December is here, it’s time to bring out the mince pies, decorate the Christmas tree, put on The Pogues, and dust off your festive jumper. The spirit of Christmas works its way into every office, warehouse, and workplace. It can be easy for employees to start to prioritise Christmas shopping, drinks with friends and festive events over their work. No one wants to be Scrooge this Christmas, especially after we all missed out on last year on festive gatherings, it’s important to make the most of the Christmas freedom this year. Work however still needs to be a priority, to keep businesses running. We have a few tips to make sure the work gets done and everyone has a merry little Christmas.
Value employees
Valuing employees is important all year round, it may seem a simplistic but saying thank you to employees for the ordinary, not the extra ordinary can have a significant impact on employees’ health, wellbeing, and happiness. This in turn will lead to a more motivated workforce.
Research shows that “thank you” has great merits as a management strategy, everyone likes to be appreciated, it encourages employees to continue to repeat the behaviour they were thanked for and even try harder next time. Thank you has been proven to be a powerful motivator and a great way to re-engage employees. One thing to consider when implementing this strategy is employees’ individual differences, every employee will prefer to be appreciated or thanked in a different way. Some employees may like public appreciation, others prefer to be thanked in private. Thank you notes are valued by some individuals, others may be equally happy with a verbal sign of appreciation or a small gift or gesture. Christmas is a great time to start implementing this strategy, the end of the year and festivities naturally lend themselves more towards gratitude, making actions such as writing thank you notes, or Christmas cards feel less forced and more sincere.
Christmas Party
Nothing brings employees together like a Christmas party! Getting out of the work environment is a great opportunity for employees to connect on a personal level and form better relationships that will help them at work. With Covid-19 putting stop to Christmas parties last year, the Christmas party has never been more important. It’s likely that there are new members of staff in your company, Christmas parties can help to boost morale and help integrate new hires into the business culture.
Studies show that happy employees are more productive, so to improve productivity around Christmas employers need to keep employees happy. Some suggestions taken from this research include improving the working environment, improving interaction between workers, and building better relationships between management and employees. Organising a Christmas party for employees helps to builds better relationships between management and employees and can improve interaction between workers. In some business’s managers can be seen as unapproachable, difficult to work with or even bossy, bringing senior management and employees together in a social setting can break down these views and barriers to communication, leading to happier more productive employees.
Christmas Jumper Day
Christmas jumper day, an easy and festive way to spread cheer and support an important Charity. Make things even more fun by running a competition, engaging for all employees and it helps to raise money for Save the Children or another charity of your choosing, why not get employees involved in the selection of the Charity by casting a vote.
Decorating the workplace
Get everyone in the Christmas spirit by decorating the workplace, happy employees are more productive and more motivated. Creating a festive, positive environment will help employees avoid falling into the Christmas slump.
Set targets and incentives
Realistic targets combined with incentives can encourage employees to go the extra mile, at a time where it is far too easy to let work slide. A great idea is allowing employees to leave early on the last day in the office if targets are met, or a Christmas bonus. Employees need to find the incentive valuable enough to want to work that bit harder to achieve it, but the target needs to feel achievable in the same way. Setting a target your employees are never going to achieve will de-motivate them and an incentive that no one cares about could have a similar impact.
We hope these ideas help you motivate your employees to go that extra mile to get things done in 2021. From all of us here at fuelGenie we hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
