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Do Your Employees Need a Vacation?

Adam Groff

November 30, 2015

Making sure your employees are happy and feel appreciated is all part of running a successful small business.

A great way to reward your employees while also keeping them working hard is to offer them vacation time.

Here are just a few tips for providing your staff with vacation without affecting production at your small business:

Consider the Timing

Running a small business likely means you have a small staff.

As result, it's important to have your employees available when you need them, which doesn't always work well when holiday and summer vacations roll around.

You can and should still offer your employees plenty of vacation time, just consider the timing in terms of production at your small business.

In other words, if all of your employees go on vacation at the same time, productivity at your business will plummet.

To avoid this, plan vacation schedules with your employees well in advance.

If everyone is planning a big summer vacation, see if you can spread the dates out across the entire summer break as opposed to over one month. This way everyone will get the vacation they're hoping for and your business won't suffer as a result.

Make it Reward Based

Regular vacations that coincide with the holidays are usually commonplace, but you should also consider offering short reward-based vacations.

As the following article looks at, there are 8 things employees should do before leaving for vacation, such as finishing any weekly tasks or closing deals with clients.

By offering reward for these accomplishments, you can encourage your staff to work hard, which helps increase productivity. A reward-based vacation can be anything from paid time off to three-day weekends.

Just make sure you offer the same rewards to all of your employees and try not to make a competition out of it.

Offer Longer Vacations During Slower Periods

Another great way to offer vacations to your employees without affecting productivity at your business is to extend vacation times during slower business periods.

This basically rewards your employees with more vacation time just for going on vacation during off periods for your business.

By doing so, you'll have your entire staff available during your busy seasons, but your employees will still get plenty of vacation time during other parts of the year.

This scenario is a win-win for your employees because they can also take advantage of travel and hotel discounts for vacationing during off seasons.

Be Generous

At the end of the day, a happy employee is a productive employee.

To keep your employees happy, make sure you're generous with your paid and non-paid vacations.

Offer vacation time whenever possible and try to be flexible and work around your employees' dates.

If too many employees are asking for the same vacation dates, try to come up with solutions that benefit your employees as well as your business, such as alternating holiday vacation dates between employees. It may result in more work for you, but it's worth it in the long run.

By rewarding your employees with vacation, you'll make them that much happier when they are at work.

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