Ah summertime, the time of year when our thoughts wander to lazy days at the lake, boating, road trips, and our long-awaited reprieve away from the office. Vacations are not only beneficial to team member’s mindset but the time off actually makes them more productive and energized when they return.
For the business owner, it’s a time to prepare for the absences of key people by doing some due diligence so the office continues to run like a well-oiled machine during staff absences.
A two-week vacation may fly by for the person enjoying it, but it can seem like forever around the office if that employee’s duties are not being handled during their absence.
By the same token, no team member wants to return from a relaxing holiday to find their desk piled high with work that has accumulated while they were away.
I have compiled a checklist of 4 key elements to help you plan and prepare for staff holidays so your business doesn’t miss a beat during staff vacations.
1. Cross-train your staff
Whether it is to cover planned vacations or unplanned accidents or illnesses it is very important that you cross-train your staff to ensure there are team members in place that can seamlessly step in and cover responsibilities and daily activities during absences.
This creates a win-win situation for you and your team, as team members will gladly take on extra work knowing that their work will be done for them when it’s their turn to take a holiday.
2. Create rules
While it seems to go without saying your team members must stagger their holidays. A simple way to accomplish this is to go by seniority – the longest tenured employees or agents choose their time-off first.
3. Hold them accountable
Impress upon your team that the onus is on them to do their utmost to complete existing projects whenever possible. Expecting fellow team members to do catch up as well as the day–to-day duties of a vacationer will cause unnecessary stress and resentment amongst your team.
4. Make arrangements for compensation and commission splits
It is critical that arrangements are made in advance when one agent will be covering for another during their absence. An agreement should be drawn up stating compensation for handling buyers and sellers for another agent.
It would be prudent to have a blanket document drawn up with blank spaces for commission splits and other pertinent data. Once details are decided upon and documented, there is no room for misunderstandings that can lead to tensions or bad feelings among team members.
We all look forward to getting away from it all and leaving work behind for a couple of weeks. With just a bit of forward-planning, staff vacations can be enjoyed by all.