Dct Halifax ....
I can assure you Scott has an extremely FULL life. Trust me.
As to answering his question, well like many things, it's done somewhat differently "over here".
Staff at Swanwick are allocated to one of Five watches, lettered A-E, and work a rotation of shifts. Currently this is:
A A R M M N N S R R
but in October will become:
M M A A N N S R R R
Bidding for individual shifts doesn't happen, even the leeway with allocating who does Night shifts has been taken over by the ORO (£300,000 of waste in my opinion),
Leave allocation has (thankfully) been given back to the watches to sort out amongst themselves. (Total cost = £ ZERO.... ORO take note). This has been done in a number of ways, including complicated "points" systems, but by and large most people get close to the leave they ask for.
Rgds BEX