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MARKETING INTELLIGENCE

Move Ahead While Key Staffers Recharge

By JOANNA L. KROTZ

What would you do without them? You cope — by planning ahead for their vacations or periodic breaks. So when your trusted and seemingly indispensable No. 2 or No. 3 asks for time, you say yes.

You know that they need to recharge their batteries too. You also know that while you may lose an executive right arm for a while, that doesn't mean you operate short-handed.

Here's help in making deadlines are met, servicemains seamless and top-level work goes forward when your key employees head for the beach.

1. Make sure managers truly disengage. The hard-charging energy that propels managers to the top isn't easily turned off. Many chief operating officers and other top managers find it difficult to let go while they're away.

But allowing them to manage via remote control is not the answer. It puts the staff in limbo, actually and psychologically. When decisions are delayed and direction is chaotic, you lose business and clients. Staffers feel they're not trusted enough to do their jobs. Everyone loses.

Instead, require that your deputies truly let go of things and take a vacation, rather than traveling to a resort in order to work. Have other employees ready to step up and take on more responsibilities. Yes, some micromanagers will need to be told to delegate. Tell them.

2. Make vacation planning part of a manager's performance goals. Astute managers, of course, plan for succession, making sure no one is indispensable — including themselves.

"As a manager of 100 IT professionals, I dealt with vacations for senior staff as part of their evaluation process," says Paul Glen, who now runs his own management consultant firm in Marina del Rey, Calif. "If a senior manager couldn't take a vacation, I considered it a sign that he was not adequately preparing others to take on his tasks."

3. Set up a formal planning meeting. All too often, interim information or instructions get tossed at bosses and subordinates via cell phone as the would-be vacationer races to the airport. Instead, call a half-hour meeting a couple of days beforehand, says Debra Condren, a business psychologist, executive coach and president of SuperiorCareer.com. Make sure everyone concerned is in the room. "Encourage the manager to delegate to a primary team member plus a secondary or backup person," she says. "Get down on paper two or three key areas that must be covered in the absence of the manager."

Also discuss: Who will cover what work? What should happen in case of trouble or glitches? Go over all the details and specifics. "Ask if any direct reports have questions or ideas for how to keep things running smoothly during the manager's vacation," says Condren. You may be pleasantly surprised.

4. Stagger vacations and reward off-season choices. "Have all senior management and salespeople separate vacation time slots, so no one overlaps," says Paul DiModica, president of DigitalHatch, a sales training firm in Atlanta. That means you must require managers to think ahead and work together to compromise.

Many people want the same two weeks in July or December. A way around that, suggests Scott Testa at Mindbridge, a software company in Worcester, Pa., is to offer incentives to managers to take vacations at unpopular times of year.

5. Create contact policies. Constant calls to the office may not be the best way to relax and recharge, but the truth is that most execs do stay in touch, one way or another. This summer, almost two-thirds (62%) of the 645 business executives recently surveyed by the American Management Association will check in with their offices at least once a week while on vacation. More than 25% will be in daily contact.

So you ought to figure out, upfront, what will be most effective for your business. Phone or e-mail? Weekly or daily? Don't leave the medium or frequency to the manager's whim or guess. That way, someone is bound to be annoyed or sorry.

6. Hire high-level temps. Professional consultants or executive temporary workers, if they are available in your community, can handle many responsibilities and operational tasks for a week or so. Again, it comes down to planning. For instance, Condren says, an accounting firm in Tuscaloosa, Ala., DeWitt & Dyer, offers a rent-a-CFO service. Other skilled pros who can bridge the gaps might include sales trainers, human resources directors, legal counselors, marketing directors, project managers or chief technology officers.

7. Let them decide when to take time off. The most innovative solution to this problem is to set a one-size-fits-all policy of unlimited vacation times for your upper echelon. If your top deputies are dedicated and grown-up, as most are, then they'll figure out for themselves the most convenient and least disruptive times to be away.

Assuming you set this policy only for top management, it can work very well, says Tricia Nickel, at Wolftec, a human-resources software company in Chicago. As she puts it: "Give people more responsibility and they tend to be more responsible."