Minimize Vacation Scheduling Headaches

08/20/08

The word "vacation" may conjure up pleasant thoughts for employees, but it’s likely to bring on a migraine for supervisors who have to juggle a project schedule to accommodate most workers’ requests.

Vacation scheduling opens up a Pandora’s box of potential problems, including:

Excessive overtime to meet delivery dates and service commitments.

Lost sales and late deliveries because you're operating with a skeleton crew during the peak season.

Backlogged work that threatens to bury vacationing employees when they return.

Low morale for employees who are expected to do their own jobs plus the work of absent coworkers.

Complaints from employees who are denied their choice of vacation dates because of scheduling conflicts.

What to do?

First, accept the fact that you can’t please everyone. Next, consider the following actions to minimize problems with both vacationers and those who will cover for them while they’re gone.

1. Discuss your vacation policy during the hiring and orientation process and provide employees with written vacation procedures. Highlight the peak work periods during which vacations may be prohibited or restricted.
2. Clarify management’s right to rearrange vacation schedules to meet in-house demands and changing market conditions.
3. Set a deadline for submitting vacation requests that gives you enough time to project how absences might affect production schedules and delivery dates to resolve any conflicts. For example, consider having employees make their requests by November 1 for the next calendar year.
4. If colleagues will cover vacationers’ jobs, have those taking time off provide a summary of work in progress, major responsibilities, key contact information, how to access related files, and other pertinent data to meet crucial deadlines.
5. Parcel out vacationing employees’ duties among several colleagues. This action keeps one unfortunate soul from having to do the work of two.
6. Offer premium pay, bonuses, or other incentives to employees who agree to work during the most popular vacation periods.
7. Allow workers in identical positions to trade off vacation dates among themselves, so long as it won’t jeopardize production schedules or quality of work.

Are vacation demands giving you headaches? Avoid being left short-handed during your peak season by tracking your employees' schedules with G.Neil's Vacation Schedules and Vacation Request and Approval Forms.

Vacation Tracker
Item #: J0200
Price: $30.99

Vacation Schedule
Item #: J0119
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Vacation Request and Approval Form
Item #: A0474
Price: $28.99