The Importance of Workforce Planning ahead of the Festive Season

As the festive season fast approaches, many Australia businesses will begin their workforce preparations for the Christmas & New Year period – either via announcing office closure dates or readying for the festive season rush.

Typically, the December quarter represents one of the busiest periods in the economic calendar, characterised by heightened levels of commercial activity. This is especially apparent across industries such as retail, hospitality, accommodation, tourism, and logistics, all of which experience significant surges in sales and demand during this festive season.

Conversely, other sectors—including manufacturing, education, real estate, and professional services—often experience a seasonal slowdown. For many small businesses, this period can be challenging, particularly when it comes to managing cash flow amidst fluctuating revenue streams and ongoing expenses.

As a result, it is important for business owners to effectively set strategies in place regarding their staff levels around the holiday period, as this can directly affect payroll, cash-flow, and compliance.

What is Workforce Planning?

Workforce planning is the process of assessing a businesses current and future staffing needs to ensure it has the right people, with the right skills, in the right roles at the right time.

The goal is to ensure businesses are proactive in anticipating staff levels – ensuring it can effectively meet its objectives across the Festive season and adapt to changes which may impact this.

Potential Workforce Planning Strategies to Consider

Forecasting Staffing Needs Over the Festive Period

In building your workforce plan for the upcoming period, it is important to first review historical cash-flow patterns across the Christmas / New Year period to identify peak periods of demand (or drop-off), and potential staff requirements.

By doing so, you can better align staffing levels with business activity forecasts – considering both the needs of customers as well as those internal to the business. When aligning against these patterns, it may be prudent to consider flexible work arrangements or implementing skeleton crews to maintain ‘business as usual’ activity, while also accommodating for employee leave preferences.

In building an accurate forecast, it is important to prepare a detailed budget for the period – which factors in leave entitlements, public holiday penalty rates, and any anticipated overtime requirements.

These help ensure sufficient resources are allocated for any increased / decreased waged costs associated with the Festive season.

Managing Payroll & Compliance Obligations

From a payroll perspective, it is important business owners & finance teams ensure all payroll calculations accurately reflect public holiday penalty rates and that Superannuation Contributions are made in accordance with legislative requirements during this period.

This is essential where ensuring your compliance obligations for the period, as the Festive break can contain strict shutdown periods & award-specific obligations (i.e. Christmas Eve part-public holiday, Christmas Day closures, Boxing Day, New Years Day) – as outlined by the Fair Work Act.

Such specific obligations can include minimum notice periods for closures, specific leave provisions, and procedures for requesting or directing staff to take leave.

Additionally, monitor annual leave accruals and make appropriate specifications on the balance sheet to reflect any increased leave liabilities arising from staff taking or accruing days off.

Risk Management & Continuity Planning

Further, your workforce plan for the period should give consideration to any risk management obligations and continuity planning.

As part of this, it is important to identify business-critical roles and ensure that adequate coverage is arranged to maintain core operations throughout the Festive period.

In doing this, business owners and senior management should look to develop appropriate contingency plans for any unexpected absences – potentially including cross-team training of team members, where necessary. Additionally, communication is essential in clearly highlighting business / operational plans throughout the period, managing staff expectations and making all parties aware of responsibilities and ‘business as usual’ actions.

Additionally, it is best to proactively manage client expectations - informing of any changes to services levels or staff availability during the period. In doing so, this ensures that relevant points of contact are made known for the period and limits any potential event of service interruption.

Practical Tips for Business Owners

As we approach the period, we have outlined some practical tips for business owners to consider in advance of the Festive season closure period below:

• Establish your staffing roster well in advance to ensure optimal coverage during the holiday period and to address any anticipated workflow changes.
  
  
• Clearly communicate shutdown dates to all employees, allowing adequate time for teams to prepare and make necessary adjustments.
  
  
• Proactively encourage staff to plan and submit leave requests ahead of time, which helps minimise disruptions and ensures smooth business continuity.
  
  
• Conduct a thorough review of payroll systems and ensure the correct interpretation of award entitlements, particularly in relation to public holidays and leave accruals, to maintain compliance and avoid errors.

Additionally, take the opportunity to update and reiterate HR policies regarding employee breaks, leave, and public holidays, providing clear guidance and ensuring all staff are informed of their entitlements and obligations.

For More Information

If you require further guidance on preparing your workforce plans for the Festive season, or wish to discuss your business’s specific compliance obligations, please contact our team at Archer Gowland Redshaw on (07) 3002 2699 | info@agredshaw.com.au.