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| Photo Credit: Bing Images |
The end of any given year is always a challenge. Even if your fiscal
year runs contrary to the Gregorian calendar, managing time, people, expenses
and other resources in December can leave you waiting with bated breath, and perhaps
a serious lack of patience, for the New Year holiday.
So, how did the end of the calendar year become such a challenge to
manage? After all, you still have staff to do the work, and many of them come
to work this time of year in a festive mood. This should translate to more work
and less stress, right?
That’s not necessarily true since many employees save a significant
amount of time off for the end of the year, and in our undeniably now global
society, not everyone celebrates the same holidays, requiring the use of different
vacation or PTO days than the traditional Christmas to New Year’s week. Couple
that with the increased demand of customers and clients who also want things
done before their holidays begin, and you generally end up scrambling even more
than usual to make staffing assignments and provide resources to meet that
demand.
Don’t get me wrong – this is not a bad thing in any way, shape or form.
I, for one, enjoy celebrating the various holiday traditions and exploring
those for which I have very little knowledge or experience. I guess it’s the
one-time-sociology-major coming out, allowing me to revel in the opportunity to
explore different ways of looking at life and business.
Over the years, I have picked up a few tidbits here and there about meeting
end of the year management challenges, and have listed three of them.
Make Company Holidays Flexible.
As I mentioned earlier, different cultures celebrate different holidays. If
your company’s annual holidays include 2 or more days for Christmas, make them
floating holidays that can be taken by employees of different faiths when their
holidays fall. This provides your company with staff coverage for clients during
traditionally slow periods. Global companies staff their offices 24/365 because
they recognize the importance of being there for the customer when they are
looking for something. Having flexible authorized holidays makes this possible.
Choose and Support a Nonprofit
All Year Long. Resource allocation, including staff, is one of the greatest
challenges in December. If your company supports a nonprofit by allowing staff
to volunteer during work hours, implement a program to encourage staff to do so
every month of the year, rather than just December. Having worked in the
nonprofit community for almost 30 years, I can tell you that they need your
support on a consistent basis; not just on Thanksgiving and Christmas. In fact,
the need for those supporting the homeless and less fortunate is often greater
in the first quarter of the year once winter really sets in.
Be Flexible in Managing the
Generations of Your Workforce. Although I've written about this before, I
think it still bears repeating. There are at least four different generations
in the current workforce, all with differing needs and means of communication.
Yes, you can teach an old dog a new trick, but that doesn't mean he likes it,
or embraces it willingly. Likewise, puppies have boundless energy and their own
ways of doing things that an older dog can’t fathom. However, that doesn't mean
that one way of doing something is better than the other; they are just
different. Don’t forget to keep that in mind when confronted with a management
decision.
All in all, the end of the calendar year can be an exciting and busy
time with its own unique management challenges. Although I've only listed
three, I’m sure there are many, many more ideas, so please feel free to share
yours.
Editor's Note: This blog post also appears on LinkedIn.
Before
founding her own consulting firm in 2013, Dawn
Gannon served as a respected project management and administrative operations
professional in the military, higher education, and women’s healthcare fields
for 25 years. She holds a Masters of Business Administration and a Graduate
Certificate in Organizational Management from American Public University, is
a contributor on LinkedIn, and the author
of the Management
in Motion blog.
Dawn
currently serves as the Past Chair of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Women’s Council, and teaches health
and safety classes for the American Red Cross. As an
infertility survivor she has been a featured speaker within the Fertility
Community, and written numerous articles on the topic of childfree living.
