4 Big Summer Challenges and How HR Can Manage Them

For HR, summer isn’t all sunshine. In fact, it usually presents some challenges for HR pros.  

As the unofficial start of summer — Memorial Day — is here and gone, HR wants to balance flexibility and freedom to keep employees safe and operations smooth.  

To help, we address four issues HR pros face most years as the summer months approach and share practical ways to address each.   

1. Summer Dress Code 

The problem: Nearly 45% of offices have no official dress code, according to a Monster survey. Even those that do, many employees have no direction on what’s appropriate and what’s not during the summer months when temps get warm, and people naturally reach for tanks and flip-flops.  

Solution: “It’s a good idea for employers to create a summer dress code by Memorial Day weekend, if not sooner in warmer climates,” says Monster’s Career Expert Vicki Salemi. “In addition to defining what’s appropriate and what’s not, it’s important to communicate it to employees so it’s easily available to them, such as an email blast and indicating where it can be found for reference on the company’s HR portal.”

You can follow that up in meetings. And managers will want to set the standard.

Practical tip: Whatever type of summer dress code policy you implement, ensure that expectations are set for employees and penalties for not abiding by it are includled. Salemi says: “Appropriate attire can vary by industry, especially with safety top of mind, but overall, it should maintain a professional, respectful environment.”

For example, tech startups might be more casual than accounting firms. Then Salemi says be specific for employees:

• “Here are some ideas: lightweight clothing (think linen and cotton), short-sleeve shirts or blouses (no logos, graphics, etc.), knee-length skirts and dresses, tailored shorts, and open-toed shoes (if it’s not a hazardous environment). 
• Inappropriate clothing may include: flip flops, ripped clothing, extremely short clothing, athletic wear, safety-averse attire (like wearing open-toed shoes in a manufacturing plant).
• Within the guidelines, there may be caveats such as more formal summer attire may be expected for client meetings, when leaders from other offices are in the office, etc.”

2. Work Schedules 

The problem: Most employees take advantage of the summer season to spend time outside or go on trips. Employees can get distracted and unproductive, planning or just thinking about that. Plus, employees who don’t have ample time to rest and recharge can be more prone to burnout, leading to disengagement and turnover. 

Solution: To keep employees engaged, many companies do “Summer Fridays” – where employees work half days or not at all on Fridays or every other Friday. This benefit can be especially desirable in the summer months to help employees plan time away to recharge and reset, overall promoting a healthier work-life balance. 

Practical tip: These types of perks aren’t one-size-fits-all, and not every type of flexible scheduling policy can work for every company. There are many ways to approach flexible scheduling. 

For example, some companies may have a policy that requires employees to work their full hours for the week, just with a more flexible schedule, while others may be able to offer employees a full Friday off with no strings attached.  

3. Managing PTO 

The problem: Many workers tend to save their vacation time for summer when kids are out of school and the weather is nicer in much of the country. These trips and vacations can often throw off workers’ schedules and create scheduling conflicts, particularly when many leave requests come in at one time.  

You want to balance well-deserved time off and smooth operations. Plus, you open the door to complaints of preferential treatment if you let one employee take time off and deny another employee’s request.  

The solution: The best way to handle these requests is to put clear language in your employee handbook that requires employees to give ample notice for any time off requests. That way, managers can plan to ensure that teams are still working efficiently. 

You might also want to hire some extra seasonal help or contract workers to allow employees to relax and recharge while keeping operations running smoothly. 

Practical tip: To avoid claims of preferential treatment – or even more severe claims such as retaliation – ensure that you have clear policies in place when it comes to handling time off requests fairly. This can include: 

• Handling and documenting each PTO request on a first-come, first-served basis  
• Tracking previous time off requests, or 
• Allowing team members to trade shifts to allow for more flexibility. 

4. Health and Safety 

The problem: Sometimes the heat can not only be uncomfortable – it can be dangerous. Especially when it comes to warehouse workers or those who are doing manual labor outside, the summer heat can take a real toll on their bodies. 

With stricter dress codes where workers are required to wear specific uniforms or protective gear, the wrong clothing can put employees at risk for heat-related illnesses like heatstroke and heat stress. In fact, there were 36 work-related deaths due to environmental heat exposure in the most recent DOL data. 

The solution: It’s important to take all necessary precautions, even if workers don’t seem overheated or unwell. Heat can creep up quickly, and especially during the hot summer months, it’s always better to be overly cautious than risk injury.  

Although routine reminders to take breaks to cool down and drink water are helpful, HR can take some more actionable steps to keep workers healthy and safe during the summer, like: 

• Creating designated cool-down spaces equipped with water and fans 
• Keep coolers around the worksite stocked with water bottles or electrolyte drinks, and 
• Ensure uniforms are made of lightweight, breathable material.  

Practical tip: If you have an especially at-risk workforce, or simply want to ensure employees are staying on top of their health, you may want to consider incentivizing employees to cool down and stay safe. 

You can encourage employees to stay hydrated by providing company-issued refillable water bottles or setting a company-wide goal for water bottle refills.