Summer Schedules: 3 Effective Solutions to Avoid the Summer Headache

27/07/2026
15:27

reading time : 2 min

Lucie Monnot

Content Marketing Manager

Fortunately for your business, field operations do not stop during the two summer months! But how do you “keep things running” when your employees’ holidays complicate scheduling?

In many sectors, summer is far from a quiet season for field operations — quite the contrary! In B2B, certain operations, typically the maintenance of heating systems in schools and other public institutions, are preferably carried out during this period. Companies working in B2C are no exception, as many individuals take advantage of their holidays to start renovation work, have materials or furniture delivered, or — given the energy transition — have a new heating system installed before winter. The main challenge for companies that do not opt for a complete summer closure is having the necessary staff to carry out these assignments, while their field operatives:

maintenance technicians,
installers,
delivery drivers,
diagnosticians,
experts,
meter readers,

are fewer in number due to well-deserved holidays.

The key word: anticipate!

Employee holiday dates can easily be planned well before the start of the summer season. Holiday periods are often set by the collective agreement or the agreement applicable to the company, bearing in mind that, unless an exemption applies, the law gives employees the right to take 12 consecutive working days of holiday during the legal period running from 1 May to 31 October. Do not forget that as an employer:

you must inform your employees of the holiday period at least 2 months before it opens,
you cannot change your employees’ holiday start dates less than one month before the originally planned dates.

If your company operates throughout the summer, asking your employees to submit their holiday requests as early as possible remains the best way to:

satisfy as many employees as possible regarding their preferred holiday dates, while taking into account the operations and interventions already planned for each of them over the summer,
ensure that all areas of expertise are covered each week during this period, so that you can not only carry out the usual rounds or already planned operations, but also satisfy new customers as quickly as possible, respond to unforeseen requests from existing customers, and of course, deal with emergencies.

Planning this well in advance also gives you the opportunity to anticipate the potential recruitment of temporary or permanent staff to temporarily supplement your teams. Anticipation is essential given the current tensions in certain trades. Of course, staffing agencies will always manage to find you a delivery driver at short notice. It will be more complicated if you are looking for a dozen for the first two weeks of August, and even more so if you need a maintenance technician familiar with a particular brand or type of equipment. The earlier you make your needs known to recruitment agencies, the better your chances of them presenting candidates with the right profile, skills, and experience.

Finally, if you regularly use subcontractors for certain rounds or operations, early planning of your employees’ holidays will give your partners visibility, allowing them to organize themselves accordingly.

Play the flexibility card…

The temporary reduction in your workforce or increased use of external reinforcements during the summer should not prevent you from meeting demand as effectively as possible. This requires in particular a degree of flexibility in the definition of intervention sectors or the usual delivery zones. If the delivery driver for zone A is on holiday for 3 weeks, the smooth running of your business requires that the drivers responsible for the adjacent zones B and C can step in for them, under good conditions of course.

With our Territory Manager sectorization solution, nothing prevents you from modifying existing intervention sectors for a specific period. The distribution of zone A’s delivery points among the drivers of zones B and C can be done according to the criteria of your choice: known workload, drivers’ starting point, maximum distance they can cover in a round, geographical constraints, requirements specific to certain service points (morning delivery only, for example), etc.
By carrying out this temporary re-sectorization well before the start of the holiday period, you will not catch your colleagues off guard: you involve them in defining their delivery or intervention zone and refine the scope with them by manually reassigning problematic service points or customers (for example, those that are too far out of the way). This ensures not only that the entire territory to be served will effectively be covered throughout the summer, but also that there will be no last-minute objections from your field operatives.

This recommendation also applies to your subcontractors and partners. By communicating to them several weeks in advance the map of the territory they will be responsible for that summer, along with information on the customers they will need to manage, you allow them to organize themselves as effectively as possible, in a win-win approach.

Simplify the daily lives of your field operatives

To protect your company’s profitability and ensure customer satisfaction, summer is the period when you need more than ever to optimize the distribution of operations among the staff present and their routes, whether regular or variable. With a smaller workforce, it is even more crucial than usual that they cover fewer kilometers and spend as much time as possible on actual operations. This is exactly what Nomadia software allows you to do very easily. With TourSolver for example, you automatically calculate an optimal route from a simple address file.

The software takes speed limits into account and determines the order in which addresses are served so as to minimize the number of kilometers traveled and maximize the number of points served during the day.
By specifying the theoretical duration of each type of operation, you generate for each employee schedules and roadmaps they will be able to follow because the realities of the field and the constraints of their profession are taken into account by the algorithm.
As an additional advantage, you can temporarily open access to our optimization software to your subcontractors and partners to share information and allow them to also calculate optimized routes based on your own criteria.

Finally, to ensure that every route and every operation runs in the best possible conditions for both your employees and your customers, your field operatives must not only have realistic route plans, but also have all the information necessary for the proper execution of their assignment — particularly if they are operating outside their usual area or with customers they do not know. A mobile business application will spare them unnecessary stress and wasted time. How? By guiding them on the road without having to enter each address on a standalone GPS, by clearly indicating the purpose of each operation, and by giving them access to the characteristics of the equipment or installation and the customer’s history. With our mobile business applications, all of this is done from a single interface from which your employees and subcontractors can also record their operation start and end times, and generate their operation reports. It is considerably simpler and faster than juggling multiple applications! It is also a good way to complete as many administrative tasks as possible in the field and to enjoy the long, beautiful summer evenings in peace.

In writing this, we are well aware that summer is already well underway and that it may be a little late to recommend planning ahead… But since summer scheduling is a question that arises every year, why not eliminate this headache once and for all by discovering how our solutions can help your planning teams and mobile employees be more efficient — summer and winter alike?

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Why Choose Nomadia?

As France’s leading publisher of Smart Mobility SaaS solutions, Nomadia supports more than 175,000 field professionals every day. Our solutions are easy to use, quick to deploy, and deliver significant and immediate return on investment.

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Nomadia Delivery offers transparent and flexible pricing, which primarily depends on the number of users (for example, planners and dispatchers) rather than a fixed cost per parcel.

Thanks to this model, you can control your delivery costs based on the number of resources (users) involved in route management, providing great flexibility to adjust your subscription according to the size of your fleet and your operational needs.

Is It Compatible with My Current ERP System?

Yes! Nomadia Delivery has been designed to integrate quickly and easily into your existing environment thanks to our powerful and secure APIs. Our solution is compatible with most ERP systems on the market. API integration enables the automatic synchronization of your transport orders, customer orders, and customer information, ensuring smooth and error-free delivery tracking. The solution also offers user-friendly import capabilities with data validation controls, as well as export options in multiple customizable formats.

Is It Suitable for Our Delivery Volume?

Yes, Nomadia Delivery is ideal for companies that manage a high volume of deliveries and want to optimize their routes, create balanced territories for their drivers, and ensure precise tracking of every parcel. Nomadia Delivery adapts to fleets of all sizes!

Can Multiple Warehouses or Depots Be Managed?

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Is There a Limit to the Number of Stops in Route Optimizations?

No, there is no strict limit to the number of stops in route optimizations. Our solution can handle large volumes of stops and quickly calculate optimized routes.

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