At this point, it’s getting a bit late for new year resolutions, right?

For many, “the holidays” refers to the November to January period that covers everything from about Thanksgiving to New Years, with significant stops in between for festivities, food, and lots of shopping. For some businesses, this is the busy season, when revenue starts looking a bit more rosy. For others, work is everything but “business as usual”.

But even once you’ve cleared “the holiday season”, there’s still plenty to celebrate in the rest of the year. From national holidays to religious observances and from Valentine’s Day to Halloween, your calendar is probably full of holidays to look forward to — or maybe plan around.

While holidays may be festive for people, they can also be disruptive to businesses. Looking ahead, how will you balance employee experience and business goals throughout the full holiday calendar this year?

Approaches to holiday employee experiences

Because of the wide range of ways that businesses handle holidays, employee experiences vary.

Employee experience during holidays can rate as exceptional, awful, or neutral, depending on management’s attitude and efforts to develop employee happiness at work. Consider the two cultural extremes:

• Companies that leverage the holiday spirit and themes to motivate workers toward expanded productivity and company loyalty. Put another way, entities that acknowledge their staff’s connection to holiday-centric events make them feel special and rewarded for accomplishments (thus spurring them to new heights).
• Companies that choose a strategic focus on “all business and nothing but business” – a non-festive-centric culture.

Now’s the perfect time to review where you stood on this spectrum last year and what you will change – if anything – in the year ahead.

Festive workplace ideas to enrich the employee experience during the holidays

Once stakeholders and HR executives decide they want to trigger groundbreaking motivational initiatives, strategic questions arise. For example:

• How do you bring happiness to the workplace by springboarding off the holiday spirit?
• How do you stay focused on work when you know the rush of holiday-centric events is severely distracting?
• How do holidays motivate employees to maximize productivity?

In other words, you should want to uncover how holidays impact employee productivity and well-being to help you settle on the right balance.

1. Stress release opportunities for holiday-centric businesses

Let’s start with businesses that, due to market and brand positioning, experience activity spikes and extraordinary sales pressure during holidays. Any company involved in gifts (for Christmas and Easter), expressions of love (the traditional holiday season, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc.), or symbols (historic days) should know their employees are extra-stressed during these events. It can go on for weeks with little respite before the next holiday emerges, reasserting demands on time and focus.

Here’s the thing: Employees assisting customers to fulfill their holiday-driven generosity may sometimes be uplifted and inspired, but that’s not always the case. Frequently, though, those same employees are unable to afford the level of extravagance they are witnessing.

As a result, the close connection to the spending spree can create an emotional gap – a feeling of disconnect or emptiness.

However, a company’s expression of gratitude for sustainably engaging customers through peak holiday periods can address these quickly.

For example, throw a Christmas dinner where you create a massive festive spirit by:

• Presenting awards for outstanding performance
• Giving a substantial product gift to each attendee
• Announcing outsized insider discounts to all employees

Consider taking it further with employee recognition like  “Employee of the Week” or “Top Performer of the Month” awards, acknowledging exceptional contributions with vouchers, thank you notes, or highlighting achievements in company newsletters.

2. All work and no play isn’t a resilient formula

Encourage team interaction with in-office activities like ping pong or billiards competitions in a dedicated recreation area or after-hours events. Moreover, allowing longer breaks during high-pressure days makes a difference. All are de-stressing tactics.

3. Open communication

Employee issues invariably start as niggling minor annoyances or gripes. Left to simmer and boil, they snowball into severe problems, blown out of all proportion. Unfortunately, when the pressure cooker is churning at max, emotions get pushed over the edge, resulting in eruptions circling back to sources not even the employee can explain.

So, businesses should take transparency and stress release through sincere interaction seriously.

Company culture must create an atmosphere where expressing anxieties, fears, and unhappiness without retribution or penalty is the norm. This goes to the core of management style and trust, which must be front and center for frank conversations to occur.

