Christmas break or Christmas nightmare?
Posted 7 January 2008 at 3:08PM by Ian Betteridge in Doing business online
How many of the people you work with have just managed to have a solid two week break? It seems that, outside retail, half the country took the opportunity of the way that Christmas and New Year fell to leave the office on 21 December and only return on 7 January - giving them two weeks of no work.
Of course, for most companies the idea of letting most or all of your employees take the two days between Christmas and New Year and the three days after New Year's Day off is impossible. If you have customers who need your attention, then the business can't stop simply because people want a long period off. Then of course there's the danger that half of your office will take the holiday, while the other half show up but can't actually get much done as key people aren't around. Long lunches and early leaving could be the order of the day.
However, if you can manage it, there can be advantages to these kinds of breaks. Two weeks off is likely to give your employees the benefit of plenty of rest, which, at the end of a hard year, can be just what's needed to take them into the new one. The actual amount of working days that they're taking is small - five working days, delivering two weeks of holiday - which means that it's an effective use of holiday and gives them more rest than they would get from taking five days at other times of the year. Plus, after two weeks at home, eating more than is good for them and being constantly pestered by slightly bored children, work might even start look like an attractive option!
And it might even suit your customers too - after all, they may be thinking about doing the same thing.
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Tags: christmas, flexible working, new year
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Comments
2. At January 7, 2008 8:35 PM, Paul Beard wrote:
I was fortunate enough to get the two weeks off.
Being self employed, it meant a major drop in income, but it gave me time to assess where my business were at, and plan for the future.Had I worked over the holidays, I would not have come up with many of the 'bright ideas' that I did.
Paul
Photographers-United.com
3. At January 7, 2008 8:58 PM, JJF wrote:
Sounds Ok from the employee's point of view,but would they be so keen if the extra days off were unpaid?
4. At January 8, 2008 6:07 AM, Mary-Anne Tilbury wrote:
I would welcome companies practically shutting down. Xmas holidays are grabbed by the first-come types. Those left to man the office don't get their own work done because they are fielding calls for those away. Often those away are interrupted by queries anyway. Clients ring in to the office and say Oh I didn't think you'd be there/why aren't you on holiday - why did they ring then ?!
5. At January 8, 2008 9:15 AM, Zen wrote:
I agree with Paul Cassidy, rents and rates do not stop for christmas holidays so why should the company? Yes it's good to have time off and recupperate, but from a business point of view there are costs and loss of sales generating activites mounting up -simply not feesible.
6. At January 8, 2008 9:31 AM, Carl Lotter wrote:
I had to work throughout the festive period as the company I work for tender for small & medium enterprises. The ammount of work I had to deal with over the two weeks was a tenth of what I cover in a "normal working day" during any other week. This left me with 7 working days of 8-6 shifts with nothing to do other then go through this blog in great detail. The only thing that killed the time, other then this blog, was the thought of getting paid for doing nothing. As for the retail sector, they were busy with sales and not their IT, even when their IT reportedly crashed they weren't expecting to have it amended till after the new year anyway.
7. At January 8, 2008 9:38 AM, Martin wrote:
Sounds like you spent a lot of time reading our blog posts Carl! If that was the case, it would be great if you could post any feedback over on our Business blog community.
Cheers!
8. At January 8, 2008 10:03 AM, Zaphod wrote:
Of course people will take two weeks off if they are paid! Fine as long as you don't work in retail and have to turn up for work at 8 o'clock on Boxing day! My family in Holland don't take two weeks off, neither do my contacts in the U.S. As Zen says, rent and rates don't stop for Holidays. Given the 'slowing down' in the week before Xmas this means three weeks with little December cashflow and few future sales generated to produce January cashflow, there's no wonder so many small businesses go bust in Jan. and Feb. each year. Carl says that firms weren't expecting to have systems mended until after the new year but our customers were - and they did get their equipment repaired.
9. At January 8, 2008 2:21 PM, Nicola wrote:
People seem to be focusing on the 2 weeks thing - when it is really just 5 working days.
I like the point in the original post about it being an effective use of holiday because employees get a longer break despite it not costing any extra working time to the company.
10. At January 8, 2008 2:26 PM, ford prefect wrote:
i agree zaphod. 8am starts on boxing day is harsh especially when theres nothing to do in the office but its not hard to think of projects to do in the absence of others just remember two heads are better than one
christmas is a time where it will always present this problem of paying people to not work. and it will never change
11. At January 8, 2008 4:01 PM, Ian Betteridge wrote:
Carl makes a very good point: for many businesses, the Christmas period is quite quiet anyway, with many of your customers away from work. Obviously, that's not true of everyone - retail is an obvious exception - but if your business isn't going to be busy, why not give people a longer break at a cost of only five "real" holiday days?
