Working in a global team means navigating the holidays of each country you are operating in. It’s even more challenging to understand how these holidays will impact your staffing requirements, your output, or the proposed rate of pay, which will ultimately impact your business and that of your clients.
At Boldr, we care about the well-being of each team member and encourage everyone to maintain a work-life balance, especially where holidays are concerned. With team members scattered throughout the world, we had to adopt a global perspective to overcome the reality of varying holidays.
Holiday leave
As a leave category, holiday leave refers exclusively to a day that has been declared as a public, national, or civic non-working holiday by the government in a specific country. They do not include maternity, paternity, family responsibility, sick, medical, and health leave, nor is it applicable to PTO or personal leave. Unlike holiday leave, these types of leave are unique to the individual requesting the leave, which means that teams can plan accordingly when an individual is taking leave.
Holidays, on the other hand, can shift at a moment’s notice and depend largely on whether the government of that country has decided to observe the day as a legal holiday. The real problem comes into play when considering the consequences or the knock-on effect holidays could have.
Having an international footprint is about building relationships with your teams, your clients, and the broader community. Tracking the holidays in each region forms part of our goal of providing an ethical solution to outsourcing while helping our clients to achieve their business goals.
For ease of reference, we have included a comprehensive list of holidays, along with the mandatory rates of pay, for each of the countries we operate in, namely: Canada, Mexico, South Africa, and the Philippines.
Key considerations for holiday planning
Tracking holidays is not only to maintain a trusting relationship with your clients or to ensure high levels of service delivery. Here are some other consequences that are often overlooked:
Holiday leave is not individual-specific
Public holidays are not specific to an individual in a team. As the day has been declared a holiday, it means the entire country is not required to work, which could apply to the entire team. Staffing and operations planning could be determining factors as to how this will impact clients. Depending on each individual’s contract of employment, they may still be obligated to report for work, though their rate of pay will have to be adjusted.
Rate of pay
Where the demands of the industry or the type of work require team members to work, public holidays will affect the individual’s rate of pay. For customer experience teams, this could become costly for large teams, especially where the team in question operates in a jurisdiction where a public holiday has been declared, but they are serving clients in a jurisdiction where the day is not observed as a public holiday.
Cultures and traditions
Holidays often form part of a country’s culture or tradition. Cultural, social, and ethnic differences should always be dealt with respectfully in the workplace. In other words, arranging and conducting meetings or important deadlines during a public holiday could be perceived as being incredibly disrespectful, even if it was done unintentionally. Tracking holidays could prevent unnecessary confusion or unpleasantness in teams.
Holiday ramp-ups
There are certain times during the year, such as seasonal or end-of-year holidays, when there could be industry-specific demands for teams to increase in size to accommodate for trade or retail spikes. This is par for the course in the CX industry. To reduce the impact that a sudden seasonal ramp could have on your teams, it often helps to prepare a temporary team to compliment your service offering to clients and to ensure that targets or KPIs are met regardless of holiday leave days.
Encouraging a work-life balance
Most team members will probably spend holidays with their families, which provides a golden opportunity to encourage or cultivate a work-life balance. By planning holiday leave cycles more efficiently, we can ensure business continuity while teams spend valuable time with their loved ones, which will contribute to overall job satisfaction.
Country-specific employment laws
A clear understanding of the employment laws in each jurisdiction your company is operating in will go a long way toward reducing disruption or conflict in the workplace. Primarily, it will eliminate the concern of remuneration. The laws in a country should dictate the compensation for staff who are required to work, but it will further provide clarity about employment on the various holidays.
James Fouche is the Content Manager at Boldr, as well as an author and a columnist. He is passionate about sharing his love of reading and writing with others.
