What if there's too much or too little work during the holidays?

Does everyone take leave during the same period? This scenario is an easily avoidable one. As an employer, you are not obliged to allow holidays at any particular time. It is best to make arrangements so that your employees spread their holidays out. If necessary, you can draw up a turn-around plan – and perhaps even lay it down in the employment regulations – to ensure that everything is fair.

When your employee is on leave, you can ask another employee to take over certain tasks. These additional tasks should be adjacent to the usual job content of the employee who will be taking them on. Of course, these extra tasks must be able to be performed within the weekly limit of your sector. If that isn’t possible, overtime will be required. Arrange with your employees how they can offset for any overtime.

There are several ways to address peak periods. Ever thought about a job student, a flexi-job employee, an extra or a temp?

If there’s a real shortage of manpower in the workplace, you may be able to call on these temporary workers.

Is there really nothing to do in your company? Then it might be better to simply close your business due to collective holidays. In principle, the joint committee decides on this. However, if no decision on that is fixed before the end of the year before, you can fix a period of collective holidays yourself. This must be nevertheless done in consultation with the union delegation or the works council. If there isn’t one, then you need to establish this with your employees.

Do you want to give your employees different tasks? You need to be careful with this. The other tasks should be similar to the usual task package. If the tasks are of a different nature, then you are actually amending the employment contract. That means you can’t have your accountant temporarily take over the sales tasks.

If there’s too little work in your organisation, your employees may be able to lend a hand in another organisation if they’re willing to change workplaces and jobs. This is possible using Bridge from Acerta. According to our recent survey, 69% of employers would find it useful for employee growth and development.

Some sectors allow you to give your employees more or fewer hours a week. Consider the hospitality sector. If that’s also an option for you, you can organise your employees’ schedules so that they have to work more in high season than in low season. Another possibility is 'minor flexibility'. Specifically, you can work a maximum of two hours less or more per day than on a normal working day, and five hours more or less on a weekly basis.

You can also share employees with other employers to accommodate peaks or troughs. You can thus temporarily reassign your staff elsewhere or just find profiles that will help temporarily reduce your workload. With Bridge from Acerta, the online sharing platform, we create a balance between supply and demand.