Holiday Cover

August 22, 2012

Holiday time – hooray. Sun, sea and Sangria – for all those visiting Espana, Ouzo if Greece and some good old fashioned tea in Kurdistan – but enough of that! Holidays represent two weeks away from it all but for the ‘Boss’, far from relaxing, holiday time is peak stress-time. Who will manage the business, especially if it is a small business or department, when key team members are away?

The answer for some of our overseas colleagues is to close the business for two weeks but if, like us, your customers are working hard 52 weeks of the year and they rely on your equipment to get projects completed, closing for two weeks is not an option. Nor is, as some of our French colleagues do, closing for a month!

For us the only option is to make sure, even though we are small, that every member of the team has a someone who knows the key elements of their job, so that person can cover for them when they are away – logical, but not always possible. For one we are all very busy, most of the time, so how can we take on someone else’s work? Well the nice thing is we see it as a development opportunity, a chance to learn more, not just about the business and the specialist groundwater equipment we sell and rent but also it gives everyone the opportunity to ‘test’ what it’s like to be ‘Technical Sales’ or ‘Warehouse Manager’.

Now this approach can add to the daily pressure but in the long term much less traumatic than taking a job, thinking it is all about this, when in reality it is very different! And the other thing is many of our customers are away at this time of year too so there is a little less pressure. Anyway, you can always take a holiday to get over the stress!