As the last of the tinsel is finally swept out the office doors, it’s clear the holiday season is over
As the last of the tinsel is finally swept out the office doors, it’s clear the holiday season is over.
And whilst many of us will return to work with a renewed sense of energy and determination, January blues have a tendency to set in for some workers.
Today, Blue Monday (Jan 15) has been officially named the gloomiest day of the year – as workers slowly get into the rhythm of the New Year.
A report from Accountemps found that 56% of Canadian employees say winter weather negatively impacts their mood at work, with a further 25% naming January as the least happy month.
We spoke to Rowan O’Grady, president at Hays Canada, who revealed why he thinks staff struggle so much after the holidays.
“Productivity drops leading up to Christmas, and over Christmas,” explained O’Grady. “It drops leading up to Christmas as everyone gets excited about not being at work for a while, and over Christmas because everyone’s off.
“There’s a psychological reason for the slump – people except the holidays to be quiet, and they tend to put a lot of things off thinking they can wait till next year. An excuse you hear a lot is ‘Well, I didn’t get that done because we’ve just come back from the holidays’.”
So, what can be done to shake off this slump and get everyone back to the standard of productivity they once enjoyed? Well, O’Grady believes organizations should encourage employees to return to the office soon, rather than later.
“Having people taking an extra week after Christmas just prolongs the time till they actually start to work again,” he told us.
“This is particularly important for the leaders and management – we should encourage them to come back as soon as possible after Jan 2. Realistically, with the leadership back, it means that the company should be back up and running quickly.
“I’ve seen some companies book meetings before the holidays to take place in the first week of January. This in itself saves a few days – if you don’t even think about booking the meetings until you’ve come back then you lose precious time, as the meetings won’t actually occur until the week after.”
And whilst these are all well and good as preventative measures, employers can also use incentives curatively when employees are back in the office, to inspire them out of their slump.
“Depending on the job, I like the idea of putting in an employee incentive initiative, for the first few weeks back,” added O’Grady.
“If it’s a sales-orientated company, you could consider allotting short-term targets. Or if it’s a manufacturing environment, you could incentivise trying to meet production targets the first week back.
“Some of our clients implement targets that, if their met, allow the staff to finish at 4pm every day that week – it’s all about thinking up fun ways to really inspire employees after the Christmas hangover.”
