It’s only 3 weeks until the school summer holiday starts. The weather this weekend was glorious and festival season is now well underway. We think it’s safe to say summer has arrived and so has holiday season.

We love what we do but we also really look forward to having some down time. Relaxing with family and friends, getting out and about, having new adventures. It gives us time to recharge our batteries and in a less pressured environment our minds are free to wonder.

Sam is currently enjoying a well earned summer holiday. She will undoubtably have had a eureka moment about something and will return with exciting plans vivoHR for this second part of the year. Clair and Rachel will be jetting off too in the next month.

Sadly though, it comes as no surprise to us that many employees have huge guilt about taking time off work with a third of employees failing to use their full yearly holiday entitlement.

Most worryingly 50% of us don’t feel that we can relax when we’re on holiday with a fifth of employees expected to be contactable when they are on leave!

At vivoHR a holiday is just that. Good planning, organisation and having a team that are trusted to hold the fort all helps.  Before each of the team go on holiday we have a handover meeting and we’ll do the same when each of us returns.  We communicate to clients in advance and we make good use of out of office notifications to ensure our clients always get the HR Support they require.  Prioritising and then scheduling in non-time-critical work around holidays means the business will run smoothly and everyone can take a proper break.

How do you plan for employee’s annual leave in your business so that when they are away they can truly enjoy their time without worrying about what’s happening at work?