Three ways to manage staff holiday periods at your small business

To ensure staff holidays don’t disrupt the running of your business, owners should look to online tools and make an effort to ease returning employees back into the swing of things.

For a business owner with a small team, covering for holidays can be tricky. Employees are likely to want time off in quick succession during popular periods, such as the summer months, school breaks and around bank holidays, stretching a long weekend into a week’s break.

With responsibility often spread across a handful of people, losing just one person for two weeks can feel like losing a core part of the business. There are, however, steps that business owners can take to mitigate this effect.

Plan ahead and arrange cover

Polly Buckland, managing director of marketing agency, The Typeface Group, says that ensuring your business runs effectively without all hands on deck requires meticulous scheduling and project planning.

She uses Charlie HR, a free online HR tool through which team members can request leave. Directors can see an overview of current and upcoming time off for the entire company, so that projects can be planned and scheduled to avoid periods when people are away.

Ms Buckland has also implemented an understudy structure that assigns specific aspects of a new client project (web design or copywriting, for example), to backup junior team members. These “understudies” are kept updated of their project’s progress by senior staff members and have access to the relevant documents.

Tom Shurville, Distinctly

Another option, she suggests, is to employ someone to take charge of organising your workforce – even if it’s part-time. “Our office manager essentially gets every project off the ground by creating timing plans and project schedules. She also liaises with clients, so in some regards acts as an account manager,” says Ms Buckland.

If you’re considering hiring someone, look for strong administration skills, great written and verbal communication skills, and confidence to work with contacts at all levels, she adds.

Prioritise tasks

You can never plan too far ahead, says Russell Smith, managing director of Russell Smith Chartered Accounts, which runs on a system of high-priority task management. If any of these (often complex) tasks are due to be undertaken by a colleague with holiday coming up, they’re given time to make it a priority in the run-up to the break.

“Their minor, menial and less pressing tasks are distributed around the rest of the team,” says Mr Smith. “These can done before and during the employee's leave.”

It also helps when employees leave detailed handover notes that anyone in the business can understand – not just those written for specific colleagues, he adds.

Ease staff back in

There’s also work to be done by line managers when employees return from holiday leave. Debriefing staff on issues that have occurred in their absence helps with a smooth transition, explains Tom Shurville, managing director at search marketing agency, Distinctly.

“There can be a misunderstanding that when staff return, they will be refreshed and motivated to plunge themselves back into work. In reality, they’re likely to be lethargic and still suffering from the holiday blues,” he says.

So don’t overload them. Help them feel enthusiastic about coming back by giving them the space to digest missed emails and follow up with colleagues who have covered in their absence. What they shouldn’t return to is two full days of “let’s grab them when they’re back” type meetings.