How To Schedule Vacations,
Control Your Expenses And
Keep Everybody Happy At The Same Time!
It has been said that with the exception of size, there's no difference between your business and General Motors (GM). You both have to deal with marketing issues, cost control and competition. But there's one difference between you and GM that no one can argue: If GM has two or three people off at the same time, it's meaningless. In your case, it can bring your business to a grinding halt. Worse yet, the problem is compounded when your employees schedule their vacations around the holidays, or during your busy seasons. It not only puts a big crimp in production, but it takes a big bite out of your income. Ideally, you should be able to schedule vacations in a way that controls your expenses and keeps everybody happy at the same time. Let's take a look at how we can reach both of these objectives.
If you want to keep your crew happy, then never forget this: Preferential treatment to any employee is a sure way to fail in any business. For example, Mike's Auto Repair has four technicians. His lead tech, Larry, has the most seniority with five years, and every year he takes one of his vacation weeks during the Christmas holiday week. This is great for Larry, but not so good for Danny who has been with the company for three years. Danny would like to take his vacation during the Christmas week too, but he was told that since Larry has the most seniority, he gets the first choice. Since Larry is not willing to give up this nice benefit, unless he quits, Danny and the rest of the crew are out of luck. This type of preferential treatment will ruin moral, productivity and your business, all at the same time. When scheduling vacations, think of fairness, but at the same time think about how we can save money. Fortunately, there are a number of ways we can reach those objectives using the following tips.
The first thing to do is identify your busiest season just as the airlines identify their "peak periods" for air travel. These are the weeks and months where you have consistently shown the highest levels of sales, productivity and net income. In most geographical areas, these peak periods will typically fall into the summer months. Once you've identified your peak period, you should then rate all 12 months using the same system. Once you've accomplished this task, you've then identified your most productive period, your least productive period and all the periods between. As your next step, you'll need to look at the productivity ratios of each tech and come to a conclusion as to how much it would cost you if that tech wasn't producing during each of those periods. Here's an example:
Technician Keith is our best producer. During the month of August, he flags an average of 46 hours in a 40-hour week. On the other hand, during our traditionally slow month of February, he averages only 33 hours. Subtract 33 from 46 and we quickly see that if he were to take his vacation during February rather than August, we'd pick up an additional 13 hours of productivity. You can now see how we can afford to offer incentives to our crew to take their vacations during "off peak season" times. So, how do we put this all into a package that keeps our crew happy and saves us money at the same time? Here's how. Schedule an employee meeting and let everyone know that you're going to unveil a new "vacation program" that's going to be a win for everybody. Once you have your entire crew assembled, then these are the points you'll need to address: "With the exception of any vacations we've already approved, effective today we're imposing "black out" dates for vacations. These dates include the entire week before and after Christmas, as well as any day before or after any legal holiday."
Pass out calendar's that have the black-out days marked and explain to them that the reason that the Christmas weeks have been blacked out is to assure that everyone is treated fairly since there's only one Christmas week and you have more than one employee. When you're considering black-out periods, keep this in mind: Busy seasons should never be blacked out if they fall in the summer months because your employees work hard for you, and if they'd like to take a break during the summer, then they certainly should have the opportunity to do just that.
Next, tell your crew this ... "I'd also like to mention that the day before and the day after any legal holiday are typically busy days, and we want to be sure that nobody has to carry the load for other people. So, to be eligible for any paid holiday, you have to work both the day before and the day after each holiday to get paid. If you're not here for any reason, you won't receive the holiday pay." This announcement lets everyone know that if they plan on stretching a holiday into a "mini-vacation" by calling in sick, then there's a price they'll have to pay. Next, tell them, "Now let's talk about how we're going to choose vacation times and then I'd like to tell you about some great incentives were able to offer you ..."
Let everyone know that next week you'll allow each employee to select only the first week of any vacation time they'll be entitled to, starting with the employee who has the most seniority, and then going in a "round-robin" for subsequent weeks. As an example, if Mark has the most seniority, and if he's entitled to two weeks of vacation, then although he gets to select first, he can only choose one week in the first round of selection. If he's looking for two weeks that are back-to-back, then he can choose the second week he'd like to get only if it's still available in the second round. If the week was selected by someone else, he still has the option of talking to them about a possible exchange. If you don't take this round-robin approach and if you just go by seniority, then your techs with the most seniority could tie up an entire month every year, and that's not fair to the rest of your crew. Once you tell them about the round-robin, you should tell them about the great "off-season" incentives you're offering ... "Now everybody here knows that we have some really busy seasons, we have some somewhat slow seasons, and we have some seasons in between. If you're here with us during the busy seasons, we're able to help more people and you're able to make more money. So this is what we're willing to do for you ..."
At this point you've already done your homework and you know what you can afford to offer them. As an example, if one of your top performers agreed to take his vacation during February rather than August, you could easily send the tech and their spouse on a ski holiday or a sight-seeing trip and still be money ahead. These incentives would vary in value based on the period the employee would chose to vacation and their levels of productivity.
So, can you put together a program that keeps everyone happy and saves you money? Sure you can. All you'll need to do is a little homework, reward the right behavior and treat everybody in a fair and professional manner. By the way, you might be asking yourself a question similar to this: "How do you deal with the employee who has family visiting from out of state during the Christmas week black-out period?" You're going to be faced with this type of situation eventually, so this is how you deal with it. You call an employee meeting, and this is what you say ... "The reason I wanted to speak with all of you is because I have to make a tough decision. As you know, the Christmas holiday weeks are blacked-out as vacation weeks. But Frank came to me the other day and told me that he had a problem. You see, his family who he hasn't seen for three years is flying out from New York, and they're only going to be here during the Christmas week. So Frank asked me if there was any way possible he'd be able to take his vacation while his family's here. Now the problem I have is if I say yes, then I'm not being fair to you. However, if I say no, then I'm not being very considerate to Frank and his family. So let me ask you this: If the decision was left up to you, what would you do?"
If you have a team of superstars who care about people, they'll all be rooting for Frank and telling you to let him be with his family. Once they share their feelings, smile, look right in their eyes, and say ... "I'm glad you all feel that way, because I felt it would be the right thing to do too. I also felt that the circumstances didn't give me much of a choice, but now that I have your approval, I feel really good about the decision. Thanks for your support." Frank gets to be with his family, you still have your black-out periods, the crew is happy, and you walk away the hero.
Bob Cooper is the president of Elite, a management and sales training company for the automotive professional. Cooper also lectures nationally to trade associations, franchise groups and Fortune 500 companies - he will be one of the Automotive Management Institute (AMI) speakers at the Congress of Automotive Repair and Service (CARS) in Dearborn, Mich., in September. For further information on Elite's services, call (800) 204-ELITE.
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AutoInc. Magazine ®, Vol. XLV No. 7, July 1997