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Thank you from
Angela and Alec
Holiday Management
Holidays are the bane of all Shift Managers lives; this
is because there are a lot of holidays to fit into every
year. Summer is never long enough and by the time
Christmas comes around you find out that everyone
has two-weeks of holiday left and they have to take it
before the end of the year. So how do you squeeze it
all into a year?
Until we start to look at this problem in detail, and
do some basic arithmetic, we cannot comprehend
the enormity of this task. Even in a small office hours
environment, say 10 people, they will all have about
6 weeks of holiday each. That is about 60 weeks of
holiday to fit into 52 weeks in a year. That means
that at least one person will have to be on holiday
every day of the year.
People on holiday cost money, in holiday pay and in
lost production or underutilised equipment. We
either need to replace them or have extra staff
around in case someone wants a holiday – but how
many do we need and what skills should they have?
A lot of processes require small numbers of staff
with specialised skills, so if an operation takes a
team of 5 staff all with different skills, how do we
maintain the team when they are due 30 weeks of
holiday between them?
Holidays also cost a lot in manager’s time. If you
think of how much effort has to go into processing
one holiday request, and then multiply it by the
number of staff you are looking after, the final figure
is huge. Not only must we look at each request
individually to see if it can be accommodated, we
also have to plan the operation to run without that
person. Very few requests are denied once asked
for; we simply make the effort of fitting it in with all
the other requests from everyone else. A lot of
management time is wasted in re-organising the
work. A part of the holiday request and granting
process is that managers get involved in the
personal lives of their staff, and hear about all the
little problems and reasons behind why they have to
have exactly ‘that holiday on that date’. So the best
way to reduce the manager’s workload is to alleviate
the necessity for the managers to have to listen to all
of their problems.
Now you can look at the problem you have by looking at the number of staff you employ and the
annual number of holidays they have. If your staff are entitled to 30 days off per year, 10 staff
equals 300 days of holidays, 100 staff equals 3000 holidays, and someone has to deal with them.
What is needed is a system that manages the holidays with almost zero effort, zero time and leaves
the company unaffected.
Holidays Included or Holidays Excluded?
There are two approaches to Holiday Management. You can either use a Holidays Included Shift
Pattern or a Holidays Excluded Shift Pattern with a Holiday Management Plan.
Holidays Included Shift Patterns are almost effortless, very efficient, minimal management
involvement & everyone loves it. Basically, all the holiday entitlement that everyone has is
incorporated into the shift pattern. This optimises everyone's holiday, giving them the best quality
time off in a fair and regular way. If you would like to find out more please read our ebook Holiday
Included Shift Patterns available from Amazon for only £6.64.
If a Holidays Included Shift Pattern is not for you, then the alternative is a Holidays Excluded Shift
Pattern. This is what most companies operate; where the staff are rostered onto additional shifts
and then they can select their holiday on a first come first served basis.
With a Holidays Excluded Shift Pattern you can't eliminate the effort entirely. However you can vastly
reduce the effort of managing them with a Holiday Management Plan. A Holiday Management Plan
will set limits on the number of staff allowed on holiday on any shift, the timetables for requests and
information. This works best if the holiday resources have already been organised to match
expected holiday requests. If you would like to find out more please read our ebook Holiday
Management available from Amazon.
© 2021 C-Desk Technology
Experts on Shift Operations and Scheduling
Tel:01636 816466 | email: alec@visualrota.co.uk
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