Holiday heaven and hell for employers!

The holiday season is fast approaching and the time-off requests are flooding your inbox. The summer holidays can present a huge problem for HR departments in businesses as everyone fights for their allotted time off.

We understand that employees deserve a break and should enjoy their time off, but that doesn’t mean the business stops. Here are a few tips to get your business through this tough HR and management period during the holidays.

Think ahead

Send a friendly email round reminding everyone of the importance to submitting their holiday requests and yes they are requests and not demands. Remind employees of the procedure for requesting holidays and how they can do it. Let them know that this is the procedure, which must be followed. You can use on-line software for managing holiday requests more effectively.

Planning ahead means that both you and the employee can plan to ensure work is covered and if something important is due to be finalised in the time off period, make a plan for this to be completed either before or with assistance. For the employee, this may mean working ahead, putting in extra time or making the proper preparations to work remotely.

Work together

While handling these requests and creating schedules might be your job, that doesn’t exclude employee participation. If you have a conflict of dates why not involve both parties and see what compromise you can reach together. Co-workers will show a surprising amount compromise towards one another.

Home working

Some employers are reluctant to let employees work from home. For many, they have good reason, but this time of year calls for some bend. Instead of treating homeworking as the last resort, treat it as your go-to problem solver when requests are coming in by the dozen. If certain times don’t work for certain departments, present homeworking as an option, and make sure your team has everything they need.

Be fair

Make sure you have a valid reason for denying a request, not just because you have to work so they should too. Make it clear that a certain amount of cover is required in the office to meet the needs of the business.

Remember everyone needs a break and this could work in favour of your business with employees returning recharged and ready to work.

Happy holidays to you all…