Every month of a PR professional’s work is filled to the brim with tasks. Creating press releases, meetings with clients, arranging interviews, organizing events, and creative mailings are just some of the agency employees’ responsibilities. So how to plan a vacation amidst so many duties? It turns out that simply organizing everything well before departure is enough to avoid dealing with work matters during your time off. What exactly should you take care of?A vacation allows you to recharge your batteries and return to daily duties with renewed energy. However, it won’t be valuable if your mind is still at work. We offer tips on what to pay attention to and what is worth taking care of before starting your blissful relaxation.Timing mattersWhen going on vacation, the most important thing is to choose the right timing. Each month has days that are not the best time to leave the office. Certainly, the period around the turn of the month is one such time. Usually, this is when agencies prepare reports for clients, and a good report can only be created by a person who works on the project daily. The beginning of the month is also a time for creating and distributing press releases. Therefore, the best time for vacation is the second and third week, when materials have already been sent to the media and follow-ups have been made.Invaluable substitution When planning a vacation, you must delegate daily responsibilities to a person who will take care of the project during your absence. Remember that such a person should be properly briefed. A one-on-one conversation with the colleague who will take over your duties is an opportunity to thoroughly explain the activities and guarantees that your substitute can handle everything. A brief document containing the most important information about the activities and the client can also be helpful. What should such a file contain? Primarily, the client’s contact details, access to media monitoring, and information about where all the materials created so far for this project are stored. It’s best to provide the full path to these materials right away. The file should also recap all the tasks to be done as well as those already started. Listing them along with contact information for journalists or subcontractors can be invaluable for your substitute and greatly ease their work.Order in documents is fundamentalAmong daily duties, it often happens that materials are hastily saved on the desktop or in a quickly created unnamed folder. When we search for specific materials ourselves, we will surely find them eventually, but when going on vacation, it’s worth introducing a bit of order that the person replacing us will definitely appreciate. For this purpose, it is best to create a general folder on the desktop with all materials for individual Clients. A folder with reports, press releases, additional materials, databases, business cards, photos – it should really contain everything we do for the Client. It is also good to mark, when naming folders, which materials are the final version. None of us wants a situation where materials are sent to the media without final corrections and client approval.Inform the ClientWhen going on vacation, you must not forget to inform the Client about your absence. After providing this information personally or by phone, it is also worth sending a brief email specifying the exact days when you will be unreachable and without access to your mailbox, as well as who will be covering for you during this time. It’s beneficial to reassure the Client that the project is left in good hands. Before the vacation, you should also inform journalists with whom you are in regular contact and/or have ongoing topics about your absence. On the last day before your holiday, you should also set an autoresponder on your mailbox. This way, people trying to reach you during your absence will receive information about the vacation period and who they can contact regarding specific projects.
Proper preparation for the vacation, including onboarding the appropriate replacement, will certainly help ensure that the planned holiday can be dedicated to rest and recovery, rather than coordinating tasks remotely. Author of the text: Kasia
