How to Make Vacations Benefit Your Business

First comes spring fever, and before long, the summer vacation season has you and your employees daydreaming about lazy lake beaches, fragrant mountain trails and hot evening barbecues. It all sounds like fun, but many small-business owners and self-employed people dread this time of year—either because their operations struggle when workers are gone, or they're frustrated because they can't seem to get away themselves.

Steps to vacation success

By taking the following steps, you can release yourself and your crew for regular vacations while keeping your business running and profitable.

Realize the value vacations provide your business.

Remember how you felt after your last real vacation? You probably not only had a great time, you likely returned to work with renewed vigor and creativity.

In today's competitive global economy, businesses and workers are continually trying to produce more in less time at lower cost. With long hours at work and the daily demands of family and home, you and your staff may burn out without a break. And it's not just quality-of-life issues; burnout symptoms of irritability, reduced attention span and diminished enthusiasm and creativity can cost your business plenty in lost innovation and productivity, and higher illness and accident rates.

For this reason, many companies not only provide paid vacation time for employees, they insist that it be used on a regular basis.

Schedule vacations well ahead to avoid disruption.

If your small business has just a few employees, you can avoid the disruption of absent staff by requiring vacations to be scheduled well in advance. That gives you time to arrange for backup by other employees or a temp, and it also helps prevent too many employees being out at the same time.

Scheduling vacations well ahead is even more essential for sole proprietors who must complete projects ahead of time and notify customers and business partners of their upcoming absence.

Provide training and delegate authority to fill skill gaps.

A common problem at many small businesses is that there may be no one with the skills or knowledge needed to fill in for a vacationing employee. If you face this situation, you're vulnerable not only to vacation time, but also to illness, accidents or resignations. To minimize this weakness, cross-train employees, and, if possible, delegate as much of your authority as possible so the operation keeps running when you aren't there. You'll most likely find that, like a vacation, additional training and authority can give your employees extra enthusiasm for their jobs.

Sole proprietors have no other employees to back them up, but there may be opportunities to refer work to trusted associates to get time away. If you don't already know some similarly skilled people, you may find suitable partners through professional associations or business directories.

Take advantage of technology to minimize your absence.

While the age of technology has introduced a speed-of-light work environment, it also has created ways to help you get away from it all. Most local phone companies offer voice messaging, which lets you retrieve messages from just about anywhere. Another service, call forwarding, automatically redirects calls made to your office to another location—say your vacation home or perhaps an associate who is backing you up.

Of course, cellular phones, pagers, e-mail and teleconferencing allow you to stay in touch with customers and associates as much as you want. Just remember that your reason for being away is to forget business for a while. Soon enough, you'll be back to reap your vacation's benefits of fond memories and renewed enthusiasm for your work.

Authored by: John Moller, CFP. Mr. Moller is with American Express Financial Advisors. Republished by permission of the St. Louis Small Business Monthly, The Source for Business Owners; July 2001.