Letter from Sleeps-with-Smartphone – and how to manage holidays more efficiently!

One of our Usual Suspects, Sleeps-with-Smartphone, has written us a letter to update us on how her summer is going so far. If you were at the HR Software Show 2014, you might have met her there. In her letter she also tells us about the new holiday booking tool at her workplace that helps the company manage holidays better.

“Hello friends,

What a busy summer it’s been so far! People often say that things quieten down at work during the summer months, but I’ve seen none of that personally. My blackberry is ringing off the hook and I keep finding myself writing emails late into the night. I guess that’s why they call me Sleeps-with-Smartphone.

I had planned to go on holiday with the family in late July but then decided to cancel the holiday because I don’t feel like I can be away from the business for 2 whole weeks. If you take your eye off the ball, you might lose the game. I spent 2 days last week at a trade show exhibiting our product and I had so many new leads to follow up on that I didn’t want to miss my chance of converting leads due to a holiday.

Unfortunately, my HR manager has implemented a new holiday tool this year. It’s called Engage and it means I have to request (and cancel) my annual leave days online. She has also implemented a policy that everyone should have taken, or at least booked, 50% of their annual leave by July so as to avoid a rush of overlapping holidays close to Christmas. This is a problem in our office, which is often pretty empty in December because we’re only allowed to carry over 5 leave days each year so everyone is trying to take their holiday before they lose it.

With this new system, however, our HR manager knows exactly who has or hasn’t booked any leave and so she has now emailed me to make arrangements to take time off. She even said I should switch off my blackberry whilst away so that I actually get to have some time to relax! It’s nice of them to want me to have my time off but I’m already worried about my workload after the holiday.  My manager keeps telling me that I should delegate some tasks to others while away but I’m sure my colleagues will just mess things up…

Yours sincerely,

Sleeps-with-Smartphone

p.s. If you’re interested in an online tool to better manage holidays, why not check out the new holiday features in Engage. You can sign up for a FREE trial!