Preparing your company’s communication for the return from holiday in June rather than September lets you organise processes, define messages and avoid improvising when the team comes back. If you are wondering why June is the right moment, the key is to reach the summer break with owners, channels and documentation already reviewed. Below…
Many companies put communication on hold over the summer and start it up again in September, once emails, meetings and urgent decisions have piled up. At that point teams come back in a rush and important messages get improvised. Preparing it in June makes it possible to tidy up processes, prevent errors and come back to much clearer communication, especially if the company works with international clients, suppliers or teams.
Why September is usually too late
September tends to be experienced as a month of accelerated restart. Projects resume, pending conversations are picked up again and tasks left waiting before the holidays reappear. When internal and external communication has not been prepared in advance, things naturally fall out of step.
A company working with international counterparts cannot always afford that slack. While part of the local team is still reorganising, a client or supplier in another country may need specific answers, up-to-date documentation or precise instructions. If all that is handled in a hurry, misunderstandings, delays and a sense of disorder increase.
So preparing your company’s communication for the return from holiday in June is not getting ahead of yourself. It buys real time to review messages, define owners and stop September starting in reactive mode.
What is worth settling before the summer
June is a good moment to take decisions more calmly. It is not just about switching on an out-of-office message, but about reviewing how the company communicates when part of the team is unavailable.
It is worth making clear who answers each type of query, which channel will be used for urgent matters and what tone should be kept in communication with clients, collaborators or partners. It is also important to review frequently used documents such as sales emails, follow-up replies, automated messages or internal templates.
In many companies, problems do not come from one big crisis but from small repeated failings. An unclear email, an ambiguous instruction or a late reply can complicate a professional relationship considerably. In fact, situations of this kind resemble those analysed in common mistakes when speaking English at work, which explains how small language slips can directly affect professional communication.
The return from holiday is prepared before you leave
One of the most common mistakes is thinking that communication resumes in September. In reality, the return is prepared before the team leaves. If June is used well, September stops being a month of improvisation.
This means checking whether the company is communicating consistently across all its points of contact. It also means checking whether important messages depend too much on a single person, or whether shared criteria exist for responding quickly and clearly.
In companies with international activity, this preparation matters even more. It is not enough for someone to “get by” in English or manage a basic reply. The messages need to be comprehensible, professional and appropriate to the context.
The role of language in business communication
In international communication, language is not just a tool; it is part of the strategy.
“Getting by” in English is not enough
Many companies work with a functional level of English that falls short in complex situations such as negotiations, conflict management or presentations.
This gets worse in periods like the summer, when there is less room to review messages or correct errors.
Business-focused language training
Preparing the return also means assessing whether the team is genuinely ready to communicate in international settings.
A good approach is to work on specific skills such as intercultural communication or professional writing. You can explore this further in the importance of English in business, which looks at how language has a direct impact on business results.
How to get started in practical terms
The first step is to review which situations usually create the most disorder on the return. It may be handling the backlog of emails, dealing with international clients, coordinating between departments or the absence of common criteria when drafting important messages.
Then decide which processes need to be settled before July. There is no need to redesign everything. Sometimes it is enough to agree owners, update templates, review key documentation and set out the basic communication guidelines for the summer and the return. For anyone who needs to review, print and distribute documentation among the team before July, having a multifunction printer to hand makes the process much simpler without relying on an outside service.
What matters is reaching September with the decisions already taken.
Prepare your return-from-holiday communication in June
Assess your team’s real level and strengthen professional communication before the break, so September does not start in reactive mode. No commitment.
Ask us for a proposal →Frequently asked questions
Because June allows you to review processes with more room to manoeuvre and take decisions before the summer break. In September, by contrast, many companies are already handling urgent matters and improvisation becomes more likely.
No. It is also useful for internal teams and local suppliers. That said, when international communication is involved, the impact of errors is usually greater.
Owners, contact channels, communication templates, automated messages and the team’s language level in real working situations.
Preparing your company’s communication for the return from holiday in June lets you reach September with more clarity, fewer errors and a better professional image.
If you want your team to face the return with stronger, more professional communication, at ALOS we can help you with language training tailored to your business environment. Get in touch and we will help you design a bespoke plan.