Q. How can others help me to prepare for time off?
It's school holidays next week here in the UK. My email will be off, and I'll be focused on the family. What are the things people around me can do to help me prepare for a week away from work?
Every week, we suggest a new question you can include in your Manual of Me.
Keeping your Manual of Me regularly updated helps you continue to explore and communicate how you work well with others.
And remember, you don’t need to share your Manual of Me to benefit - even just taking time to discover these insights about your way of working, helps you become more aware of your needs, preferences and motivations at work, so you’re able to build stronger working relationships with others.
Manual of Me Plus Edition members can add this as custom question, and Manual of Me Teams Edition allows team leaders to add this question too. If you don’t already have a Manual of Me - sign up for free.
Q. How can others help me to prepare for time off?
When you’re about to take some time off work, it can counterintuitively be quite stressful, as you make sure you’re handing over, writing-up notes, and ensuring there is some continuity.
This week’s question asks how others can help you prepare for this.
Reflect on the tasks you normally get completed before you head off - what do you need others to be aware of, what help reassures you that you’ll be able to switch off entirely? What things have gone wrong in the past that you could avoid in the future?
This might be about the last few days before you head off, or even months ahead, thinking about booking and scheduling holidays.
And of course, some time off isn’t planned - what might make it easier for you to step away from work for a little while? Answering this can help you have a little plan in place should you need to down tools urgently.
What would your answer be?
Leave a comment, so others can see how others might approach this question.
For team leaders
Helping your people feel supported ahead of taking time off allows them to rest, and come back to work feeling more productive.
You can also flip the question, and ask what do you need to ensure your people are doing ahead of their time away, so you’re confident everyone has access to what they need whilst people aren’t available, and what policies do you have so that your people can rest well - i.e. not being contacted when on holiday.
This is also great question to discuss as a team to explore how you deal with people taking time off effectively:
What are the stressful things when taking time off work?
What disasters have happened in the past when we haven’t handed over well?
What needs to happen when you come back to work?
Spend a little time as a group discussing, and highlight any issues or suggestions for making the process more supportive.
Manual of Me is a living document - introducing new questions regularly helps your team embed the framework in your ways of working, and creates an opportunity to spend time as a team discussing how to work together effectively, and builds stronger internal relationships.
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