5 Ways to Maintain Team Productivity During the Holidays

During the holidays, productivity tends to drop off, which is not much of a surprise to most people. At work, people generally have other things on their minds – buying gifts, preparing for holiday gatherings, or traveling to gatherings. Others take vacation time during the holidays, so there are fewer people available.

However, if you are running a business, this is a situation that you want to avoid as much as possible. How should you go about doing it? Here are a few ideas.

1. Make a plan

Plan ahead for the holidays. Decide what you want to accomplish during this time and set goals. Get together with your employees and work out a plan for how you will go about reaching those goals, and put together a timeline as well. Decide who will do what so that there will be accountability for getting things done.

It is essential that expectations for what needs to be accomplished are clear to everyone and that everyone buys into the set goals.

2. Tune out distractions

Distractions multiply during the holidays as people are preoccupied with family gatherings and shopping. You can try to help them focus at work by tuning out distractions. One way of doing this is by cutting back on the number of meetings or reducing the amount of time you spend at a meeting.

You can also encourage employees to cut back on the number of emails they send and to spend less time checking their email.

3. Allow for more flexibility

Give workers more flexibility in their schedules. If they need to run an errand during work, give them time to do that and allow them to make up the time later. As counterintuitive as this may seem, this will actually help them to maintain their productivity. Allowing them to take care of a personal task will no longer occupy their mind as they work, so they can focus more completely on what they are doing.

4. Do informal performance reviews

This is a good time for managers to sit down with employees and discuss how their job is going and their concerns or issues. They can talk about how work is progressing, any obstacles they are experiencing, and plans for the future.

5. Throw a party

Throwing a party for employees is a good way to improve their engagement by showing how the company appreciates their hard work, which will also help to improve productivity.

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