The Bagg Group Blog

With the warm weather comes daydreams of vacations and dips in employee productivity. Recently, a survey of a British staffing agency showed 68% of employees admit to spending a significant part of their workday thinking about their impending holidays and 25% of respondents acknowledged a drop in their productivity.

That’s not unusual. When fine weather finally hits, even the most disciplined of us find it difficult to block thoughts of canoes and cottages. 

At The Bagg Group, we advocate vacations.  They are all the more important in a recession when employees need a break from a heavy workload and office stresses.

Across Canada, most companies offer an average of 17 annual vacation days.  That’s down two days from 2007, but still three more than Americans, according to a  2008 Expedia survey of employed workers in North America and Europe

In Europe, the practice has always been to provide significant time off. In 2008, employees in Great Britain typically got 26 days off,  a two-day increase over 2007, and Germany, Spain and France saw increases of one day, with workers receiving 27 days, 31 days and 37 days respectively.

Recruitment agencies in  the GTA concur that there are three reasons to encourage employees to take their vacations:

Vacation help reduce burnout:  Rest and relaxation is the best way to re-charge the batteries.

Vacations promote creative thinking:  Often, in stepping away from a situation, you can see it more clearly and so come up with better solutions.  

Vacations improve work/life balance:  A holiday is a time for employees to reconnect with families and personal interests and increased quality of life can lead to increased quality of work on the job.

Still, daydreaming and vacationing employees can add up to a seasonal headache for managers and hiring authorities who must ensure smooth operations, regardless of the temperature outside.  As staffing solution experts, here are some tips that we have shared  successfully with top employers in the GTA.

Create work schedules for the summer frame of mind:  Allow flexible work hours that let workers start and finish the day earlier.  In this way, workers complete eight-hour days at the office and still have time to enjoy the sunshine

Post a visual chart showing who is absent when:  This is useful for colleagues, and helps managers ensure key employees are not on holiday at the same time.

Have employees compile a list of clients, suppliers, and anyone else who may need to be contacted in case of an emergency:  This list is useful year-round, and the summer holiday is a great incentive for the employee to put it together.

Cross train employees to take over duties of others:  Have employees prepare a list of their major duties and step-by-step instructions on how to fulfill these. But put on hold those tasks that can wait a week.  It’s not helpful to to overburden  colleagues left behind.

Consider hiring temporary staff or contract workers:  This ensures continued smooth operation, and allows the other employees to focus on their work.  Also, it helps the vacationing employee who can suffer a bad case of post-holiday blues if returning to work that has piled up.

Look for opportunities to celebrate summer:  After our long winter, we do need to make the most of summer.  Consider holding one-on-one meetings at a patio or allowing Bermuda short and sandal days.

There’s a lingering misconception that finding top talent in a recession is as easy as fishing in a barrel. Yet, that was disproved in the 90s recession when employers found that they were overwhelmed with resumes, but very few applicants met their criteria.

At The Bagg Group, we receive hundreds of resumes for every available position. Typically, only three out of 100 responses are potentially suitable for the job opportunity. Our recruiters meet face-to-face with every prospective candidate. And on average, we recommend less than 30% of all those we interview to our clients.

Quantity is not the issue, quality is. When it comes to staffing in times of economic turmoil, there are two golden rules. These practices will carry you through this recession, as they’ve carried top employers through past ones.

Why invest now in top talent? A-level people are more than high producers. They’re innovative thinkers who can problem-solve with you.

And companies which involve employees in finding ways to operate more cost-effectively report excellent results, according to surveys of The Great Place To Work Institute Inc., a global research agency.

These are qualities that can’t be bought, so they won’t eat in to your budget. And you can measure your return on effort in increased loyalty and productivity.

Here are some suggestions that top employers in the GTA have implemented, with great success.

Help employees decompress: Recognize that today’s overburdened employees need ways to de-stress. It’s money well spent  to subsidize gym memberships. And bringing a massage therapist on-site for 15-minute treatments can help employees get the knots out of their neck and out of their thinking.

Holding regular trivia and other types of contests and celebrations builds camaraderie in tough times, and injects some levity into the workplace.

A time-out for fun is proven to reduce stress hormones and increase a sense of wellbeing, which in turns sharpens creative thinking and increases productivity.

(For why and how some companies are bringing humour into the workplace, see the article Making Work Fun by Paul E. McGhee, Ph.D.)

Even small gestures can make a difference. Human resource professionals at one company reported that employees were delighted when the company replaced regular coffee with top premium blends.

Consider creative perks: Post-cuts, many employees are doing the job of two, and could use a perk or two to stay motivated. They know best what could make a difference to their worklife. Ask and you may be surprised by the answers.

More and more, over-stretched employees are putting in requests for a temporary or contract worker who can take some tasks off their overloaded plates. At The Bagg Group, we are regularly fulfilling demands from all sizes of corporations for efficient, knowledgeable temps who can step in and take over time-consuming activities to allow full-time staff to focus on their primary work.

Talk about the elephant in the room: Open, transparent communications between executives and employees is key for building trust and collaboration.

During this recession, many executives hold relaxed, regular get-togethers with employees to report candidly on progress and challenges, and address questions and anxieties. The result is a company-wide appreciation that everyone is in this together. And that fuels the motivation to work on solutions.

Nothing attracts and retains top talent more than company leadership which actively demonstrates that its people are its best asset. And that’s a fact that hasn’t changed with the times.