Holiday pay

Hi everyone, I’d really love some outside perspective on a holiday pay situation at our café.

I’m both a working barista and part of the management team at a small shop, so I see this from both sides — team and operations.

Here’s the situation:

We offer time-and-a-half for holidays, but to keep scheduling fair and make sure we have coverage, we also set blackout dates around certain holidays. The idea is simple:

If you’re available on blackout dates (no time-off requests) and you work the holiday, you get the holiday bonus.

Recently, an employee worked both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, but had requested one blackout day off (Sunday before). Based on policy, that made them ineligible for holiday pay — even though they worked both holiday shifts. What should a manager do in this situation?