Last time I asked about how I don’t like Halloween.
What I do like is Thanksgiving -> New Years.
Everyone is nicer.
People are giving.
The world is a more enjoyable place when people are looking to help each other.
I know it’s still October, but let’s talk about the holiday period.
My business partner, Dan, and I let our team take paid time off over the holidays and unlimited leave because our business doesn’t have a lot of time-sensitive tasks. This system works for us, but I know a LOT of businesses where this won’t work at all.
I know the holidays are some of the busiest times for dropshipping, e-commerce, and freight businesses. Some of you might have hired seasonal workers to cover that extra work.
In the Philippines, most holidays are at the end of the year. Starting at the end of November, there’s a holiday practically every week. Because of that, most of your Filipino workers might ask to take their days off during this time, which makes this problematic, especially if this is the time you need them the most.
So, what can you do to ensure that your business is covered even during the holidays? Here are some things you can do:
1. You can create a “leave” calendar where you mark the days they CAN’T take their leave. Let your OFS know they can take their leave on any other day except those days. Make sure to label the calendar with the correct time zone to avoid missed work schedules.
2. One thing that call centers do in the Philippines is alternate holiday scheduling. Half the team can take Christmas eve and Christmas off. The other half can take their New Year’s Eve and New Year off. It’s not a perfect solution, but it ensures that you have people working and your team can still enjoy the holidays.
3. For our customer support team, we offer half shifts during the holidays. Instead of 8 hours, they only need to do 4 hours on those days. We usually have two people per 8-hour shift, so they talk amongst themselves about what hours they would cover. This way, there’s always someone online for email support.
4. Our dev team and site administrator don’t work on any new projects during the holidays but are on call and monitoring to ensure that the websites are working properly.
There are no rules or standard practices here. It’s whatever you want to do with your business. Just because we give everyone Dec 24 – Jan 2 off doesn’t mean you need to.
Do you have other ways of covering holiday shifts with your OFS? Let me know by emailing me at john@onlinejobs.ph.
John
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