Human Resources: Learn To Stay Productive In Summer

One of the most challenging Human Resources tasks is managing your vacation reasonably and efficiently. This can be a real headache during the summer when the vast majority of employees take breaks. To prevent this from affecting the productivity of your company and generating conflicts, proper management of the vacation calendar is essential.

Companies must establish a series of control mechanisms that allow them to effectively manage human resources, regulating the distribution of days and offering flexibility to adapt to the needs of workers. 

This planning is challenging, as we must ensure that neither productivity nor workers’ rights are affected. And all this will depend mainly on the needs of the company, its sector, and its size, without forgetting that any problem that affects staff can impact business development, both in SMEs and large companies. And although there is no magic formula to manage vacations, there are a series of criteria that every company can follow.

Criteria For Proper Human Resource Management

To carry out good human resource management, it is essential to know the legislation when choosing dates and establishing any award criteria. All the legal aspects in this regard are included in the Workers’ Statute and the Collective Agreements.

Another critical point to achieve labor conciliation without tension, chaos or disputes, is anticipation. The vacation schedule needs to be planned with enough time to organize the work so that the employees’ absences do not affect their development. Keep in mind that the lack of organization can play a trick on you, causing some tasks to be left pending.

Once we have this clear, the most advisable thing is to regulate the vacation shifts according to an award criterion. As a general rule, these criteria are usually seniority, workers with children, or the classic rotating shifts. The latter is usually the fairest since they always offer employees the choice of vacation days.

It must also be taken into account that an excessive rigidity in human resources management can often affect employees, generating some discomfort. The company must be flexible. The key is to find a mechanism that allows us to adapt to the needs of the company and the individual situation of its employees. 

In this sense, communication is vital. The company must know the preferences and needs of each of its workers to avoid misunderstandings.

How To Maintain Productivity In Summer?

Although the level of work and productivity tends to decrease notably in July and August, it is in your power to stop it. And you don’t need a human resources department to get it. Here are some tips: 

• Adapt to the environment and manage your time at work to the maximum. Increase efficiency by eliminating secondary tasks that are not urgent. Limit yourself to the essentials.
• Share with employees a calendar that includes the vacations of the entire team. Everyone should be aware of the means and resources available to the company each week.
• Assign essential tasks to specific people. Communication is critical so that things are not left undone or more resources are spent than necessary in a particular study.
• Organize more team plans and encourage collaboration. Makes team-building activities to get out of the routine, improve the work environment, reinforce teamwork, and increase productivity. 
• Apply an intensive day regime, establishing a schedule that compresses the entire working day between the morning and the early afternoon. This will favor the disconnection of the employees and will provide extra motivation to face the next day.
• Focus on the strategy for the next few months. Take the opportunity to take stock of the year, plan new campaigns and projects.

As you can see, proper management of human resources is key to preventing the arrival of the summer season from negatively affecting productivity. But managing a business in an agile and efficient way is not an easy task. It takes time and responsibility. So why not save time and effort and start automating the most cumbersome processes.

Also Read: Five Keys To Improving The Financial Management Of Your Company