We do love our holidays at vivoHR so yes it is true we shall all be taking time out to enjoy the sunny weather and spend time with our families. You can be assured that we won’t all depart for warmer climates at the same time though so there will still always be someone at vivoHR over the next six weeks to offer you HR Support as and when you need it.
How are you managing holiday in your business? Do you have a process to ensure that key roles are covered at all times? Do you have an effective hand over process to ensure nothing gets overlooked while people are away?
What’s the culture of your business – do people switch off or are they still checking emails from their sun lounger? Research shows that a rest away from work increases productivity and is good for our health.
We’re not sure about going as far as companies who have taken the bold step to delete all of an employee’s email while they are on holiday – that sounds like it could cause so much stress on return to work that the break will be forgotten even sooner than usual – but it is a good idea to encourage employees to set up auto-responders to ensure continuous customer service and manage customer expectations while they are away.
Finally- are you keeping an eye on how much holiday your staff are taking? Do you have a good record keeping system? Do you monitor regularly and encourage employees who use very little holiday to take a break more often?
Calculating holiday for part-time or irregular hours employees as well as for those who start or leave mid way through a year can be a tricky thing and we’ve found the Gov.uk website very helpful for this.
https://www.gov.uk/calculate-your-holiday-entitlement