Holidays

23rd June 2011 / Posted in: Business efficiency, Holidays, Planning and preparation, Productivity

Holiday Planning

August in the UK is rapidly becoming like Christmas. Apart from the retail sector there are so many people away that many businesses either just bump along or grind to a halt. But can you afford to write August off?  Even if you have staff, clients and suppliers on holiday for large chunks of the month a bit of forward planning stop it being a complete write off. 

Here are a few suggestions:

• Start planning holiday handovers well in advance, rather than leaving until the night before.
• Aim to get key projects and priorities completed before holidays, or to a stage where someone else can oversee.
• Check when colleagues are taking their holidays and the likely impact of them being away. If there’s no impact - why are you employing them!
• How can the impact be managed?  Do you have adequate resources internally to cover for absences without over stretching?  If not do you know where to find suitable temporary or interim staff?
• Who will respond to communications for staff who are on holiday? (don’t forget social media) An auto response saying the e-mail will be dealt with on the recipient’s return isn’t great customer service.
• Agree how decisions can be made in the absence of senior staff and under what circumstances those on holiday can be contacted.
• Encourage staff to take a complete break - adequate planning may allow them to spend time without a smart phone in their hand
• Don’t use the holiday break as the chance to take short cuts or reduce your service - particularly with long standing clients. Complacency be the excuse they are looking for to move their business elsewhere.
• Use the quiet time to review your business strategy or plans, and your marketing plans, so at the start September you have a clear idea of where you are going and how you will get there.
• Similarly spend some time checking what your competitors are up to and adapt your forward plans accordingly.
• Review last year’s sickness absence from September until December. If sickness was a problem - why was it a problem and what can you do to stop the same happening again.
• If you are making any changes such as changing software support, changing suppliers, introducing social media to your marketing strategy, do some background research.
• Encourage everyone not to send masses of e-mails etc to people that are on holiday so they return to an overflowing in box.
• Take time to step back and review the way you are working - are you using your time effectively

We are supposed to be having some decent weather this summer so if you’re not on holiday make August a month to remember - in and out of work.

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29th July 2010 / Posted in: Absence management, Holidays, Management, Operational management, Planning and preparation, Priorities, Time management

Managing the Stress of Holidays

Recent research by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) has found that over a third of UK managers take calls and look at e-mails whilst on holiday. Nearly half of them return to work more stressed than before they took leave – with the volume of e-mails they return to being the greatest worry.

Penny de Valk, ILM’s Chief Executive says: “Gone are the days when people cut off contact with work for a fortnight over the summer and made a complete break. While technology means that it is easier than ever to work remotely, it also makes it extremely hard to switch off. Uncertain economic times also mean that many UK employers are keeping one eye on their job at all times, when what they really need is time away from the office to rest and re-energise.”

If you really can’t break loose from being in contact with the office:

• Don’t leave pre-holiday planning to the last minute. Set aside enough time to brief colleagues so they are in a position to manage without you.
• Manage your work time – don’t let it manage you. Aim to check your e-mails and voice mail once, or a maximum of twice, a day while you are away.
• Tell your colleagues how you are managing mail and voice mail and that you will ONLY reply to things that are genuinely important and urgent. (If they interrupt your holiday you may find you need to interrupt theirs!)
• Re-iterate with an out of office auto response.
• Encourage colleagues to ask themselves if they really need to send an e-mail to someone that is out of the office. A diary note to e-mail you on your return is a better time management for everyone.
• Plan a de-brief meeting for the morning of your return – the horse’s mouth is better than a few hundred e-mails

If you do stay out of contact while you are away:

• Plan a de-brief meeting for the morning of your return with the aim of getting back up to speed without having to read hundreds of e-mails.
• Remind colleagues that the purpose of the meeting is to reduce the number of e-mails accumulating while you are away
• If you can, get someone else to check your e-mail
• Diarise time after the catch up meeting to go through e-mails

Whatever you choose to do, a holiday can help introduce some e-mail discipline. If you receive too many e-mails from one sender tell them – nicely. Remember Aesops fable about the boy that cried wolf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf) – too many e-mails have the same effect.

Enjoy your break!

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