The upcoming Holiday season need not be a time of stress for you if you put into practice the suggestions listed below:
1. Talk with employees about the volume of work projects at hand
You don’t want to spring unpleasant surprises on your employees during the holiday season. If you make them aware beforehand of the number of incoming work projects, they might still understand if you request them to cut short their holiday leave by a day or two.
2. Practice first come, first served for allowing holiday leaves
You can’t run a company with everyone on holiday leave. You will most definitely consider other points when choosing to accept/deny an employee’s holiday leave application. However, having a first-come, first-served policy in place for granting leaves during holidays will enable your employees to manage their expectations better.
3. Let the managerial team take a call on leave requests
When you allow your managerial team to decide whether to grant/deny an employee’s application for leave during the holiday season, you ease the struggling HR’s workload. Additionally, the managerial team will be able to take into consideration the individual needs of an employee applying for holiday leave. These personal dynamics which come into play can often be lost on an HR form intended to request for leave.
4. Offer a rotating schedule
If you must deny an employee’s holiday leave request, allow them to take that time off at any period after the holiday season when the holiday workload has eased a little.
5. Offer compensation for overtime
A no-brainer, really. If your organization requires an employee with a skill set you cannot do without during the holiday leave season, incentivize the overtime work they put in. Recognize their hard work and offer them a pay bonus or other such compensation, which will encourage them to show up to work a little less begrudgingly during the holidays.
6. Invest in employee scheduling software
Perhaps, the most crucial advice that this article can offer. An employee scheduling software, such as the one offered by appvizer, can allow you to seamlessly manage employee shift calendars, track employee work hours, and schedule your work team from anywhere. You can even synchronize your payroll software with the same and run payroll more conveniently, automatically importing employee work hour details and keeping tabs on it.
7. Let your freelancers and temporary hires know if they will be eligible for time off
If your company makes seasonal hires and cannot afford to provide them with the same holiday leaves that your full-time employees enjoy, inform them of the same. Be upfront from the get-go when you interview them, so they can choose whether they’d like to commit their time to the company or not.
Your company should be as transparent as possible when you make your seasonal hiring decisions. You do not want to let them know the last minute that they cannot take holiday leaves the same way their permanent work peers can. They’ll be absent at work anyway, leaving you with pending, unaccounted for work.
