Holiday Cover: Keeping Matters Moving When People Are Away
Cover fails when the person covering does not know what is due, or cannot see the file. A simple routine for the week before, the time away, and the day back.
Holiday cover is a temporary handover, and it goes wrong in predictable ways: a deadline falls while the owner is away and nobody knew it was there; the person covering cannot find the latest correspondence; a client emails the absent person and gets an autoreply with no useful alternative. Two weeks off should not be enough to stall a matter. A light routine fixes most of it.
The week before
Five working days before leaving, the person going away does three things.
- Lists what falls due while they are away, plus the following three working days. Pull this from the matters themselves, not from memory: every deadline, scheduled hearing or meeting, and expected incoming document.
- Brings every matter on that list up to date. Latest emails filed, notes written, next action and date set. If the file does not show where things stand, the cover cannot act.
- Writes a short cover note on each of those matters: what might happen, what to do if it does, and what can wait.
This is a lighter version of the full handover in how to hand over a case when someone leaves. The difference is that the owner is coming back, so the cover only needs to keep things moving, not take over the relationship.
Agree the limits
Cover works better when both sides agree what the cover will and will not do. A typical split:
- Will do: meet deadlines, respond to urgent queries, file incoming documents, chase what was already scheduled to be chased.
- Will not do without asking: agree terms, change strategy, make commitments to clients beyond the next step.
- Will contact the owner only if: a specific named event happens. Otherwise, the owner is genuinely off.
Access before, not during
The most common failure is simple: the person covering cannot open the file. Check access before the owner leaves, on the actual matters, by having the cover open one or two. If documents or email live in one person's private space, cover is guesswork. Shared, matter-based storage with per-matter permissions avoids this; a personal inbox makes it impossible.
Autoreplies that help
An autoreply should say when you are back and give a named person and a monitored address for urgent matters. "I have limited access to email" helps nobody. If clients have a matter reference, ask them to include it so the cover can find the file quickly.
While away
The cover records what they do on each matter, on the matter, as they do it. A short dated note, "Chased the surveyor, reply expected Thursday", means the owner can read the full picture on their return rather than piecing it together from a conversation. Keep the team's weekly case review going; the absent person's matters should appear on its lists like everyone else's.
The day back
The returning owner spends the first hour reading notes on their matters, not their inbox. Then a fifteen-minute conversation with the cover: anything unresolved, anything promised, anything that surprised them. Anything that surprised the cover is a hint about what the next cover note should include.
Plan the calendar
Finally, look at the team's leave calendar alongside the deadline calendar. Two people who cover each other should not be away at the same time, and a big deadline is easier to move a month in advance than a week.
