like that would screw some people, but in practice, it usually works out, since the only people who want to take the whole holidays off are people who are travelling, and that is generally 50% or so.
Many companies in Europe pretty much shuts down during christmas period and often during specific weeks during the summer. You'll have a skeleton staff to deal with operational issues etc., but that's it.
Some key people will typically need to take turns taking time less time off in some types of companies.
We have an open vacation policy for 2014, and I will take the last two weeks off (I've taken off about 5 weeks so far this year), but I will be available if need be. I don't mind, I don't expect any issues, and even if there are, it's not like I wouldn't be called in if I had a limited number of days off (which will happen next year).
Ask in advance what people want, balance things based on seniority, past holidays, etc.
Also surely most people will answer their phone in case of an emergency, if nobody abuse it. I remotely fixed bugs in cyber coffees while traveling in Australia years ago. Nowadays you can practically work with only your smartphone on hand.
