Dealing with 'separation anxiety'

What will happen when I am away? Will they know how to implement my report? TANIA NGIMA handles ‘leave fears’

While separation anxiety may have been a term used with reference to parenting, it has also come to represent the feelings that employees go through just before they leave the office for the holidays.

This anxiety may be for instance irrational fear that something in your domain will go wrong just when you’re unreachable away from the office. Other times though, it may be due to the pressure from a supervisor who has got too used to having you as the go to person.

Whatever the reason is, it is important to remember that taking vacation and personal time away from the office is important. To deal with this anxiety and enjoy your holiday, you need a few guidelines:

Inform your supervisor

As soon as you decide to take a long holiday, anything from two weeks or more, give enough notice to your colleagues and anyone else who relies on you for information or other outputs. Do this via email and in person at least two weeks before you officially go on leave.

Some organisations have policies of applying for leave and you may not apply any time shorter than a month prior to going away.

Planning

Be clear on whether you will be reachable on your vacation, whether you will be in a position to come into the office if needed and whether you will be on email. If not, plan with a colleague who will be consulted and who can ‘hold fort’ in your absence and communicate this.

Set up an auto reply, this is more for partners or other people outside of the organisation who may not be aware that you will not be in the office.

Put in any email addresses that either you or the person handling queries in your absence can be reached on.

If you need to, forward your emails to a secondary email address to give you uninterrupted address.

When you do get back to work from leave though, ensure that you disable the auto reply messaging.

Always prepare handover notes before you go on leave which should cover all tasks or projects under your jurisdiction and who handles what in your absence.

This puts people at ease, as they tend to have the unconscious comfort of not getting stuck.

Come up with a plan, which you should discuss with your supervisor and address any concerns that come up well in advance.