How to manage when your team takes summer holidays

It's that time of year again. Your inbox is filling up with holiday requests, your calendar is looking worryingly sparse, and you're starting to wonder if you'll be the only person left in the office come August.

Sound familiar?


If you're like most business owners I work with, summer brings a familiar anxiety. You want your team to take well-deserved breaks, but you're also terrified that everything will fall apart while they're sipping cocktails on a beach somewhere.

Here's the thing: with the right planning, summer doesn't have to be a period of barely surviving until September. It can actually be an opportunity to stress-test your systems and come back stronger.

Why This Matters to You

Summer holidays aren't optional - they're essential for your team's wellbeing and your business's long-term success. But when half your team is off at once, you're suddenly facing some uncomfortable truths about how your business really operates.

If your business grinds to a halt every time someone takes a week off, that's not a holiday problem - it's a business structure problem. And ignoring it won't make it go away.

The businesses that thrive during holiday season are those that have built resilience into their operations. They don't just survive the summer stretch - they use it as proof that their systems work.

Why Most People Struggle With This

The biggest reason business owners panic about summer holidays is simple: they haven't planned for them. Come June, they're suddenly faced with a calendar full of absence requests and no strategy for managing the gaps.


Another common trap is the "hero mentality" - believing that you need to personally cover every role when someone's away. Not only is this exhausting, but it also prevents your business from developing the resilience it needs to scale.

Here's what typically happens: you approve the holidays because you want to be a good employer, but then you stress yourself into the ground trying to do everyone's job while they're away.

Your 3-Step Summer Survival Plan

Instead of winging it this year, here's a simple framework to get through summer without losing your sanity:

Step 1: Map the Risk


Before anyone goes anywhere, sit down with your team calendar and identify your vulnerable periods. When will you have the fewest people available? Which roles will be uncovered? What critical processes might be at risk?

Don't just look at who's away - look at who's left and whether they can realistically handle the workload. If your entire customer service team is off the same week, that's a problem worth solving in advance.

Step 2: Create Your "Bare Minimum" Standard

Decide what absolutely must continue during holiday periods and what can wait until September. This isn't about maintaining 100% capacity - it's about ensuring nothing critical breaks.

Your bare minimum might include:

  • Responding to urgent client issues within 24 hours

  • Processing payments and invoices

  • Maintaining basic customer service

  • Keeping essential systems running

Everything else can be scheduled for when you're back to full strength.

Step 3: Build Your Cover Plan

This is where the real work happens. For each critical role or process, you need to know:

  • Who covers when someone's away

  • How they access the information they need

  • What decisions they can make independently

  • When to escalate to you

The goal isn't to create perfect cover - it's to create functional cover that keeps things moving.

The Power of Planned Downtime

Here's something most business owners miss: summer can actually be one of your most productive periods for working on your business rather than in it.

When the usual rush of daily operations slows down, you finally have space to:

  • Review what's been working and what hasn't

  • Document processes that are currently just in people's heads

  • Identify recurring problems that keep eating up time

  • Plan improvements for when everyone's back

I learned this in my own business when I used a quiet August to completely overhaul our customer onboarding process. That single project saved us hours every week for the rest of the year.

Setting Boundaries That Actually Work

One of the biggest mistakes I see is business owners who set holiday boundaries but then ignore them the moment something comes up.


If you tell clients that non-urgent matters will be handled when the team returns, stick to it. If you cave at the first "urgent" request (that isn't really urgent), you're training everyone to ignore your boundaries.

Clear communication is key: "Our team will be operating at reduced capacity from July 15-30. Urgent matters will be handled within 24 hours, but routine requests may take longer than usual."

Most clients are understanding if you give them advance notice and clear expectations.

Building Long-Term Resilience

The real value of successfully managing summer holidays isn't just getting through August - it's proving to yourself that your business can function without everyone being available all the time.

Every time you successfully cover someone's role, you're building organisational resilience. Every process you document to help with holiday cover makes your business stronger year-round.

5 Takeaways for a Stress-Free Summer


Before your team starts disappearing to various beaches:


1. Map your vulnerable periods - Know when you'll be stretched thinnest and plan accordingly.

2. Define your bare minimum - What absolutely must continue? What can wait?


3. Cross-train before you need to - Don't wait until someone's on holiday to discover knowledge gaps.

4. Set clear client expectations - Communicate your summer operating model early and stick to it.

5. Use the quiet time strategically - This might be your best opportunity all year to work on business improvements.

Most importantly, remember that your team taking holidays isn't a crisis - it's normal business operations that you can plan for.

The businesses that struggle every summer are those that treat holidays as unexpected emergencies. The ones that thrive treat them as predictable events that require advance planning.

What's one vulnerable area in your business that you could strengthen before the summer holiday rush begins?