With parties to attend and extra shopping to taken care of, you can be forgiven for being busy during the next few weeks. However, if you’re responsible for looking after staff morale this festive season, it’s important not to neglect them and their feelings. Failing to do so can impact office morale and productivity, so try these easy to implement tips to boost office spirits this Christmas.
Throw a Christmas party
Everybody loves to boogie right? So to do your staff! Award their efforts this year with a party, allowing them to let their hair down and blow off some steam. A recent survey concluded that 1 in 6 companies use Christmas parties as a way of increasing morale within their company. Just be sure to film the guy who makes a clown of himself for even more laughs in the new year.
Decorate the office
It’s no secret that well-designed office spaces can increase employee morale and productivity. If your office space isn’t up to scratch aesthetically, now’s a great time to do something about it(even if it’s just temporary). Your staff will be walking around town on a daily basis, being subjected to the constant visual stimuli of decorated street lights, shop windows and makeshift Christmas trees, only to turn up to an office which unless you’ve seen to it will be dull and downright depressing in comparison.
So dig out the tinsel, buy a tree, burn some cinnamon candles and make things a little bit brighter for your employees. Even if the changes are subtle, it will help to boost morale and take thoughts of that 200 page report that needs to be done for Monday.
Play some Christmas classics in the office
“Without music, life would be a mistake” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Music and the mind go hand in hand and there’s a lot of science to back this up. You may have the next Britains Got Talent winner sat within your realms and you didn’t know about it! That said, bring out the CD player this festive season, get the office geek to burn a compilation disc(all legit of course) full of the cheesiest Christmas classics around and pump it out amongst the office. People will soon start tapping their foot, throwing a few fist pumps out there. Even if they’re not to everyone’s taste, it will certainly get them chatting as they get on their high horses to slate the downfalls of the song.
Here are some of the tracks which we have on repeat in the Net-Recruit office during the festive period:
Consider bringing payday forward
December brings an unavoidable increase in social activities. Trips to the local Christmas Markets, unplanned Mulled Wine Nights and trips to the pub which wouldn’t normally occur. All of these things can tighten the Christmas purse strings even further. If it’ financially feasible, take a look at bringing the monthly pay day forward a week, allowing your staff to purchase some last minute stocking fillers or perhaps have that tipple with an old friend which they may not have been able to do otherwise.
Organise a Secret Santa
Who doesn’t love gifts? More so, who doesn’t love a surprise? A secret Santa allows people to get creative and buy for somebody who they wouldn’t normally consider. It will also get your staff chatting around the kettle, as they try and discover what interests a colleagues, who they perhaps might not normally speak to in such detail. Winner! Be sure to set a limit so that your employees don’t have to spend the earth, check out these top Secret Santa Gift Ideas for under £10.
So there you have it, 5 easy to implement ways of boosting morale within your company this Christmas. By sending your team off for the Christmas break in a high spirits, they are more than likely to come back fired up and ready to tackle the New Year head on.
