A return from holiday leaves me needing a catch-up

I've now returned from three weeks holiday. A three week break brings lots of thinking time but the return to reality and activity is tougher than I remember.

I've kept physically active whilst away, with a gym and swimming pool on the complex I've been staying on. But a lot of time on the road, by the pool, in the gym and on the beach gives you plenty of time to think about what you are doing and where you want to start going next with everything you do.

I think that it is good (and it was good) to have a period of reflection and contemplation. It gives you a chance to determine whether you think that you're on the right track and to plot the way forward without the everyday distractions of work life. It also enables a little "blue sky thinking" as there exposure to a different routine and a different culture can have you thinking about things in different ways. I have looked at the direction I'm heading in and I broadly think that it's where I want to be going.

It's now thinking about heading out of the break and back into my life that's occupying my mind. I landed and got home in Sunday evening and it was back to work at 7.30am on Monday, so there was no real transition to be had. It was a case of holiday mode as is went to bed and work mode when I got up the next morning. It was just the way it had to be with three weeks off - there was no spare time to be had! So it was straight back into it, which can sometimes be the best way to get on, although I don't really feel like that the the moment! I can just about see the wood from the trees at work now, after a few days of catching up. I just wish I could say the same about everything else I do.

It's getting back into the swing of things for everyone concerned at the moment. The Summer customer flow is very different to the flow during the rest of the year, especially in a university city, such as the City of Durham that I work in regularly. So it's been a time where large parts of the city have been on holiday and where large parts if the city are starting to get back into a routine for Back To School promotions, the kids actually returning to school and the university students returning to the city.

I've been doing some work with a pharmacy in the city recently and all their work is geared to the students returning and the ailments beginning, especially when the weather turns cold. The start of term can't come quickly enough for them and their largest customer base starts getting ill not long after returning.

It's interesting to note where your largest customer groups are and how the ebb and flow to be able to plan out your staffing, stock and things such as opening hours. I've mentioned in my blog many times about organisation, and this is adding another level to your understanding of what goes on.

NOT EVERYTHING CAN BE FOUND ON THE HIGH STREET

How to avoid being short-staffed, and what to do when you can't avoid it

It happens to all managers at one time or another, when you end up scratching around trying to get shifts covered left right and centre. Holidays, sickness or other factors can sometimes all happen at once and leave you in a situation where you're making frantic calls to people or ending up covering shifts yourself.

So how can you avoid it? If you can't avoid it, how can you manage it?

Firstly, the best way of avoiding it comes with a dual approach - having flexibility in your team and planning long term. I'll look at both in more detail below.

Flexibility

Having a team that's flexible in terms of the hours they are available for work will help in all sorts of ways at all times of the year. And particularly in a time of crisis, where you are really short staffed. Although it starts to go against some of the points I've made in a previous blog, flexibility comes from having a good degree of part-time workers in your team-

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The trick here is to have a good mix of both, with perhaps a progression plan for the better part-timers to move into full-time roles as people progress up the ladder or leave for another job.

The benefits of part-timers are clear to see in a short-term basic financial way. The current threshold for employers National Insurance is £156 per week, or £8,112 per year. So if your employee earns under that, you save having to pay a 12% tax on those earning above the threshold. If there are any other areas a business can find a 12% cost saving in one move then I've yet to find it!

So in terms of cost, part-timers can make done sense. And in terms of flexibility, they make sense too. Being able to call on someone who perhaps only works 16 or 20 hours per week presently to cover extra shifts is easier than trying the same with a full-timer. Plus you may have to pay overtime rates, depending on their contract.

Planning

It goes without saying that every manager needs to look at the long term as far as their business is concerned. Day-to-day events often take over, but having a long-term plan is essential. One aspect of long-term planning is the organisation of staff holidays. Starting to give out holiday forms and having a holiday planner set up gives you some certainty over when people are away from the operation and when you can allow others some holiday time. It helps here to set up rules for holiday requests being granted. And these rules will depend on the size of your team. I've worked many places where only one full-timer and only one part-timer off at the same time, and at least 3 weeks notice for a holiday request. This allows you cover, and time to arrange that cover.

From the point that you are organised and have set the rules, all you need to do us communicate the rules and remind people who haven't booked their holidays to get their requests in.