Christmas Rota

There’s just 10 Fridays to go before Christmas!

The Snow Queen's table photographed at
Waddesdon Manor

So have you given any thought to whom will be on your Christmas Rota?

Working at Christmas is a necessary requirement for many organisations but it needs special management, which is why we often recommend that companies employ a special Christmas Rota.
Christmas is a time for families to get together and add cheer to the long winter months. So everyone wants to have some time off during the holiday season. You can’t give everyone the same time off unless you close up your business with a shutdown. But how do you say no to that holiday request? Who do you say yes to and how do you justify your answers?

Being a manager is not easy. You have to have patience, be seen to be fair, make the hard choices and stick by them as well as doing the job you are paid to do. You can never be liked by everyone and people’s opinion of you will be swayed by your next decision depending on if it is in their favour or against them.

So don’t let personal feelings cloud your judgment. Make up a set of rules which cover nearly every eventuality you can think of. Make sure everyone is aware of what you will and will not allow and stick to it. That way you will not always be liked but everyone will always say you dealt fairly with them.

When it comes to allowing holidays it is even more important to judge everyone the same and not let personal bias effect your judgment. So you set up rules like first come first served. Plan ahead how many of each skill you will allow off at any time or how you will cover missing skills. Set up the rules before any holiday requests are made. If you need help setting up your rules then read our book Holiday Management available from Amazon UK and from US Amazon

A Christmas Rota is a great way of organising your employees. This means that you can control who works Christmas and who doesn't. So in order to be fair you set it up for two years at a time (sometimes we do it for as many as 10 years), therefore if a person worked Christmas last year, they will not have to work it this year etc. Also if they work Christmas then they get New Year off and vice versa. This is often contentious, and therefore you need a fair and equitable system.

The advantages of a Christmas Rota, are:

• You can equalise everyone's hours,
• You can equalise everyone's shifts,
• You can equalise everyone's nights,
• You can have better control of holidays,
• Better cross team communication,
• Opportunity to equalise payments,
• Opportunity to swap teams,
• Equalise skills, and provide an equal level of service over the holiday period.