HR can modify who gets what request dropped in to their mailbox. Position titles do mean something here - I can’t approve the FBTL to approve my PTO request, not that I’ve tried.. But if you’re GM all of the GM Leaders (TL and ETL) will have access to your time off requests, vacation pay outs, and punch corrections. If they can view them but they don’t have the approve button showing (this does happen occasionally) they can try again later. Usually when this happens there was a recent change to the request status. Another approved could’ve clicked approve or deny, or corporate has locked the request out to move it to auto-denied so the schedule can start populating.
At my store we tell everyone requests must be made a minimum of three weeks in advance, and can be made for up to 6 months. This gives the Leaders a couple of opportunities to get on a computer and see the request. We also utilize the monthly planner books to keep track of who has what weekend off. Not all of the Leaders know how to pull the time off calendar, but they all can write a name in a book. This helps to make sure that we still have a minimum amount of people to staff the store.
Leaders only have until early Monday to approve any time off requests for the schedule about to be written.