NEW YORK — Before the holiday season, employees at Andrea Correale’s catering business get an email reminder that in December, “we need all hands on deck.”
Elegant Affairs Caterers often has 12 events in a single day during the holidays, so Correale needs her staff of 230 to show up for work. Her email puts everyone on notice that during the two weeks when most clients have holiday parties, work needs to be the priority.
“If it’s crunch week and we’re not covered, everyone gets stressed out,” says Correale, whose Glen Cove, N.Y.-based company caters events on Long Island and in New York City.
The holiday season is prime time at many small businesses, and they may not have enough staff to accommodate the extra work as well as the time off many employees want. Retailers, caterers and even many companies whose work isn’t connected with holiday celebrations have to find ways to keep their staffers happy, along with their customers. Many find that advance notice — even before a worker is hired — helps set expectations and limit disappointments. Bosses also find that they do need to be flexible.
Correale recognizes that even on the busiest days, some staffers want to attend their kids’ concerts and other holiday events. She requires them to ask in advance. And she uses flexible scheduling: If employees need to leave early for an event, they can come in a few hours early to make up the time.
Rob Basso deals with holiday issues from two perspectives — his company, Advantage Payroll Services, provides human resources consulting along with paycheck processing.
His small-business clients ask for guidance about how to get work done while also letting staffers have time off. He recommends being as flexible as possible, although a company’s size and line of work will dictate how generous a boss can be.
“A company may have 400 employees and some are not critical day-to-day, so it may not be necessary for all of them to be there. But if there are five people in a bakery, it’s not going to be so easy,” says Basso, whose company is based in Freeport, N.Y.
Basso also tends to get many new clients at the end of the year. So when he hires staffers, he lets them know that most of December is blacked out for vacations. He does give employees the flexibility to leave early or come in late as long as they make up their hours. And rather than granting requests by seniority, he has a lottery to let about a fifth of his staff leave at noon on either Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve.
“Just because you worked for me a few extra years, I don’t see how it’s fair to always give the same people time off,” Basso says.
Human resources consultant Crystal Barnett says it’s in a company’s best interest to be flexible.
“It’s a fine line you need to walk because you need to take care of whatever your business requirements are, but you also want to recognize that the person who works for you is not a robot,” says Barnett, who works in the Atlanta office of Houston-based HR provider Insperity.
Employees’ expectations, especially among younger people, have changed from a generation ago, and companies that want to attract and retain good workers need a culture that accommodates their desire for a balance between work and personal time, Barnett says.
