While snow may be the farthest thing from your mind, now is the perfect time to revolutionize the holidays for your staff. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is a traditionally slow time of year and for small to medium size businesses, the benefits of closing the office may drastically outweigh the cost of staying open. Consider these five reasons to shut down for the holidays this year.
Decrease Your Operating Costs
For most businesses, the holidays are lethargic; few customers calls, few deals are made, and employees spend more time online shopping than doing normal job duties. For most employers, their business end up breaking even or losing money because there’s simply not enough work to justify turning on the lights. Closing in that week between Christmas and New Years’ provides the perfect opportunity for businesses to cut down on overhead during a traditionally slow week. Before committing yourself to working through the holidays, check your workforce management system to find out the real cost of staying open and whether it wouldn’t be more efficient to shut the doors during the holidays.
Improve Employee Morale
The holidays are a tough time of the year to work. Even healthcare and utility workers who join their profession knowing that holiday work is on the table struggle while their friends and family get to enjoy their time off between holidays. While those employees need to stay on the clock to serve the public, too many offices stay open at the expense of their workers’ happiness. Christmas is a time of giving and an easy but effective way for employers to value their employees isn’t a company party or bonus but time to spend with the ones they love. Taking off the week between Christmas and New Year’s is a fantastic way to increase employee morale and strengthen employee loyalty.
Allow Employees to Refresh
Vacations not only help the employee but the business. When employees are allowed time to unwind and refresh, they return to their job excited and energized with new ideas and solutions to old problems. Rather than expecting employees to slog through the holidays, give them a week off to recharge and return to work motivated after the holidays.
Stop Holiday Slow Down
You aren’t getting your employees' best work during the holidays. Employees are preoccupied with travel plans, shopping, and menu planning. This means productivity tanks in the workplace. Giving employees a clear end date allows them to be more focused during their time on the clock. Rather than wasting their time around and during the holidays, slowly becoming more productive after the New Year, employees who have the week between Christmas and New Years are forced to work right up until their time off. Employees can be more productive when they know they will be home for the holidays.
Attract Top Talent
Unlike our European counterparts, North Americans receive shockingly little vacation and employees are starting to notice. More European-based companies are extending their vacation and paid leave policies to employees on both sides of the Atlantic and in the process are finding that this tactic always improves the quality of their job candidate. Valuing time off, particularly during the holidays, is a great way for businesses to stand out among their competition. That short week between Christmas and New Year’s usually isn’t a money-maker and can pay you back in spades by getting your business noticed by the best employees in your industry. Companies who value their employees attract a better class of job candidates so use that week off during the holidays to your advantage.
