We all love to go on vacation. Vacations provide us with the opportunity to rewire our thoughts and goals and give us a chance to get motivated about coming back to work. Especially when you’ve endured a particularly tense period at work or worked your way through an important project and have finally come to the end of it. Another time when vacation seems to bring a lot of relief is when things are tough at work and you have a certain file or issue that’s just kicking your behind.

So, you just cannot wait to “get away from it all.”

Folks, this is also a time for one of the very best applications of Internal Customer Service. A real opportunity for your associates, your teammates, to engage a formula that will make vacation the best it can be—and not just for the associate going on vacation—-for the whole team.

One of the best processes to implement when a co-worker is going on vacation is for the team to ensure that, once the vacationer returns, all their problems and issues are cleared up and they return to a clear desk that’s been cleared of problems. Make sure everyone joins in to see to it that when their consort returns, they return to the delight of cleared problems and troubling, hanging issues. Regardless of what business you are in, this is something that pays large dividends. Some of those include:

• The vacationer leaves on vacation knowing they are going to return to a non-problematic setting and taking that mindset on vacation makes the vacation all the more enjoyable.
• Once a member of the team has been the recipient of this largesse, they will become determined to return the favor. They will be determined to see to it that their associates enjoy the same benefits. This manner of work-charity will become contagious in the office and this makes things better for all involved.
• Once returned, the vacationer may see that a certain item was handled in a more efficient manner than they had tried or been exposed to. It never hurts to learn a new trick.
• Knowing that another member of the team is going to ward over your work when you are gone will make the vacationer leave their house in good order. No one wants to leave a mess behind for others.

Giving the vacationer a REAL vacation. What a great application of Internal Customer Service.

One that pays a LOT of dividends.