Do not run yourself into the ground before your holiday: what should employers do?

The same pattern can be seen in many workplaces as the summer holiday season approaches. Calendars fill up, unfinished matters are cleared from desks, and responsibilities are only resolved at the last minute. The thinking is understandable, but if the situation is managed poorly, the consequences quickly become visible in the form of excessive workload, an increased risk of errors and unnecessary bottlenecks. From a company’s perspective, effective holiday planning is not merely a soft employee benefit. It is a practical way to manage work in a more controlled manner.

Workplaces often make the same mistake in the run-up to the summer holidays. The assumption is that everyone should make one final push to complete as much as possible before going on leave. In practice, this means full calendars, delayed arrangements for substitutes, rushed decisions and employees starting their holidays only after their workload has already become excessive.

In most cases, however, the holiday is not the problem. The problem is how the work has been managed during the spring.

For a company, this is not only a question of employee wellbeing. It is also a matter of management, risk management and business continuity. If holidays are not planned in good time, decision-making slows down, responsibilities become unclear and the same key individuals continue to be relied upon even when they should be away from work and recovering.

A holiday cannot fix structural workload problems from the spring

The summer holiday provides an important opportunity for recovery, but the entire management model for the spring should not be built around it. The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health has emphasised that recovery cannot be saved up for a holiday. Employees need opportunities to detach themselves from work, take breaks, rest and get enough sleep throughout the year, not only in July. According to the Institute, the positive effects of a holiday on wellbeing also tend to be relatively short-lived.

It is therefore not particularly sustainable to assume that employees can stretch themselves further during the spring because they will be able to rest in the summer. If the volume of work, allocation of responsibilities, division of duties or decision-making practices are already causing excessive strain before the holiday season, a holiday may provide temporary relief, but it will not remove the underlying cause.

In day-to-day work, excessive strain rarely results solely from having too much work. It is often intensified by changing priorities, unclear responsibilities, constant interruptions and decisions being expected at too low a level within the organisation. When these factors accumulate just before a holiday, employees do not only take a sense of urgency with them. They also carry unfinished matters and uncertainty. As a result, recovery does not begin immediately at the start of the holiday, but only after a delay.

Why is this also a legal issue?

Under the Finnish Occupational Safety and Health Act, an employer’s obligations are not limited to physical hazards. Employers must identify and assess risks and hazards arising from the work, working hours, work arrangements and working environment. This obligation also covers workload factors. If an employee is found to be experiencing a workload that endangers their health, the employer must use the means available to investigate the situation and reduce the risk.

In practice, this means that psychosocial workload also falls within the employer’s area of responsibility.

Time pressure, unclear responsibilities, an unmanageable workload, constant interruptions and inadequate prioritisation are not merely side issues in working life. They may create excessive strain that the employer is required to address. This does not mean that work may never involve demanding periods. What matters is the overall situation. If signs of excessive workload recur, the volume of work is unrealistic or tasks are routinely completed by employees constantly stretching beyond reasonable limits, the situation can no longer be regarded as a temporary peak. The employer must then assess what changes are needed in the allocation of work, resourcing, schedules or management practices.

For this reason, excessive workload before the holiday season should not be addressed solely through discussions about wellbeing. For the company, it is simultaneously an employment law, operational and financial issue.

Annual holidays must be planned in advance

The same principle is reflected in the Finnish Annual Holidays Act. As a general rule, the employer must notify the employee of the timing of their annual holiday no later than one month before the holiday begins. If this is not possible, the notice must be given no later than two weeks before the holiday. The structure of the legislation makes the underlying principle clear. Holidays are intended to be based on advance planning, not last-minute improvisation. Under the Annual Holidays Act, the holiday season runs from 2 May to 30 September.

If responsibilities, substitute arrangements, approval processes or customer-facing practices for the summer are still unresolved immediately before the holiday season, the holiday is usually not the problem. The problem is that the organisation has not prepared for a foreseeable period of absence sufficiently early.

The consequences often become visible quickly. Decision-making slows down, important matters become congested at the wrong time, and employees who were supposed to be away from work are contacted during their holidays. At worst, this creates an operating model in which the organisation is nominally on holiday but, in practice, still relies on the same key individuals.

What should employers do before the holiday season?

The first task is to prioritise genuinely. Many organisations talk extensively about prioritisation, while the practical message remains that everything should ideally be completed before the holidays. This is precisely what drives employees into an unreasonable final push.

Management should communicate three matters clearly: what genuinely needs to be completed before the holiday season, what can be postponed until the autumn and what will not be done at all. This often reduces workload more effectively than any general reminder about the importance of recovery, because employees are also given permission to focus on what truly matters.

The second task is to treat holiday planning as a resourcing issue, rather than merely a scheduling exercise. Who will be responsible for customers, contracts, approvals and urgent exceptional situations? Who will make decisions while the responsible person is absent? Who will act as a substitute, and is that arrangement genuinely workable in practice?

The third task is to agree in advance on the rules concerning availability. In which situations may an employee on holiday be contacted, and in which situations should they not be contacted? If this is not resolved beforehand, the organisation may easily shift the consequences of its own inadequate planning onto individual employees and expect them to remain flexible during their holidays.

The fourth task is to take signs of excessive workload seriously before they result in sickness absences, key-person risks or employees considering leaving the organisation. If the workload is not manageable, the problem cannot be solved merely by reminding employees to take breaks or recover. The organisation must examine the volume and allocation of work, schedules, decision-making practices and the actual ability of supervisors to manage the situation.

Ultimately, the management team should ask itself a simple question: has the organisation genuinely decided what needs to be completed before the holidays and what does not? If management does not make this prioritisation, it will in practice be carried out through employees stretching themselves. That is an expensive way to manage an organisation.

A successful summer holiday is built before it begins

From the company’s perspective, the most important lesson is simple. The summer holiday is an employee’s right and an important period of recovery, but it is not a tool for compensating for a structurally excessive workload during the spring.

At its best, managing workload before the holiday season produces results quickly. Employees do not take unfinished chaos with them on holiday. Supervisors are not left alone to compensate for shortcomings in the organisation’s systems. Employees are genuinely less available during their holidays, not only on paper. The autumn begins in a more controlled manner because the work has already been organised more effectively.

A successful summer holiday does not happen by chance. It is built by deciding in good time what is essential, what can be postponed and how employees will be given a genuine opportunity to detach themselves from work. When an organisation succeeds in this, employees are more likely to return from their holidays rested, capable and ready to get back to work. The benefits usually become visible quickly in the smooth running of work, the quality of decision-making and the overall energy of the business.

Satu Edberg

HR- ja toimistopäällikkö

satu.edberg@legalfolks.fi  

+358 40 531 1542