Holiday season – Can the business cope without you?

One of the features of doing business in the modern day is the use of mobile technology such as iphones, Blackberries and Laptops. This gives great flexibility to business owners in dealing with business matters when away from base for a few days, or indeed while on holiday.

This is an important issue – is it now far too easy for an individual to be dragged into business matters when they should be relaxing with the family on holiday?

There are different opinions on this. On one extreme we all know people that strictly “switch off” for their main holiday breaks, on the basis they can always be called in an emergency situation. At the other end of the scale, there will be those who are so tied in to business operations that they are constantly checking their mobile devices at weekends and on Holiday.

This may of course be personal choice, and there will be individuals that perhaps check emails once a day for half an hour, arguing that dealing promptly with issues or deleting junk email can make life so much easier on returning from holiday.

Essentially, we are talking about a personal life style choice here and if, as a business owner, you do not feel that you can totally relax on holiday without checking emails and messages and cannot rely on colleagues “holding the fort” in your absence, then perhaps there is something you need to change in your business operations.

We have helped clients in this situation through carrying out a facilitated Blue session, with a view to helping to address the underlying issues and finding the right work/life balance for them. 

Douglas Russell, Partner, Dumfries