12. At January 9, 2008 12:36 AM, James Lyon wrote:
Being an internet only selling company we started selling again on Christmas Day when our customers had opened their CHRISTMAS MONEY PRESENTS and started to buy what they really wanted. We operate on a 24 hr 7 days a week basis. So no days off for us, as we sell 365 days to many countries around the world. James
13. At January 9, 2008 9:30 AM, Vincent McMahon wrote:
james is back! i thought you'd bucked the kicket.
there is nothing worse than working christmas period when there is nothing to do, especially when others are off having fun, then again it means you can plan holidays for busier times so while they get piles of work you can be on a sunny beach halfway across the earth
14. At January 9, 2008 11:55 AM, Ian Betteridge wrote:
James raises a really interesting point: for internet-based businesses, does work really never end?
15. At January 9, 2008 11:55 AM, Carl Lotter wrote:
I agree with many points put accross by everyone and at the end of the day we will need to adjust our work according to supply and demand, a simple business ethos. Therefore I would conclude by saying that as personal tastes differ so to will the requirements and flexilbilty options available to our business'. This brings me back to the old addage, "Different strokes for different folks."
16. At January 9, 2008 11:16 PM, James Lyon wrote:
Vincent McMahon wrote:
"There is nothing worse than working christmas period when there is nothing to do."Vincent - I agree - there is no point working when your business is dead over Christmas - Ours is alive, so we have to meet customer demand and are pleased to do so. Our Internet business operates 365 days a year.
James
17. At January 10, 2008 12:59 PM, Stephen Teal wrote:
Why is everyone so focussed on the needs of business. Isn't it time business started thinking about their employees. We in the UK already work longer hours with less holiday than most people on the continent.
18. At January 10, 2008 1:21 PM, simon eden wrote:
We are a barber shop and could work constantly through the christmas break. I have to draw a line between keeping the customers and the staff happy so we do late starts and early finishes so all are happy. How ever some of the self employed staff on commision only refused to work certain days and so they lost customers to other stylists this will hit there own pockets long term so a lesson learnt you would think but I am afraid not .
Where have work ethics gone ??
You dont pay your staff well all they do is complain not enough money you pay them to well and they start to take time off and put your business in jeopardy people complaining about the gap between directors and employees need to look at the bigger picture and what would happen if the bottom started to earn enough not to NEED to work to earn the money top live. They dont value there job and end up envitably with out one.
19. At January 10, 2008 7:11 PM, James Lyon wrote:
Stephen Teal wrote:
" Why is everyone so focussed on the needs of business. Isn't it time business started thinking about their employees. "
Without businesses and employers, Stephen and others would not get any wages. Employers and the self employed help to Grow the British Economy and pay Corporation Taxes etc - We need to work harder to beat the French and the Germans plus everybody else within the enlarged europe.
People from eastern europe are now coming here to work hard and are now doing a lot of Jobs that British people will not do.
People seem to want something for nothing these days.
Regards James.
20. At January 11, 2008 9:54 AM, Zaphod wrote:
In answer to Stephen, firstly this site is a BT Business homepage, "helping you manage your Business online". Secondly, without businesses, there are no employees - except in the Civil Service, but with no businesses and no employees there would be no VAT and Tax so we could close HM Revenue and Customs down (YES!) and their Civil Servants could be transferred to the Benefits Agency to pay out the dole for everybody else. But where would all that Dole money come from?
21. At January 11, 2008 11:16 AM, Stephen Teal wrote:
Whilst I appreciate the need for business to generate income for society as a whole I wonder how many big businesses have societies interest in mind when they over-work their employees, or right size a company in search of even more profit.
Let us keep the aims of big business in perspective. They do not exist to benefit society but to generate profit.
The Christmas period has in the past been seen as a time for "family" let's try to keep it that way. I am not saying that all businesses should or even could afford to close over the period. I believe that a happy worker is a better and more productive worker, how many people look forward to going to work?
22. At January 11, 2008 2:20 PM, Ian Betteridge wrote:
I think the thing to consider is that it's not actually in the interests of companies to work their employees into the ground. For those companies that can effectively close at Christmas, it can be a chance to make everyone happy: your customers won't miss out on too many days when you would have been open, and your employees get a long and restful break with their families. It's not a plan which can work for every company, but if you can do it it's definitely worth considering.
23. At January 11, 2008 4:23 PM, James Lyon wrote:
We sell into a very competitive market. If we do not reply to ORDER emails within 12 or 24 hours the potential customer goes elsewhere. Some will send the same email to 5 or more suppliers - The first one to come back with an instock answer and price usually gets the order. We just cannot afford to be off days on end, any time of the year including weekends.
James
24. At January 12, 2008 1:53 PM, Tanvir Ahmad wrote:
Well seems like James runs a pretty good business and I wonder about his customers as well. Who would like to sit down on a christmas eve or a christmas day or may be even on the boxing day and start odering stuff!! Well I wouldn't. But guess your customers come from a different planet James.
Anyways, I have come across businesses who were closed for 2 weeks probably because the nature of business. But this is not possible for everyone. Regardless of where we work, I guess everyone gets at least 20 days yearly holiday, 2 days a week and that makes it 72+20 = 92 days off. 92 days makes it almost one third of the year guys. Now add another 14 days. that is 106 days out of 365. I wonder why people are complaining for.
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1. At January 7, 2008 6:28 PM, Paul Cassidy mbe wrote: