The Art of War - Importance of Time Off for your Employee

November and December is a very busy month for hotels in Malaysia. Its the last term school holidays leading to Christmas and New Year. Families will be traveling, some resorts will be full during the durations. Manpower will be stretch to limit as this is the last two months for the year to maximize revenue and profit. What most of these hotels fail to see is what Sun Tzu in Chapter 2- Waging War  about prolong war.

"There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare"  Verse 6, Chapter 2 Waging War.

What I see is the staff will get very exhausted as some companies even hold back leaves and offdays. When the staff energy level and morale is low,then service level will also decline. When service level declines, customers are not happy. When customers are not happy, what do they do nowadays. They not only don't come back, they let everyone know of their unhappiness. They write in reviews, blogs, social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and so on. Then the whole world will know your service sucks. Sun Tzu's have another quote for this situation.

"Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity.Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue"  Verse 4, Chapter 2-  Waging War.

So what I normally do when the busy season is about to come. I will source for partimers so as I can reduce the extra working hours of my permenant staff. So they will be well rested. And I also give them time off to go for holidays with their family, especially those with school going kids. These are the perks thats is better than money. They will really appreciate you and work hard for you. Always remember that your staffs are humans too, they have feelings.

As Sun Tzu said in Chapter 9.

"Therefore soldiers must be treated in the first instance with humanity, but kept under control by means of iron displine. This is a certain road to victory" Verse 43, Chapter 9'

Also Read

Sun Tzu - The Use of The Office Gossip

Most people will say that its not honest to use spies in what we do. But I don't agree with this statement. Spies if used with integrity and honestly can be a great asset to an establishment. With spies you can know why the competitors is getting more business or what they are doing differently. Maybe their product or sales team is better, so then you can improve your product or team with this piece of info. That is why Sun Tzu has dedicated a chapter on the use of spies. Below is one of the verse "Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be obtained from other men." Verse 6 Chapter 13. THE USE OF SPIES Even the office gossip is useful.

Read more Click Here.