Member Article

Time management and the summer holiday season

Sally Turgoose is a management and leadership development consultant at Aspire Development. Here she talks about the stresses of the summer holiday season – whether you’re jetting off on holiday or holding the fort in the office – and how with proper planning, productivity need not grind to a halt at this time of year.

It’s that time of year again – summer holiday season – and while we’re firmly in the middle of August, typically, this time of year can last long into September. Of course, when it comes to business, your experience of the summer holiday season can vary depending on which side of passport control you’re on.

If you’re stocking up on sun cream and packing your swimmers into the suitcase, thoughts of the office may be far from your mind. However, if you’re the one left in the office managing your own work load plus that of absent colleagues, your pressure levels may be rising.

At Aspire Development, we specialise in people management; helping businesses to achieve real benefits through improved people performance, regardless of the time of year. We’ve come up with some top tips so that both personally and professionally as a business, the summer season need not slow you down in moving forwards to achieve your goals.

The fact is, even though people may be out of a business for prolonged periods of time, most companies still have the same productivity levels to achieve during this time of year. The good news is, summer holidays are rarely a spare-of-the-moment thing, with annual leave booked and agreed with managers long in advance. This gives you – whether you’re jetting off to sunnier climes or holding the fort back at work – plenty of time to plan. And planning here is key…

If you’re going on holiday, you need to plan ahead. Don’t just look at your immediate to-do list, rather, think about deadlines, goals and other deliverables that need to happen when you’re away. Once you’ve identified what needs to happen in your absence, prioritise the list and then delegate these actions to other people with the required skills within the business.

Make sure you leave plenty of time to go through a clear handover session – don’t just email round a set of instructions and expect people to understand what you need them to do. Instead, take time to sit down with the people you’re delegating tasks to. Make sure they’re aware of what’s required of them, where they can find all the tools, contact details of key suppliers and any other materials they may need access to, to complete the job in your absence. Then, allow plenty of time for questions. This gives people the opportunity to query anything they potentially haven’t understood and gives you time to talk them through what’s needed of them, to ensure productivity levels remain high while you’re on holiday.

On the other hand, if you’re the person in the office taking on tasks from your colleagues as well as managing your own workload, again, the key here is planning.

Once you’ve received your handover, look at your workload as a whole (including the tasks from your colleagues) and prioritise what needs to be done. Rather than diving straight in, take 5 minutes at the beginning of each day to review and prioritise the tasks that really need to be done and which contribute to the achievement of your key objectives. Look at deadlines and then work backwards – this will help you to realistically work out a time line of what needs to happen and when, so that your work is still top quality, delivered to a high standard and without the added pressures of lack of time.

Also, try to keep your notes and records up-to-date, so that when your colleagues return from their break, they’re fully up-to-speed with projects and can pick up where you left off. This means that they can jump straight back into the swing of things and immediately lighten your workload, rather than enduring long drawn out and clumsy de-briefs that actually mean your time is taken up in other areas unnecessarily. There are loads of different models and techniques out there to help you plan, prioritise and improve productivity. Ultimately, whatever method you use, the summer holiday season doesn’t have to be ‘silly season’ where things grind to a halt. Rather, with proper planning, those going away can relax and come back refreshed, and those staying in the office can manage their workload without then feeling the need for a holiday to get over the stress!

Ultimately, business doesn’t stop when the schools break up and people head for the beach. With proper planning, productivity levels can and should remain high during this time of year, helping companies to achieve business benefits through the performance of their people.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Aspire Development .