Many companies take the bull by the horns, conducting holiday customized surveys guaranteeing anonymity to the respondents answering two simple questions, like, “Would you recommend a friend or family member work for XYZ Limited during the holiday season?” (on a rating from 0 to 10 where 0 is “never” and ten is “Absolutely without a second thought”) and “Why have you provided this rating?”

Notably, Sogolytics is a professional entity at the cutting edge of automated employee experience feedback management, distributing surveys and collating the results. The big thing is encouraging all team members to participate in the survey.

4. Customer feedback

Recently, I’ve been deep-diving on the close interdependence on customer and employee retention. Why? Undoubtedly, customers can tell us if their employee experience is engaging or a turnoff. CX feedback signals vitally indicate whether or not employees meet expected standards during peak holiday seasons. It’s quite a frightening moment when it dawns on stakeholders that a single defective touchpoint (such as an impatient or incompetent support agent) can derail the customer’s journey to the cash till.

So, anonymous surveys (as suggested above) across your customer base will reveal a breakdown in your strategies or bolster confidence your employees are brand ambassadors. Again, Sogolytics is the resource to open transparency windows like this with quick surveys that speak volumes.

5. Use in-between seasons to create flexibility

The seasonal rush is one thing, and the off-season interludes quite another. The latter provides latitude to create flexible schedules, remote work options, or even paid floating holidays in the slower months. On the one hand, it reflects appreciation for efforts during the demand push. On the other hand, it helps employees recuperate and enter the next challenging market event with fresh vigor and creative ideas.

6. The highest level of recognition is idea adoption

That’s right! Encourage employees to generate festive workplace ideas for holiday promotions, brand enhancement/extensions, and customer loyalty programs. Once received, turn the best ones into action and attach recognition to the employee source. Create bonuses around acceptance of viable proposals and rewards for converting them into value propositions. Sharing profits is one of the oldest incentives, but doing it with employee recognition gives it double firing power.

7. Don’t hesitate to add support when needed

One of the most hackneyed phrases is “I’m overworked and underpaid.” However, there’s much truth in it, especially regarding the holiday rush. Accelerating work demands can quickly push employees to capacity and over the edge, creating a well of discontent.

Releasing the pressure valve with extra help and support (even though it’s an added cost item) with temporary freelancers and contractors can significantly slow down the pace toward or erase pivotal and “overwhelming” pain points in the employee holiday season experience. Indeed, its productivity boost should easily exceed the overhead bump.

8. Balance your holiday season commercialization with a touch of charity

When employees see your company culture goes beyond pure profit, it creates a natural-flowing sense of loyalty. A strategy demonstrating aspects of giving back to the community allows employees to get involved with added commitment. Therefore, encourage staff to participate in charitable activities with paid time off for volunteering. Also, organizing group volunteer activities or matching donations with the team is a good idea – an extension of project teamwork to promote a sense of togetherness among employees. If service is one of your organization’s core values, find and create service projects to live your values.

9. Don’t underestimate mental health issues

Mental health awareness is still critical as we work through post-pandemic stress, rampant inflation, hybrid work models still trying to find their feet, cybersecurity hacking, higher interest rates, and more.

• These people work for you, dealing with stress seemingly pushed to a back seat when work hours are on the clock.
• As a result, forward-looking businesses provide access to massage therapists, yoga or meditation sessions, or an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for counseling services.
• The objective is to support the employee experience during holidays, helping them relax and recharge.

Remember that happier, less stressed, and appreciated employees are the ticket to enhanced performance and improved productivity.

Looking ahead: Holiday employee experience this year

Holidays, traditions, and expectations vary in every part of the world and across industries. How will you choose to approach holidays this year? Only you can decide on the perfect balance that’s right for your employees and your business goals.

One thing is certain: Employee and customer feedback can be critical ingredients in building a better holiday approach to both employee experience and customer experience during the holiday season. (Stay tuned for our CX take on holiday experience, too!)

Whether you’re looking for a feedback platform that can help you collect insights or professional advice from the experts, there’s a good chance that Sogolytics can help! Start making more intentional choices for holiday employee experience this year and starting seeing an ROI that will keep you celebrating this year and beyond.