Although you wouldn’t believe it with the recent weather, summer holidays are usually when most people want to take periods of annual leave. Difficulty making childcare arrangements, good weather (although debatable), summertime events such as festivals, and wanting to spend time with children and family are just some of the reasons why many employees to book annual leave between now until September.
This can pose a number of challenges for employers. The most obvious challenge is that with lots of employees on annual leave, you may face staff shortages leading to potential difficulties meeting the demands of your clients, decreased productivity and increased workloads for those employees that remain at work. Another challenge is ensuring fairness when granting time off. Conflicts may arise when multiple employees want to take annual leave at the same time and it is not possible to approve all requests. Below are some of the ways you can address these challenges:
Breathe HR – As many of you will know, we work with an affordable, easy-to-use people-management system that is designed to help SMEs manage their HR processes more efficiently and accurately. One of the ways in which Breathe can help is by allowing you to manage your employee holiday easily. You can view your company’s leave calendar, add company blackouts and holidays, specify different types of leave, monitor each employee’s holiday usage and more. Breathe is also great for employees as they are able to simply log in via the app or website, and submit a holiday request.
Holiday policy – An effective holiday policy ensures everyone is aware of the guidelines and expectations around booking holiday, and ensures that all holiday requests are treated fairly in line with a certain framework. A holiday policy might cover procedures for requesting leave, rules in relation to carry over, cancellations, sickness during holiday, etc.
HR advice – If you find yourself in a situation where a conflict or challenge has arose, we are here to provide advice and help you manage the situation – simply drop us an email or give us a call.
Hopefully, with the help of some of these solutions, you can strike a balance between employee needs and operational requirements, fostering a positive work environment even during the busy summer season. If you have questions or concerns regarding anything mentioned above, please do not hesitate to contact us.
If you have any HR queries please give a member of the team a call today, on 01926 853388, or email angela.roberts@arhrconsult.com.