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The holiday season brings with it an elevated level of fun and excitement. Unfortunately, the holidays can be chaotic and stressful. All this excitement – and stress – can infiltrate your workplace and hinder morale, decrease productivity, and derail employee engagement. The holiday decorations, parties, and gift exchanges can all be quite overwhelming and easily distract your team.
Through all the hustle and bustle of this time of years, you can still find ways to reduce stress, boost employee engagement, and keep your team on track. Here’s a look at some ideas to enhance employee engagement during the holidays.
Celebrate Successes
The end of the year is the perfect time to look back over company successes. Review the company goals set at the beginning of the year and compare those goals to year-end results. Share the results with your employees. It’s vital that you remain transparent with your team by sharing the good and the bad, but always remaining positive about the future. Remember, your ultimate goal is to keep your team motivated and engaged, not to discourage them.
Take time to celebrate success for the year with your workers. This not only includes company goals that were met, but also look for other achievements, such as the number of new clients, increase in production, improvement in overall attendance, or sales numbers.
Recognize Top Employees
People crave recognition. They want to know they are appreciated for a job well done. Your workers are no different. They want to know that their time, dedication, and hard work is both recognized and appreciated. It’s best to make employee recognition part of the workplace culture all year round. There’s something about the holiday spirit; however, that makes it the perfect time of the year for special recognition.
This holiday season you should be deliberate about making employee recognition a priority. There are many ways you can do this, such as hand-written thank you notes, certificates, awards, social media recognition, and more. One great example is to transform your holiday party into an Employee Appreciation Day where your employees truly are the guests of honor. Use this time to honor your workers for their hard work and their commitment to the company.
Announce Company Goals for the New Year
According to a recent Gallup poll, less than half of today’s workers state that they feel connected to their employer’s mission. This disconnect isn’t because they don’t want to because this same survey shows that 83 percent of workers want to have meaning in the lives. Part of the problem is that employers aren’t sharing their core mission and values with their workforce effectively. With one year coming to an end and new year just around the corner, now is the time to share the company’s vision and goals for the new year with the entire workforce.
‘Tis the Season for Giving
The holidays are the time for giving – so catch the holiday spirit and reward your team. Rewarding your workers isn’t just about handing out gifts, it about creating an experience with your employees to make sure they know how much you appreciate their work. There are many affordable employee reward options, such as gift cards, food, extra paid time off, and more. Establish a recognition and rewards program where employees can choose the rewards that matter most the them.
Employee Volunteer Program
The holidays aren’t just about receiving – it’s about giving too. Many of your employees may want to volunteer but finding time between work and holiday activities may be difficult. You can help your employees out by creating a volunteer program that allows your workers to volunteer during work hours. Volunteering isn’t just good for your workers and the charities; it’s good for business too. America’s Charities calculates that businesses can save between $1,000 and $6,000 per employee by setting up an employee volunteer program.
Offer Flexible Scheduling
With the holiday season being so hectic, the last thing you may want to do is offer flexible scheduling. It’s important to realize, however, that your workers’ personal lives are just as busy as their work lives during the holiday season, which makes it difficult for them to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Encouraging your employees to take time off or leave early to take care of some of the personal holiday responsibilities can help keep them more focused and productive at work. Research done by the American Psychological Association found that workers who remain positive can boost productivity by as much as 31 percent.
Set Realistic Year-End Goals
Several studies have linked unrealistic expectations in the workplace with increased stress. While there’s nothing you can do about some of the chaos brought about by the holiday season, you can minimize its impact on your workers. Understand that the end of November through December is going to be chaotic at work. More people will be taking off, and year-end task must be completed. Take proactive measures to prepare for the end-of-the-year by setting realistic goals that won’t overwhelm your team.
Don’t let the stress of the holiday season hinder employee engagement in your workplace. Instead, take steps now to plan a holiday season that not only will prevent your employee from becoming stressed and overwhelmed, but also will keep productivity and employee morale high. Learn how to develop employee engagement all year long, including the holidays, by downloading our employee recognition e-book now.
