Company Holiday Vacation and Gift Plans

It isn’t too late to review your plans for the forthcoming holiday weeks. The tough economic environment is causing many companies to look for opportunities to reduce expenditures. With Thanksgiving and Christmas falling on Thursday this year, discussions in the Northeastern Wisconsin TAB meetings surfaced the following plans to cut back, capitalize on or otherwise modify holiday vacations.

One member, who usually gives each employee a $300 Christmas bonus, called a company-wide meeting (under 20 employees) to discuss the market for their product drying up due to budget cuts, the cost of employee shortcutting on jobs—resulting in quality problems and having to fix them—costing even more time, labor and materials. He also discussed how the company is struggling to break even this year. Despite all of this, the member told his employees the annual bonus will be forthcoming, but will be halved to $150 instead of $300. The employees understand the situation, are aware of the dropping workload and have committed to increasing quality control.

Another member—who has barely enough work to keep his shop going over the holiday season—is going to have his first two-week layoff for office staff and will encourage them to file for unemployment insurance. Another member, like many others, is going to give holiday week Fridays as an extra day off for employees. However, in doing so, he is explaining that the Friday holidays are the company’s Christmas present this year—in lieu of gift certificates that have been given in the past.

When looking at ways to reduce costs within your organization this holiday season, try one of these approaches to still show your appreciation for your employees—despite a tough economy.