When you have employees with families it’s important to be understanding when certain situations arise. When small children are involved, taking time off to go to the doctor or handle an illness is a must. Once they get older dealing with extra curricular activities is a must. When you’re understanding, caring, and compassionate your employees will work harder for you and that’s a win-win for everyone involved.
Now some employees can take that to the extreme and that’s what you must look for, but when you have an employee that’s willing to make up time or work from home, you know it’s legitimate and that’s better. Those are the employees you want working for you, because you know they’ll get the job done even if they have to come in early, work through lunch, stay late, or come in on Saturday to make it happen.
There are a number of ways to deal with family time off. Some may work for you while others may not, so you need to decide what works best for your business and then place that in your policy manual so everyone knows how it will be handled. Treating each employee differently needs to happen at times, but for the most part, you need to try and handle every situation the same.
You may need to handle things differently with each position or area of your business and if that happens, you need to document that in your policy manual so everyone knows and understands how things will work for each area. It’s better to document it early than it is to have to handle it later when it comes up.
Handling time off can be easy when your employees have the ability to make up the time. If you have one that needs to be off by 3 pm to attend a football game, that employee can come in at 7 am, take a late lunch, and leave at 3 pm in time for the game. If you have one that needs to travel to an away game, allowing that employee to make up the time on Saturday will work.
This will prevent you from trying to get other employees to complete the work. Now this type of scenario won’t work if you own a retail business that’s not open on the weekends or if you don’t have a way for your employees to make up the time. In that case, your employees will need to take vacation time or time off without pay in order to go. Even though these may be the only options, they may be ok with it because they’ll still be able to go and if they know in advance, they’ll schedule things better and be prepared for the financial impact it may have on them.
Employee moral is important when you own a business. The happier your employees are the better job they’ll do for you. Creating a section in your policy manual that covers these types of requests will save you headaches down the road when these situations arise.