How to cope running a business in the summer

Summer is a wonderful time of the year, but for many businesses it can also be one of the most challenging.

With a lot of employees choosing to take their longest period of annual leave over the summer months, there can often be times when workload outweighs the number of staff available to fulfil it.

Of course, it will come as no surprise to you that as a recruitment agency, our obvious suggestion to you is going to be to take on a temp to help out over the summer months! But there are genuine reasons behind this recommendation which will put you at a commercial advantage.

If you ask a member of staff to cover another person’s work while they are away, it can often pose challenges to your business.  Effectively, you are asking one person to do two jobs. Naturally and understandably, there will be some dilution of their efforts between the two roles. Their workload is doubled and they can only do each job half as well as their full-time attention would permit. In addition, this added responsibility can also cause increased stress to the employee tasked with this extra work, and they could become frustrated and demoralised.

Whilst there may be some brief training time involved initially, taking on a temporary worker to help out in this situation can reap rewards by maintaining productivity levels and protecting morale.

At Vanilla, we pride ourselves on providing skilled temporary workers who will join your team with a proactive, ‘can-do’ attitude. We carefully interview each applicant to match them to the right assignment based on their skills and experience.

Not only that, but in addition to our existing pool of skilled temporary workers, to meet the increase in demand as summer approaches, we also register a number of local candidates who have returned from university for the summer and are actively looking for the opportunity to develop their skill base and enhance their CVs over the holiday period.

We know that temps are often a short-notice contingency arrangement, so no matter how last-minute you think your request is, do give us a call and we will do our best to assist. However, did you know that we also have the capacity to take advance bookings? If you are able to, it’s always a good idea to plan ahead – the diaries of our most experienced temporary workers get very full over summer. If you know in advance that you will need a certain temp to provide cover for a particular week or two, let us know as soon as possible so that we can reserve their time for you at the earliest opportunity (before someone else does!).

To discuss how having a temporary team member could help your business, contact us on 01858 898058 and ask for Sarah or Ben, or email us on: [email protected]

We wish you a wonderful, sunny, and profitable summer!