'Holiday Handovers' - The How-To

Niamh Briody is a Project Management Apprentice at Multiverse.

Summer is well and truly here and ensuring that you’ve prepared a thorough handover before you go on holiday is essential to having a stress-free break. Whether you’re on leave for two days or two weeks, this article will help to make sure you can have the relaxing break you deserve.

1. Notify your team, early!

The first step is notifying your whole team and doing this as early as possible and by this I mean when booking leave/requesting time off, put it in your team's diaries so that they don’t accidentally book any important meetings whilst you’re off. Then about a week before you go on leave, remind them! I tend to pop a message into our slack channel asking them to ensure all requests are communicated beforehand, which I can then include in my handover if necessary. 

2. Tie up all loose ends

Next, you need to identify all the tasks that you need to complete before you go on leave. Are there any emails in your inbox that you haven’t replied to yet? Has a team member asked for your help on a piece of work? Get all of this done before putting your ‘Out of Office’ on so that you have a clean slate when you return.

3. Create your handover document

I always find it really useful to clearly lay out the tasks on a document in a step-by-step format. So I start by listing out all of the tasks that need to be completed, chronologically, with the task owner assigned. For example:

Tues 02nd August 
(Niamh) - Send a reminder email to key stakeholders 

Weds 03rd August
(Niamh) - Pull weekly reporting data and send to team

I also like to add a tickbox so that task owners can see what they have left to do. I try to make the handover as easy as possible, ensuring all resources that are referenced are linked too, copy for emails are included and email addresses listed and so on.

4. Schedule a Handover Meeting

If you’re off for a longer period of time, schedule in a handover call with the people who will be picking up different tasks whilst you are off, and be sure to have sent them the handover document before the call. I usually spend the call going through the details of each task listed and clearing up any queries my colleagues may have. This ensures that everyone is really clear on the logistics and can feedback on anything else that may be useful to include in the document. For a smaller period of leave, an email should suffice.

5. Set that ‘Out of Office!

One of the most important (and exciting) steps before going on leave is to make sure that you turn on your out-of-office autoresponder. Check to make sure that the dates in the subject line and email itself are correct and that you’ve included a contact for anything urgent that may crop up. Make sure your Slack or Teams status is updated as well.

These are my top tips to ensure you can sit back and enjoy a blissful holiday with no stress of work, the more prepared you are the less you have to worry.

Do you have any more tips? Share in the comments below!