Motivating your employees this holiday season

Image credit: Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

The Holiday period is among the scariest times of year to be a public-facing business. Commercialism and promotions due to Christmas, Halloween, other holidays and the dreaded Black Friday makes it the most stressful time for retail. Yet, it's easy to forget your employees feel the stress in all the chaos as much as managers. 

It's not enough that seasonal depression takes its toll on many workers. Still, customers are generally insulting during busy periods. These, combined with the extra work required, make the most straightforward jobs unbearable. As a manager or supervisor, it is your responsibility to rally the troops and motivate them throughout this difficult time.

Praise and Reward
A pivotal element to motivating employees is recognition. Any employees who have outperformed themselves, achieved something or contributed above and beyond their contractual obligation should always be praised and, if necessary, rewarded. A survey by Indeed found that feeling undervalued is one of the o reasons people leave a role. So, of course, nothing stops you from showing appreciation from time to time and rewarding employees anyway.

Yet the holiday season is upon us, and Christmas is an excellent time to show gratitude toward employees. Typically, companies do this with a bonus payment to be included in employee salaries. Yet this can feel impersonal and undeserving. Instead, you could add a personal touch and order festive staff gifts for your team, such as those from Wellbox. These tasty hampers contain festive treats such as nuts, chocolates and mince pies.  

Recognize Seasonal Affective Disorder
Just like our ancient ancestors, even today, in a world of advanced technological innovation, we are beholden to the weather, climate and changing seasons. We just don't notice it as much since we have become adept at using seasons to our advantage, such as seasonal cooking or summer and winter sports. Yet, the changing seasons can impact your employees and their work and motivation.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), also known as winter depression, affects around 3% of the population. While the exact cause is unknown, and the condition is not universally recognized, it is genuine. It is therefore recommended you take an employee with SAD seriously and accommodate the situation. Recommend actions to help an employee with SAD include:

• Seek medical advice.
  
• Encourage a schedule.
  
• Ask them to use artificial sunlight lamps.
  
• Encourage exercise and outdoor time.
  
• Aromatherapy.
  
• Social activities.
  

SAD is more common in women than men, and symptoms include lost interest, depression, low energy and suicidal thoughts. These are serious issues if not appropriately addressed.

Provide Extra Support in the Busy Period
The Holiday season is busy for almost everyone, especially retail. Online orders increase exponentially, foot traffic becomes unbearable, and customer complaints and annoyances get out of hand. And all the frustration is taken out on your employees. This all makes a difficult job painful for some. Needless to say, work-related depression increases in the run-up to Christmas.

Therefore, it is during this time that your valued employees need you the most. Because of depression and SAD, more staff will probably call in sick. Make efforts to encourage employees to return to work ASAP. Also, ask and encourage, but don't force other employees to pick up the slack. Everyone feels the extra weight. Fortunately, you can keep staff motivated with simple methods:

• Say thank you when someone agrees to something.
  
• Remember that a quick "well done" goes a long way.
  
• Organize rotas around staff absence.
  
• Nip sick calls in the bud by arranging a replacement immediately.
  
• Don't ask too much of an employee.
  
• Try not to put untrained employees on unknown stations.
  
• Ask your best employees for ideas and take them seriously.
  
• Include your staff in decisions.
  

All of these are no trouble at all to implement daily. With simple actions, you can help ease tensions and improve employee motivation at the most difficult of times.