After the holiday is before the holiday – Productivity in Russia
Michael Germershausen
Managing Director Eurasian Region Antal International ([email protected]) PLEASE NOTE I HAVE REACHED THE LIMIT OF 30K CONNECTIONS - YOU CAN ONLY FOLLOW ME - I CANNOT ACCEPT FURTHER CONNECTIONS:(
By the amount of out of office replies I have been getting in the last 2 weeks, I suppose most people should hopefully be back by now.
In fact the first four months of the Russian year are a nightmare when it comes to budgeting and hitting your sales plans. First there is the New Year period, which until sanctions were introduced meant that Austrian ski tourism got an additional week of Russian Xmas holiday guests. Then we have the fatherland defenders day on Thursday February 23rd resulting in having the Friday in between off as well. Followed by the most important day working in a recruiting business – women’s day on March 8th. Finally, people are settling into work and decisions are started to be taken again and then suddenly at the end of April the Russian army needs between 5-8 times to practice its parade in Moscow and the May holiday period starts, which means Moscow comes to another stand-still. When in the past only locals were leaving for a 2 week holiday now everybody excepts the excuse “lets talk again after the holidays”, nowadays the majority of expats actually also escapes for the full two week holidays. The poor people, who are staying at work (I was one of them), can’t really get anything done because most of their counterparts are out of office. By the way, don’t forget that Sunday and Monday after those holidays are always the most expensive days to fly back to Moscow.
Now we are all back into work, however only for four weeks because the next bank holiday is coming up. This time it falls onto a Monday so only a three day weekend unfortunately. Then it’s the summer holiday season and then its… In November we can make use of the special Russian privilege again – a holiday falls onto a Saturday so it has to be transferred to a working day.
Finally, we have December where we can increase our productivity levels closer to our international colleagues because we work until the 31st and in Europe the year usually already finishes at least one week earlier.
Below the bank holidays of the next 12 months:
Monday June 12th - National Day
Saturday November 04 – Day of Unity (Monday November 6th) Day of Unity Holiday
Monday January 01, 2018 – New Years day
Tuesday January 02, 2018 till Sunday January 7th 2017 Xmas holidays
Friday February 23, 2018 Defense of the fatherland
Thursday, March 08, Women’s Day
Monday April 30, 2018 Labour Day Holiday
Tuesday May 01, 2018 Labour Day
Wednesday May 09, 2018 Victory Day
How do you manage this period? Escape? Sit at work? Find a productive way to contribute anyway? Let me know.
Michael ([email protected])
Business Development | Licensing | M&A | Alliance | Partnering | Pharma & Biotech
7 年All true. In fact, the Christmas lights on Pokrovksyi Blv teach us the lesson that the "Put-the-lights-remove-the-lights-manager" is still away for Christmas holidays. Best to leave them there until next Christmas, it's only 6 months away.
All things recruitment, founding, scaling, M&A
7 年This is an automated reply. I'm on holiday now and won't be able to post an interesting reply until I get back.
CEO EURL AQUEDUCT
7 年Try sitting in Europe over Christian Easter/Pentecost and Russian May celebrations and get your Russian visa. Only one institution is open at a time - and that's on a good day.