When we talk about our umbrella company employees taking time off, it’s not a minor concern or a frivolous detail. The ability to take time for yourself is important in protecting your mental and physical health. For too many contractors, even some who are employed by an umbrella company, holidays represent nothing more than an interruption to their income, and another source of stress. In this article, we’ll talk about how you can make the most of your holidays, both as a way of looking after yourself, and to enhance your life as a contractor.
The importance of having a real holiday
The benefits of taking regular holidays are well documented. As well as protecting you from the dangers of stress and fatigue, there’s evidence that they help improve general happiness, productivity and problem-solving skills. In other words, they improve your life, and make you better at your job.
To get the full benefit, though, you need to do more than just stay away from work. For busy people, there’s an understandable temptation to use your time off to catch up on housework, or fill it with all the errands you never get to while you’re working. Conversely, you might be tempted to spend a week sitting on your sofa, watching Netflix or playing video games. In both of these scenarios, you’re likely to be more stressed and fatigued on your return to work, having “wasted” your hard-earned holiday.
As well as resting “passively”, by not going to work, it’s also important to recover “actively” by engaging in enjoyable activities. These are more effective if they include a change of scenery, and if they’re things you don’t usually do.
If financial concerns make holidays difficult
It’s all very well for us to say it’s important to take holidays, but for some it’s not that easy. Contractors only get paid when they’re working, and we often hear that financial worries can dominate a contractor’s downtime. We hate to think of our umbrella company employees being unable to enjoy their holidays, and if this sounds like you it’s important to resolve the situation, for all the reasons we mentioned above. Our article on how to stabilise your finances may help, and there are other ways to save for your holidays too:
Use your holiday pay to cover your holidays
As an umbrella company employee, you’re entitled to holiday pay. Our advice is to make sure you claim your holiday pay when you actually take holiday, rather than using it for other purposes.
Use Your Discount Outlet
If you've chosen Orange Genie as your umbrella company, you'll have access to our comprehensive discount outlet, which can be an extremely powerful tool if you’re trying to save money. It’s enormous, it’s constantly evolving, and there’s very little that you can’t find on it, so if you use it regularly you might find that you rarely pay full price for anything.
One of the most powerful and popular tricks is to reduce your day to day expenses by using reloadable cards at the supermarket. According to the Office of National Statistics the average UK household spends £3,150 on groceries every year, so a 4 or 5% saving adds up to a significant amount.
Obviously, reducing your outgoings makes it easier to save but you can also use the cash back section to build up savings. Each time you make any kind of online purchase, log into the discount outlet and check for cashback offers. You can let your cashback build up for as long as you like, which is ideal if you want to save for something in particular, like a holiday.
Other ways your umbrella company can help you make the most of your holidays
As we said earlier, it’s a good idea to do something enjoyable with your holidays, whether that means jetting off to somewhere exotic, or staying home and filling your days with fun activities. Making the most of your holidays is not a trivial thing, and because we care about our employees’ wellbeing, we’ve done everything we can help them enjoy their time off.
If you’re travelling abroad
As well as discounts and cashback on flights and hotels, which obviously make your holiday budget go further, there are offers available on related services like travel insurance, and pretty much anything you need to purchase for your trip. Need luggage? Beach clothes? A new camera? Camping equipment? Don’t worry, the Discount Outlet has you covered.
Our Personal Doctor service can be accessed from anywhere in the world, as long as you have internet access or a phone, giving you easy access to medical advice wherever you go. This can make a huge difference, as interfacing with local health services can be a problem, particularly if there’s a language barrier.
Additionally, our Your Health service includes a section specifically for travel health information, which is searchable by destination. This allows you to look up any local health issues, so you can easily prepare for your trip. For example, do you need vaccinations or malaria medication, and is it safe to drink the water?
If you’re staying in the UK
If you’re staying in the UK there are hundreds of activities and days out you can enjoy through Your Discount Outlet, including the ever-popular discounted cinema tickets. There are discounts on rail travel, days out at major UK attractions and experience days. And of course, there are offers available at literally hundreds of restaurants all over the UK.
If you decide to have a quiet night in, there are discounts on takeaways, movie rentals and books. Whatever you want to do with your time off, chances are being an Orange Genie employee will save you money on it, which means you can do more, and return to work properly rested and recharged.
If you’re not with us yet and have questions about this issue, or if we can help in any way, please contact our expert team on 01296 468 483 or email info@orangegenie.com.