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How to keep the Christmas period festive

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Matt Darvill Blog, Christmas, Work...

The Christmas period is an exciting time for everyone, with all the preparation taking place weeks in advance. This can result in concentration and focus level drops during the festive period; as employees become ‘wrapped’ up in family planning. As this significant time of the year can be distracting, it’s important that you pay particular attention to your employees, to keep everyone focussed and happy in the workplace.

Early Finishes

Finishing a little early and getting time to prepare the last few bits for the big day is the most requested thing from employees. Even if it’s just a few hours early on Christmas Eve, if your business can work around the early close, then it can be a really helpful gesture without costing much. If a complete early closure would be too big of a strain, it could be on a rotational policy, with different staff members finishing on different days to stagger the impact.

Embrace the festivities

Encourage your teams to be as festive as they wish over the few weeks leading up to Christmas. Coming into more of a homely environment in the mornings can help to raise morale amongst all staff members. Festive music and more relaxed dress code can provide a boost to happiness as everyone embraces the holiday season. Some non-financial incentives can be particularly well received. Some nice feedback or reviews can be rewarded with a tin of Quality Street, for example.

Christmas Party

The Christmas party is ingrained into office life. Most businesses organise something, but why not go the extra mile and offer some free drinks on the night, or even pay for the meal. If you are looking at drinks options, this can range from a drinks token, a bar tab or even a free bar all night if you’re feeling extra festive! This is a really easy way of spreading some Christmas cheer, and showing your staff members how appreciated they are!

Support your employees

As was alluded to previously, we’re being pulled in lots of different directions at this time of year. So whilst some departments may have reducing workloads, others may be busier than ever during the festive period. This means some sensitivity is required, as a revolving Christmas playlist may be quite distracting to those with extending to-do lists. Be aware of the needs of everyone, and show that you are understanding of the additional pressures at this time of year.

Charity Donations

Christmas is the season of giving, and many companies use this time of the year to support a charity. Popular initiatives include collecting for food banks, donating to children’s charities or even a group from the office doing some carol singing to raise some money.

This not only helps the nominated cause during a busy time of the year, but can have the dual benefit of improving employee engagement thanks to the pride of tangibly helping the community. This pride can permeate through the whole year, with charitable support having a lasting impact for all concerned.

There are loads of things you can do throughout the year to help motivate employees. However, being particularly inclined throughout Christmas will demonstrate how much you value your employees during a positive yet stressful time of the year. Let us know any other popular things that your office does during the festive period in the comments below.