A cultural dilemma? 
It’s holiday time. People are taking holidays. Work needs to be done yet productivity reduces and things seemingly have to stop. Have you ever thought how managers reactions to holidays can seriously affect the culture of your Company……?
In most businesses the influx of school holidays and the impending knowledge that various members of the team will be out of the office on their annual break is enough to push an overloaded manager over the edge. Too busy to breathe and thinking of their own impending holidays where they know already they’ll have emails to read, phone calls to buffer, and an inordinate amount of work on their return. They even begin to wonder how they ever thought they could take a holiday this year let alone this month….. sound familiar?
Stop! Don’t let annual leave be the instigator of cultural dilution. Manage holidays positively within the culture of the business. How?
Here’s some ideas:
- TEAM EMPOWERMENT -Facilitate your team to come up with solutions for covering off anything urgent. Have them elect the ‘go to’ person as a second for every person in the team. This will instil confidence for you and your absent colleague.
- SELECTIVE ACTIVITY – Stop doing the ‘nice to have’s’, cut down on meetings, consider effective short term ‘short cuts’, prioritise. Simplify the processes, it may even lead to more permanent streamlining.
- EMBRACE HOLIDAYS – They are a chance for individuals to re-energise, clear their heads, have fun and come back refreshed. No matter how hard it seems you can do without someone for a short space of time, especially with a second in place. Encourage all employees to turn off phones and relax.
- EASY DOES IT – Relieve the return to work – don’t schedule anything for their first day back, and set aside ½ hour for everyone to get together first thing in the morning to share the holiday stories. It’ll reduce time overall and the storyteller gets an audience.
With a little bit of lateral thinking and planning, giving employees the space to have a well earned break will help to underpin the people orientated culture you’ve been working so hard to nurture and embody.
Want to maintain and strengthen the culture of your business now? Get in touch.