Recognising just how important annual leave is to your employees, can turn you from a good manager into a great one.
If you fill your business with the right people, they’re often willing to give you their all. But they have a life outside of your office – family, friends, hobbies. Employees need time to switch off and rejuvenate. And no one understands this more than a yoga company – after all yoga is one of the most restorative practices in the world.
Twanna Doherty is the Managing Director of Yogamatters. A company which specialises in yoga mats, clothing and wellness accessories:
“On a busy day of cashflows and board meetings, a holiday request can seem like a low priority task to me. But for the colleague spending hard earned cash on booking hotels and flights, it’s far from low priority for them.”
During our school and university years we’re given weeks of holiday and we fondly remember those good times of playing outside in the sunshine - letting the stress of exams and coursework wash off us.
But when we move into a career and the workplace, our holiday allowance is quickly cut back to a few weeks a year. And many people work their butts off for the rest of year to ensure they can afford to do something either incredibly exciting or truly relaxing during that short space of time.
Yogamatters have been using Timetastic for three years now to ensure their employee’s holidays are taken seriously and never forgotten about:
“I love reading the reasons why people are taking time off.” Says Twanna. “Whether it’s ‘holiday to go snowboarding’, ‘birthday weekend, going to book a weekend away somewhere nice!’ or ‘yoga intensive with Joey Miles!’ it always feels good to connect with what my team find important enough to use their holiday on.”
And that’s why they chose Timetastic to manage their employees holiday leave. Because they know it matters to them. Yogamatters even go above and beyond when it comes to time off: “I love making our policies work for our team.” Says Twanna. “Free yoga classes and physio to keep the team in shape. And we have a special birthday treat – you can start two hours later if you fancy a lie in or go home early if you are planning a big birthday night out.”
Before Timetastic came into their lives, Twanna says it was difficult knowing who was taking what holiday, when:
“Spreadsheets – loads of them. It’s a headache when versions got out of sync and changes were made without explaining. I thought to myself – there must be a better way. What we did is little better than the old school register!”
“In conversation with a friend he mentioned he was using a web-based system where people added their holidays themselves! It sounded too good to be true. I looked at a couple of possibilities, but I was struck by the ease of use of Timetastic for both employees and managers. I haven’t looked back since then.
“The main thing that Timetastic saves me from is letting my team down. We recently changed our staff terms and conditions and after a bit of help from the great support at Timetastic, we completely changed how we work and nothing was lost or broken. Back in spreadsheet days it would have taken me all weekend to sort.
“Timetastic is a single function app – I love that. No wading through endless screens of irrelevant features. It just does what it does well.”