Business Holiday Guide
Make sure the work is done
Taking time off work is one of the best things that you can do for your business. You have time to think, relax and see your business in a different light. You will have ideas what you want to do when you get back to work and you will come back relaxed and enthusiastic to carry out your plans.
But to do this you need to plan. You need to plan your work around your holidays. You are in business to enjoy your life and your work. You need to put the holidays in your diary first each year, planning when you are taking time off and planning your holidays so you are committed to the time off.
There may be times of the year where it is better to take a break. If that is the time over the school holidays you should look to take advantage of that. If you are going to be quieter at work it makes sense to use that time wisely and book your holidays over that time. Planning your holidays around your staff so that there is always someone to deal with any issues and to make sure that any work is still done on time.
You also need a plan in place for your business. A plan so you have all the work that you need to get done before you go done, or leave guidance on how to do it while you are on holiday.
You should plan to make sure that all the work is done and agreed with the clients before you go on holiday. If you do have staff you may need to agree with them the work that they are going to do while you are away and more importantly how they are going to do it. Leaving detailed instructions on how you want the work to be done.
Tell your clients
The best thing about taking time off is knowing that you can do it without a guilty conscience. Knowing that all your work is up to date and that your clients know that you are taking time off and that they won’t bother you. That you can enjoy your holiday without any doubts in your mind.
You need to tell your customers that you will be taking time off. This is more important if you are the one that they deal with or you are the only employee in your business. They need to know when you are leaving and when you will be back. They will appreciate that you need time off to relax and recharge your batteries so if you do this in the right way, you will be taking time off with their blessing.
If you do have staff that will be managing your work when you are away. You need to tell your customers who will be looking after them when you are away and how they can contact them. You will obviously need to make sure that they can get access to all your noted and records about this customer so they can help them when you are away.
Give plenty of notice when you are going to be away. If you give a couple of days’ notice it will lead to panic and your inbox will be full of questions before you leave. Give a few weeks’ notice and then also a reminder before you leave that you will be away. Prepare in advance and you will be able to work through any questions before you leave.
Take your phone and laptop
As much as you plan emergencies will happen. So you need to have your laptop and phone with you when you go away. Its just as a precaution in case you need to get on a call with a client you have your phone or laptop to do a quick Zoom call.
When you do go make sure that you take all the cables for your phone and laptop and that you have a plug adapter for the country that you are travelling to. There is nothing worse than landing inside a country on holiday and having to spend a day looking for a computer shop to buy a plug when you are on holiday.
Making sure that you have access to wifi and that you have a call package on your phone that you can use when you are away is essential. There is no point taking your phone and laptop if you can’t use them. So make sure that you have wifi where you are staying and if you can use your phone when you are abroad or if you will use something like whatsapp for making calls.
This will obviously decide if you can take your phone out with you when you are on holiday. Do you carry it around with you or leave it in the hotel. I normally carry mine around even if I can’t use my data and minutes abroad. If I stop in a café or restaurant that has wifi I can check any messages or be contacted in case of an emergency. So I normally take mine everywhere I go.
Set up Email and Phone diverts
You need to set up your mobile phone and emails diverts when you are away on holiday. The type of divert will depend on how big your business is. If you are just the only employee working you will probably be setting up an email autoresponder and a voicemail to take messages. If you have staff the choices will be a lot more varied.
You may want to forward the messages to another colleague for them to deal with or you may want to deal with them yourself if you don’t get too many emails or if they are personal messages.
You don’t want to spending your time on holiday worrying that you may miss an important telephone call. Its important to get the calls diverted to a colleague, even if they are just taking a message and passing this on to you. It’s important to answer the calls if possible.
There are options for this if you are the only employee in your business and there are virtual receptionists that will answer these calls for you and take messages. These are really useful if you want to relax and enjoy your holiday or simply take a few days off.
Check in each day
I always have a call to the office each day when I go on holiday. I normally do it before I go for breakfast. I get up and give a call while I am having a coffee. Just to keep up to date with anything that I need to be aware of. If there are any problems that they need help solving or if they just need help.
If you are just the employee, still check in. Listen to the voicemail messages and check your email. Make sure that your clients don’t feel left behind and they can still reach you if they really need to.
I normally have a time limit for doing this, normally about thirty minutes each day. I give a call, check my email and just see if there is anything else I need to deal with.
You need to prioritise what is important. Deal with those first and then go through the rest. Trust your staff to deal with them and when you call the next day check what has been done and see if there is anything else that needs to be done.
I like to deal with these as much as I can on the call, I only take the laptop if it is absolutely necessary to start to look at things myself. But if you have a good team and structure you should trust them to deal with any query when you are on holiday.
Next Steps
If you need help in getting your business to the point that you can take stress free holidays please get in touch and see how we can help you.