How to effectively manage holidays on a global scale?
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Managing a global team can be quite challenging when it comes to take global holidays in consideration. Each country has its specific calendar and its own approach to handle holidays. And, if good practices and streamline approach are not in place, managing holidays bookings in global businesses with distributed team comes with pitfalls. How can you be inclusive of numerous celebrations and effectively manage holidays on a global scale?
Leaders must successfully manage holidays and we’ll give you some tips to help you out !
The challenge of managing holidays on a global scale
There are many pitfalls when managing holidays on an international scale. First, calculating leave entitlement is everything but easy, even more when you’re a global business. In addition, an inefficient approval process often creates a negative employee experience which is prejudicial to your company. Lack of centralized visibility also created uncertainty across the whole organization.
By overcoming these challenges, you’ll make your business a better and more attractive place to work. And here is why:
- Enhance employee to take time off will improve workplace wellness.
- A health company culture will have a direct impact on your team’s productivity.
- Keep your team organized even some colleagues are away.
Let’s see together some tops and tricks to overcome the challenges of managing global holidays.
5 steps to better holidays management
Understand legal requirements
Effectively manage holidays on a global scale starts by clearly understanding the legal requirements of the regions/countries in which your team members are based. Indeed, every country is different and so are the leave policies.
In Mexico, employees are eligible to 15 days of holidays after completing one year of service. On the other hand, in Brazil, employees are eligible to 30 days of paid time off. If your employees are based in multiple countries, they will be subjected to different laws and regulations. Then, it is pivotal to understand the legal requirements of each country.
Create a transparent and flexible holiday policy
The second step would be to create a clear and compliant holiday policy. This means that you will have to create unique policies for each country and region in which your team members are based. Outline how the employees must book time off, when they’re able to do so and how teammates will notify their team members of their absence.
We recommend you do this policy in simple language so everyone can understand it. Also, it is important to be as transparent as possible and let the employees know their rights.
Then, you’ll have to make it accessible to the whole company and integrate it into the onboarding process so new hires can be notified on their first day.
Be fair
As you will design your global holiday policy taking into account countries specificity, you must be as fair as possible.
Of course, it will not be possible to get the same policy for everyone but you should keep it similar to avoid disparity.
Focus on Asynchronous Communication
To enable your team members to disconnect and avoid any conflict and tension, it is important to set up a positive vacation culture.
First, you should focus on communication. Asynchronous communication is very useful and ensure that knowledge is accessible to everyone even when a key team member is away. It may include writing down processes, recording meeting, shared documentation… The point is to make information accessible.
Automate your entitlement tracking
When managing holidays for international teams, it is pivotal to centralized absence management system. This system will help you calculate holiday allowances or see how much leave an employee got.
It will drastically simplify the whole process and if you’ve got a global distributed team, keeping track of every employee’s holiday allowance will no longer be complex.
Manage holidays on a global scale with Europortage
Manage holidays on a global scale can be complex when you’re not familiar with the country’s laws and regulations. That’s why we recommend working with a direct and local partner like Europortage.
Our team of local experts is on hand to support you throughout the entire employee lifecycle, including time-off management. We can give you clear advice on how to manage holidays in Latin America, in addition to handling employment contracts, payroll, and benefits. That way, you can focus on growing a world-class team and business.
Get in touch to find out more and start hiring top talent in Brazil and Mexico!
