Understanding the stressors
Before we dive into strategies for support, it’s essential to identify the specific stressors that can burden employees during this period:
Workload: As the year draws to a close, employees are often faced with mounting work pressures. Deadlines, project closures, and year-end deliverables can take a significant toll.
Financial wellbeing: The holiday season comes with its own set of financial demands – gift shopping, travel expenses, and entertaining guests. This can lead to financial stress.
Emotional challenges: For some, the holidays can be emotionally charged, evoking feelings of loneliness, grief, or anxiety, making it a challenging time mentally.
Personal commitments: Balancing professional responsibilities with personal commitments, such as holiday preparations and family gatherings, can lead to time management challenges. The quest to manage personal and professional life efficiently can often seem like an uphill battle, potentially resulting in burnout.
Supporting your people at Christmas
Organisations can make a substantial difference in alleviating pre-Christmas stress by implementing a combination of the following support measures:
Mental health support services
Promote and provide access to Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs), offering confidential counselling and resources to help employees manage stress and emotional challenges.
A peer support programme
Peer support programmes can foster a culture where employees can share their experiences, concerns, and coping strategies, creating a sense of community and understanding. Peers will also have the necessary training to refer people onto more specialist services when required.
Training and webinars
Host training sessions and webinars focused on stress management, time management, and emotional wellbeing – equipping employees with tools to navigate the holiday season.
Recognition and appreciation
Express gratitude for your employees’ dedication. Simple acts of recognition, like thank-you notes or award events, can boost morale and motivation. Everybody wants to feel like their hard work has been noticed and the accompanying stress was worth it. A small gesture of appreciation can make all the difference. Such gestures can contribute to increased employee engagement and performance.
Flexible schedules
Allow employees to have more flexibility in their work schedules during the holiday season, empowering them to manage personal commitments more effectively while maintaining productivity.
Effective management
The role of effective leadership cannot be overstated. Approachable, empathetic managers can create an environment where employees feel comfortable discussing their stressors and seeking support. CiC’s EAP provides a dedicated Managerial AdviceLine where managers can receive coaching on how to support the wellbeing of their teams, particularly during challenging periods.
Real-life inspiration
Imagine a scenario where a tech company introduces a “Holiday Stress Reduction Week.” This themed week offers a variety of activities and support.
Monday: A stress management webinar led by a clinician. The webinar looks at how stress manifests both mentally and physically. The clinician will then offer participants an opportunity to volunteer stories of their experiences with stress, encouraging group discussions. Your host will then discuss coping mechanisms to tackle stress and support their wellbeing. CiC’s webinars always close with a reminder of how to contact the EAP and other mental health services if further support is desired.
Tuesday: A ‘show and tell’ session. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies moved to remote working. Whilst this undoubtedly has numerous advantages, it can lead to less interaction across teams in the company. As a result, one team may not really know what another team has been up to throughout the year. A ‘show and tell’ session can consist of a handful of individuals from across teams choosing one successful thing their team did this year to present to the rest of the company. This might be implementing a new software that led to a positive change for customers, it might be a new policy which has made getting holiday requests much easier, or it could be the introduction of a new team. This can be both a fun and informative way for your teams to catch up and share successes throughout the year.
Wednesday: An ‘awards ceremony’, where employees can nominate their colleagues for awards. It’s a good idea to keep the nominations fun and light-hearted such as ‘Wellbeing Star’, ‘Ray of Sunshine’, ‘Company Champion’, ‘Best Cheesy Jokes’. These ceremonies allow for your teams’ hard work to be recognised in a fun environment and allow everyone to partake.
Thursday: An appreciation lunch or dinner, where managers express gratitude for the team’s hard work and as a group, some downtime is taken. This is a great opportunity to have some social time together as a team and foster close relationships amongst your people.
Friday: Finish early day. Sometimes, it is easy to underestimate the difference even an hour can make. Allowing your team to wrap up the week early can mean they have time to go for dinner with a friend, fit in some Christmas shopping, or just tuck in under a blanket on the sofa to binge their favourite TV show.
Pre-Christmas stress at work is a reality for many employees, but with the right support and understanding, organisations can transform this challenging period into a time of productivity and wellbeing – perhaps even some fun! By promoting mental health services, peer support, training, recognition, flexible schedules, and effective management, employers can make the holiday season a time of joy, reduced stress, and a deep sense of appreciation for their most valuable assets – their employees. This is not just about achieving year-end goals but also about fostering a culture of care and support.