All work and no play?

It’s about the time of year when roofing companies get really busy. And it’s also the time of year employees usually ask for time off to attend family vacations, spend time with kids home from school and travel to weddings. So what’s a supervisor to do?

Harvard Business Review has some suggestions. In “How to manage your team’s vacation requests,” Karen Dillon explains there are six ways to become a better vacation manager:

• You could consider planning time off collectively rather than leaving the task to one person. Dillon writes: “If everyone feels they’re solving the problems jointly as a team … you’ll usually find people willing to step up to make things work.”
• Don’t judge how people want to spend their time off. People relax and unwind in different ways, and “as a manager, it’s not your job to judge or prioritize how people choose to spend their time off.”
• A rotating system may work best for your team. “Use a list to determine who gets to choose their days off first,” Dillon writes. “Next year, the top couple of people go to the bottom of the list, and so on, so that everyone tops the list over time.”
• Consider closing the office for everyone. Although roofing’s busy season may not be the time for this strategy, closing your business for a week during the slower months would give everyone time to take a break.
• If allowing weeklong vacations will be difficult for your company to withstand during the spring and summer, Dillon says offering other options may be just as important to employees. For instance, if someone is training for a marathon, maybe you agree to give them every Friday off to train.

Managing vacation requests during your busiest season can be tricky. But remember: Vacations are as important for mental health as they are for physical health. By providing employees options, you show you care about their overall well-being.

AMBIKA PUNIANI REID is editor of Professional Roofing and NRCA’s vice president of communications.