Summer vacation: How can you survive the holidays (and employee absences) from a business perspective, maintaining the same pace and without breaking the budget?
Summer is here, and for many companies, it's time to consider how to cover the absence of various staff members while on vacation without incurring (too many) extra costs or overburdening staff.
1.- You may not know that the cost of replacing a single employee on vacation is higher than it seems:
- According to the consulting firm *Ricoh*, the average cost of replacing an employee in our country is *€7,400.*
- But there is more, delving into the information, at a more global level, these costs could be equivalent to between *30 % and up to 200 % of the annual salary*, including both direct costs (selection, hiring, training) and indirect costs (loss of productivity, delays, demotivation).
2.- It's also important to understand that, logically, each sector handles summer absences differently, because the circumstances applicable to different jobs and sectors vary. Let's give some examples:
- In *hospitality and tourism*, *express temporary hiring* or the *fixed-term contract* model is often used to cover seasonal peaks.
- In industrial sectors, it is often used to *plan technical shutdowns or production adjustments*, minimizing the operational impact (many companies even close an entire month during the summer season that they plan annually, and that is the month that their employees, therefore, take as vacation).
- In *professional services*, the solution is to *redistribute tasks internally*, turn to external collaborators, or renegotiate deadlines with clients.
3.- What does the current labor regulations in Spain say?
- The Labor Reform limits the use of temporary contracts. *Fixed-term contracts for replacements* can only be used in specific cases, such as covering justified absences, and even requires the name of the replaced worker and the reason for the replacement.
- For its part, the *fixed-term* contract is today a more suitable solution for recurring seasonal leaves, with advantages of stability for the worker and predictability for the company.
In short, planning is key (also from a financial point of view), so it is very necessary to *account for the *real cost of temporary replacement* (selection, *onboarding*, training,...): using digital tools to plan shifts, anticipate absences and optimize resources that can reduce visible and invisible overcosts or compare costs with other solutions that involve hiring external talent (fixed-term contract) even resorting to the help provided by external talent search consultants, specialized in helping to make informed decisions.
And how do you do it in your organization? What option do you usually choose, and what contractual arrangements work best for you?
