As with most businesses that offer services rather than products, when agencies see many teammates taking paid time off at the same time—which often happens around major holidays and in the summer months—measures must be taken to ensure client work does not suffer during these periods.
To ensure everyone working on client projects can take a well-deserved break when they need to without causing delays or introducing other issues, each agency develops its own process for end-of-year vacation planning. Below, members of Forbes Agency Council weigh in on the question of how to prepare for those times when work still needs to be done, but there are fewer people around to do it.
Forbes Agency Council members share tips for agencies planning end-of-year PTO amid continuing client work.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.1. Share Plans And Make Sure Nothing Is Left To Question
Planning is key. We have plans A, B and C for everything we do. We have a great working policy. Still, we listen to our teams across different departments, celebrate the holidays worldwide according to a calendar and complete projects on time without sacrificing deadlines. We share vacation plans and make sure that nothing is left to question. - Nataliya Andreychuk, Viseven
2. Plan Around Clients’ Priorities And Use A Pro Services Org To Manage HR
We plan our projects around clients’ priorities. However, because we use a professional services organization to manage our human resources, we can easily see and manage everyone’s paid time off and holidays. Our clients, for the most part, are flexible around the holidays. The fact that we work almost 100% remotely these days has made planning vacations and time off easier to manage. - Fernando Beltran, Identika LLC
3. Require Employees To Complete All Work Before Taking Time Off In December
We require all work to be completed before employees use vacation time during the December holiday week. This typically isn’t an issue for our agency because B2B health tech and pharma slow down in December. Last year, we closed during the holiday week to give everyone a break from a stressful pandemic year. - Christine Slocumb, Clarity Quest Marketing
4. Set Clear Expectations With Clients Regarding Time Off
We set clear expectations with clients from day one about our yearly week off and other holidays and how we’re going to plan things in advance. Apart from reminding them of this when it gets close to the time off, we start to implement a series of workflows and automations and plan our weekly sprints in such a way that we cover the time off far in advance—two months, minimum, to provide a buffer for changes. - Vanhishikha Bhargava, Contensify
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5. Stagger Work So That Teammates Go On Vacation When Clients Do
People should provide notice within a certain period prior to going on vacations. Thus, work should be staggered so that when clients are on vacation, we go on vacation without worries about overlap. Agency shutdowns at the end of the year are a great way to encourage staff to pool vacations during that time and keep some degree of consistency at the end of quarter four. - Humphrey Ho, Hylink Digital
6. Set A Consistent Agencywide Holiday Closure Every Year
Since our beginning, it’s been a tradition to black out vacation days after Thanksgiving, then follow those up with an agencywide holiday closure that begins a day before Christmas Eve and continues through the New Year. Everyone seems to love this structure. They know when to schedule flights home and that they’ll have their whole team on deck in the busy times leading up to our holiday closure! - Sara Helmy, Tribu
7. Always Have A Redundancy For Each Role Or Operation
Managing time off around year-end holidays takes planning, planning and more planning. We always have a redundancy for each role or operation; this is our corporate rule. Based on these dependencies, we are managing the team members’ time off, so this process becomes seamless and doesn’t affect the result the client gets. We preplan a lot of things in advance, as well—our preparation for quarter four starts in August. - Ally Spinu, USA Link System
8. Build In Capacity For Team Members To Be On Call
It’s a careful balancing act between ensuring staff members get much-needed time off during the holidays and that any client activities are being managed by team members who aren’t on vacation. Since we’re a remote firm with employees in every time zone, we’ve built in the capacity for team members who are not on vacation to be on call—so unless something comes up, you’re free to enjoy your holiday. - Valerie Chan, Plat4orm PR
9. Have A Team Structure That Offers Depth
First, it’s important to have a client team structure that offers depth. Our hub-and-spoke model relies on a strategy and ideation hub managed by specialists. Ensuring the next person up can keep the program moving during holiday PTO is important. Of course, having a great tech stack that keeps everyone informed is also critical, followed by long-range planning. - Dean Trevelino, Trevelino/Keller
10. Go Dark Around The Holidays While Monitoring For Urgent Emails
We usually go dark the week of Thanksgiving, but I do check in daily in case anything urgent comes up. Most media and clients are also out of office that week. For Christmas and New Year’s Eve, we are dark, but as the founder, I’m always monitoring emails just in case. Our agency honors time off, and family and rest is most important during the holidays. Our motto is to get ahead of deadlines so that you and your team can enjoy your time off. - Leigh-Anne Anderson, Anderson-PR
11. Plan Annually To Leverage Spikes And Fairly Distribute Workloads
I believe it’s a matter of yearly planning rather than end-of-the-year vacation planning. Each client group has its seasonality, and the campaign planning workflow is unevenly distributed within each client group. The people-centric approach allows for leveraging the spikes and fairly distributing the workloads to prevent team members from burning out. - Oksana Matviichuk, Performics
12. Have Team Members Block Their Calendars Well In Advance Of PTO
PTO planning for the holidays should start in early fall. Encourage your team members to block their calendars well in advance of their time off, assign client items and tasks to those who will be available, reschedule meetings and make sure all action items are covered. Advanced planning enables our team to take their well-deserved time off while still delivering for our clients. - Heather Kelly, Next PR
13. Establish SOPs To Provide Guidance And Cross-Train Employees
We give all employees the same 10-day block of time off at the end of the year. This allows everyone to enjoy the holidays. Those who want to take more time off have the option to do that, as well. As a small business, we have benefited greatly from standard operating procedures that provide guidance when staff is away, and we are all cross-trained to cover for one another when needed. - Paula Chiocchi, Outward Media, Inc.
14. Go Fully Remote For The Last Half Of December
We go fully remote for the last half of December, and we find that this time is usually accompanied by lots of out-of-office responses from other companies, as well. I think it is important to embrace the period of rest, always communicating expectations and needs clearly so that the whole team can be on the same page throughout the month. - Bryanne DeGoede, BLND Public Relations
