While the weather outside may be frightful (why is it still eighty degrees outside in November?), inside, it is, well, also still frightful. Between a neverending plethora of time-off requests and people calling in sick with whatever the latest bug going around is, it seems that your human resources department just can’t catch a break. For everyone around the office, though, this time of year can prove to be stressful both on the professional front as well as at home. At least on the bright side, you may not have to worry about who’s going to watch the kids when they get a snow day, considering snow days are becoming more and more unlikely?
Luckily for us here at Payday HCM, we haven’t had to worry about that—snow days, that is, considering we’re based out of New Mexico and, therefore, we don’t even know what snow is. But HR feeling overwhelmed during the holiday season is certainly something that we’ve seen many potential clients deal with. As an HR manager, you always want to do everything you can to ensure everyone can take the time off that they want or need to take, but you also need to be aware of the business’s needs. Offering your employees floating holidays can be a great way to alleviate the stress of the holiday season.
In this article, we’ll go over what floating holidays are and how they can help your business. We’ll take a look at how floating holidays differ from other forms of time off, like regular holidays and paid time off. We’ll also cover why offering floating holidays to your employees can help your employees improve their work-life balance while also fostering a diverse workforce. By the end, you’ll have all the information you need to make this holiday season a stress-free one.
In this article, you will learn:
- What Are Floating Holidays?
- How Do You Offer Floating Holidays?
- How Offering Floating Holidays Can Impact Your Business
What Are Floating Holidays?
Before we get into the details about how to fit floating holidays into your organization’s time-off policy, we first need to understand what they are and how they differ from other forms of time off.
Floating Holidays
According to the Society of Human Resource Management, a floating holiday is a flexible day off that employees can use in place of a more traditional fixed holiday. Floating holidays are not restricted to a specific day or type of event and, as the name suggests, “float” between different days at the employee’s discretion.
Floating holidays are often offered as a benefit in addition to a more traditional PTO and vacation time policy. Floating holidays give employees more flexibility in their schedule and allow them to take days off that serve a cultural, spiritual, or personal significance to them.
What’s The Difference Between Floating Holidays And PTO?
Employers will typically offer floating holidays as a set of 2-3 days off that an employee can either choose which dates they will use them for, or can select from a list of predetermined holidays that they can take off. These days are typically available to be taken right away at the start of the year.
PTO, however, usually accrues over time as an employee works more hours or, in the case of unlimited PTO, does not come with any actual limit on the number of days off. PTO also often requires managerial approval, whereas floating holidays do not. Unlike floating holidays, PTO can also roll over into the next year.
How Do You Offer Floating Holidays?
Now that we have a better understanding of what floating holidays are, we can look at how you can go about incorporating them into your organization’s benefits package.
Establishing Proper Guidelines
Since floating holidays would fit into your organization’s current time-off policy, you’ll want to make sure it’s clear how they differ from the existing time-off forms you already offer your employees. You’ll want to be sure you establish what paid holidays your organization has so that your employees know these exist outside of their floating holidays.
From there, you’ll want to determine how many floating holidays your employees will receive—again, two to three is a typical amount, but you should offer the amount that would best fit your organization. Finally, it will be important to establish proper holiday pay codes to avoid discrepancies.
You’ll also want to be sure the language used in your policy is accurate and respectful. Someone may use a floating holiday for something that isn’t necessarily a religious holiday but is still important to them. Working with your HR department and your employees to find the best language to create your policy will help to ensure everyone feels included.
Communicate To Your Employees
Offering floating holidays is one thing, but it’s not going to mean very much if nobody is using them. Just like your other benefits, communicating the resources that your employees have available to them is crucial in ensuring everyone takes full advantage of their benefits.
When you create your floating holiday policy, it would be best to issue an update to the employee handbook and send out a memo about the updated policy. If you want to go the extra mile, you can even host a Q&A session before creating the policy to ensure that all of your employees’ needs are met.
How Offering Floating Holidays Can Impact Your Business
While we’ve touched on the benefits that offering floating holidays can have for your organization, we’ll cover more deeply just how floating holidays can impact you and your business.
Fostering Inclusivity
Ensuring your employees are able to celebrate the holidays and occasions that matter most to them can be a great way to show your appreciation for them. After all, not everybody is going to celebrate the same holidays, so having a floating holiday policy allows for more flexibility.
According to the Harvard Business Review, there are as many as 176 religious holidays in a year—maybe even more. It wouldn’t be practical for most businesses to be closed for 176 days out of the year, but allowing your employees to select which holidays they take off that align with their religious or spiritual beliefs can help to ensure they can celebrate the days that are important for their beliefs while also keeping the company operating smoothly.
Boosting Productivity And Employee Satisfaction
Offering your employees more flexibility and freedom to take time away from work can help to improve your business’s bottom line. Employees will be able to foster a stronger work-life balance and will be more engaged while they are at work.
We can see this effect with other benefits similar to floating holidays. According to the Society of Human Resource Management, unlimited PTO can not only help employees manage their time off better but can also take some of the weight off of HR’s shoulders, as managing time off requests can become less complex.
Float Above Holiday Season Stress With Floating Holidays
Navigating time off can be a challenge, especially during the holiday season when you want to ensure that every employee gets the time off they want while also ensuring the business can still operate. And while this can prove especially challenging during the holiday season, it’s also probable that not all of your employees are taking time off during this time of year. Ultimately, you want to make sure that whenever they need to take time off, they are able to do so. And you are able to offer them that without any added stress. Floating holidays offer a great solution to this problem.
Of course, floating holidays are just one way to make your benefits package stand out amongst the rest. Check out our article on five other ways that you can create a competitive benefits package.
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