Supervisors and managers are familiar with handling certain kinds of demands that come with the holiday season.
They’re familiar with trying to ramp up retail operations, get new messaging to customers, and step up their local market competition as Thanksgiving and Christmas roll around. However, lots of them are not as accustomed to paying attention to the needs and demands of their employees, and that can cost a company a lot in the end.
If you want to evaluate your employees’ work/life balance, and try to improve it over the holiday season, look at what your company can do to acknowledge the demands that are put on people at Christmas time, and do the right things to lighten the load.
Do Scheduling Right
Scheduling makes a big difference all year, but it’s even more important around the holiday season.
Good scheduling can optimize production and leave everyone feeling good. Bad scheduling can disrupt core processes, sabotage business, and cause a lot of conflict.
To really get the right results, come up with a fair system for asking off for holidays and vacations. Make sure publicized schedules are done consistently on the same days, and that they are fully documented. Don’t just have a book hanging somewhere where people mark their names — create a structured and consistent system, and one where people feel like they’re treated fairly and have input. You’ll see a lot fewer problems as October turns into November, and then to December.
Pencil In Flex Time
Give yourself and everyone else a break and work enough time into the schedule that people can have the luxury of calling off a day, or taking off early for some kind of personal appointment. When you’re operating at 100% capacity, tensions flare and people feel the weight on their shoulders. Don’t make the holiday season a time of worry — free people up to do what they have to do, whether it’s holiday shopping, time with the kids, or anything else.
Bring the Holidays to Work
Workplace holiday celebrations don’t have to be over the top – in fact, they should really reflect the input of everybody who works at the company. They should be natural events that people can choose to participate in. Having said that, bringing an atmosphere of holiday cheer into the workplace with a special event, decorations and food can really have a positive effect on people who have to spend a lot of their waking lives in an office or other work space.
Consider Temporary Staffing
There’s another really easy way to improve people’s work/life balance over the holidays. That involves spending a little extra money and getting a few extra sets of helping hands.
In almost any company, there’s an opportunity for new people to come in and quickly learn how to help out. Whether it’s retail, industrial operations or office work, there are those rote tasks or easier parts of the job that can be assigned to temporary people. This provides more people with some kind of extra employment around the holiday season, and it gives your full timers and regular people some time to breathe.
For more, keep an eye on our blog to get a sense of what Full Steam Staffing does for companies throughout California.