Avoid tension by planning summer time off fairly
Summer can be a busy time of year for many businesses.
School holidays, nicer high street weather, and tourism can all bring increased footfall.
But, as I’m sure you always remember, your employees are people with their own lives outside of work.
And they may well want to make use of the summer season just as others do.
That can mean an increase in time-off requests, particularly if you employ many parents with school-age children.
Managing this in the right way will ensure that your employees feel fairly treated and that your business still has the staffing levels it needs to keep performing all throughout the summer months.
Publish and publicise a clear PTO policy
Having a policy in place puts you in a good position to handle requests as they come in and work to a process that suits your business and its needs.
Be sure to document this and make it available to employees as part of their induction, as well as in a convenient location should they need to refer to it. Findmyshift’s virtual staff noticeboard could be a perfect place to pin it!
Plan in advance
Part of that policy could include the notice period employees should give for leave requests to give you enough time to make fair decisions based on all the information you have available.
With time off requests viewable directly from your rota, and oversight of leave allowances for everyone in your team, you can make informed decisions based on set timelines and keep everyone happy.
Of course, life happens and last-minute requests will be inevitable too. But these needn’t be cause for a managerial meltdown. Allowing employees to swap shifts can make it easier for them to find their own replacements and ensure they are covered even when they need to make late changes to the rota.
Appoint a time off manager
You likely have a thousand things on your to-do list, and managing time off requests might not be too high on your list of priorities. Delegating the management of leave requests to one of your employees can give them additional responsibility and room to grow while taking one item of that to-do list.
If you do opt to leave the decisions to someone else, make sure they have a clear process to follow, and that you have the capacity to double check their decisions if need be.
Prioritise impartiality
As part of managing time off alongside as an assistant, it can be a useful exercise to check if personal feelings towards certain employees are impacting time off decisions. If you or your time off manager have ‘favourites’ among the staff, try to treat everyone equally.
Reviewing the decisions that the other makes from time to time, or when it involves request ‘clashes’ between employees, can maintain confidence that the system works for everyone.
Make decisions early and publicly
The more notice you can give employees of your decisions, the easier time they will have managing their own lives outside of work. In the instance of clashing requests, where two or more employees want the same time off which isn’t feasible, be sure to include both sides in the discussion.
Including your reasoning and ensuring that there’s a feasible long-term solution to any dissatisfaction, like giving the other employee priority in the next event of a clash, can help to avoid any lingering resentment over denied requests.