Maintaining a happy staff during the holiday season is a tall order. With busy work schedules, parties, and family obligations to juggle, it’s easy for morale to suffer. But these tips will help you keep your employees from feeling too much burnout this year!
Seek Out Fun Holiday Activities
No matter what kind of work your team does, spending time together on a fun holiday project will help to mitigate the stress of the season. Busy, under-staffed offices are isolated cubes that keep employees from seeing each other outside of work. It’s really easy to get just one cube in your office. The rest are reserved for meetings, calls, and emails. So, people in these areas feel isolated from their co-workers.
Fun, unstructured office days are a good way to get people out of their shells and spend some time with their coworkers. Just remember that they don’t have to be a giant sing-a-long or all-day ice cream sesh. Smaller team activities can also help build camaraderie among employees. It can make them more interested in working together than just on a project.
Plan Away from Home, Not at Home
We all know that holiday gatherings can be tough for employees with children. The question of whether or not to bring the kids along presents a real quandary for families.
If you’re hosting the party and your staff is hesitant to bring their kids, offer to host it at a restaurant or a local attraction. Preferably one where there’s something to do! It’s much easier for parents to attend events like these when they don’t have to worry about how their kids will behave.
If you’re hiring managers who want to bring their kids, consider giving them a flexible work schedule. They can get back and forth to parties at an early hour. Alternatively, host the event at an off-site location like a holiday-themed resort or amusement park. All these venues have souvenirs or activities that keep children entertained.
Provide Flexible Holiday Rotation Schedules
Many companies offer the option of taking a holiday day off or working from home on December 25th. Thus, employees can take a break with their families. In the past, this was only available to managers, but lately, some companies have included all employees in the same policy. This creates a lot of flexibility for people who want to see their families and focus on holiday activities with loved ones.
Encourage Remote Communication
Whether you have a distributed team or an office-based one, remote communication is an option for keeping employees connected to their co-workers and projects. The benefits of remote communication for your business are huge. As a result, some offices allow their employees to work from home over the holidays because it’s just that easy and efficient!
Even if you’re not hiring remote teams yet, consider making this change in the coming years. When people work remotely over the holidays, they’re less stressed out and they don’t have to feel that they’re missing out on company celebrations.
Offer Holiday Flex-Time or Paid Time Off
Employees who have frequent family obligations during the holidays tend to feel a lot of stress if they have a set schedule that doesn’t allow them to take time off during the 12 days of Christmas or New Year’s. By offering to work with employees who need a longer schedule over those holidays, you can help them to feel more comfortable taking time off and enjoying family obligations.
As companies that support flexible schedules, we know that employees appreciate working in an environment where they can take their vacation time when they need it. Typically, people are more open to flexible work options during the holidays because they’re still feeling fairly tired and stressed from the workweek.
Offer Flexible Holiday Schedules to the Entire Company
When you’re offering flexible working options to your employees, you should consider making them available for the whole company. If you have a remote team, having flexible schedules is good for all employees as it helps to maintain a positive moral level as employees from different offices come together at events and parties over the holidays.
Hire Remote Teams or Maintain Flexible Schedules Through Outsourcing
If you have a distributed team, it’s important to understand that because people are working from different locations, they can only communicate as much as the distance between nodes of their network allows. In some cases, this is very limited, but even in the best-case scenario, remote teams can only communicate as much as their technology allows.
The good news is that some companies outsource their remote work for them. They provide the necessary technology and infrastructure to allow employees to work remotely and still be able to attend projects and holiday events together. This allows employees to extend their reach beyond the distance of their physical offices and networks.
Encourage Collaboration Through Social Media
Social media can be really helpful for encouraging collaboration among different offices or projects. You can use it to connect people involved in social media campaigns over the holidays. Show off your holiday party to employees who couldn’t make it. Share holiday gift guides that include many of your other brands!
Make an Effort to Include Everyone
If you have a distributed team, it’s important to understand that your employees are important and they still feel connected to the company. Knowing this, it’s vital to make an effort to include everyone in company events and activities. If you want people in your cities or countries around the world to feel like a part of the company, remember that connecting with them over Christmas and New Year’s is just as important as connecting with them over Halloween or Valentine’s Day.
Encourage Independence for the Holiday Season
When planning your company’s holiday parties and activities, there’s no need to enforce a certain holiday culture on your employees. Let people participate in activities that they enjoy. Allow them to celebrate the holidays in the way that makes them happiest. If you want to do something different this year, go ahead! Just be sure to have fun!
If people feel comfortable enough with you and your company, they’ll come to you with problems and concerns. It’s important to be kind and considerate while encouraging employees to take care of their own needs and responsibilities. They may even come up with solutions that benefit your business.
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