For employees in the UK, taking their annual leave is a legal entitlement. It’s also important for the happiness and wellbeing of your staff, which in turn, has a positive impact on your business. However, when you’re running an SME, one or more of your employees being off can have a big impact. We’ve been chatting to Transcendit Director Adam Kuznesof about how to keep your business running when staff are on annual leave.
Going on holiday is good for business
Adam says that the most important thing for businesses to understand when it comes to annual leave is that this is a positive thing for both the individual, and the business.
‘Ensuring that our teams take their annual leave and can leave work behind during that time is incredibly important to us,’ says Adam. ‘Having a relaxed, fulfilled and satisfied team that maintains a good work/life balance ensures the longevity of our business.’
Setting expectations, and preparing for leave
One of the issues that businesses have when an employee is on annual leave is a lack of preparation. Teams can fail to prepare for how the company will run when they’re away, particularly when the employee is a key part of the organisation.
‘Transcendit has been going for 24 years now, and we’ve grown the business from five directors to a team of twenty four,’ says Adam. ‘We know that it can be tricky to keep an SME working well when one of your employees is away, particularly when your team is small. To keep things running smoothly, we make sure that we don't have too many people who do the same job off at once. We also make sure we’re really clear with our staff about our expectations before they leave.’
'Additionally, each of our IT Support Engineers are Lead Engineers for specific clients. This means that when a client calls us up, the customer is always connected to someone who knows their business.’
‘When one of our Support Engineers is taking annual leave, our expectation is that they update their notes for that client, and they ensure that the rest of the team have the latest updates for that client. This means that if the client needs some support whilst their Lead Engineer is on annual leave, they still have a team of people that can take care of them.’
‘We also ask that employees add an out-of-office reply to their emails, letting anyone that contacts them know when they’ll be back, and who they should contact in the meantime.’
Should you contact employees when they’re away?
If there is a problem with a client or a customer, or you need one of your employees for a meeting, is it wrong to get in touch?
Whilst there are no legal restrictions preventing you from contacting an employee whilst they’re on their annual leave, you should consider the impact of your request on your member of staff. When you contact an employee on annual leave, you’re telling them something about your priorities around work and rest.
Regardless of whether an employee responds or agrees to a request to work, you have brought responsibility and stress into a time when they are expecting to be relaxed. Contacting staff when they’re on annual leave can result in staff being disgruntled and frustrated in the short term, and burned out and less engaged in the long term. Behaviour which continually crosses this boundary is likely to result in employees leaving the company, and a high staff turnover.
‘We would only contact a Support Engineer on their holiday if the notes for that client weren’t updated, or the team had not been updated,’ says Adam. ‘This wouldn’t be done lightly, and an employee on annual leave would only be contacted when a situation is considered urgent, and as a last resort.’
‘As long as the employee has prepared, and met the business’ expectations before going on annual leave, there should be no need to contact them,’ says Adam. ‘Businesses need to respect their team, and respect their time off.’
Your business checklist, to guarantee a seamless summer
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Create clear instructions for employees, detailing everything that they need to do before they leave
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Outline when you would contact an employee on annual leave, and ensure that this feels acceptable and appropriate
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Communicate your expectations to your team clearly, and well ahead of time
