How to Keep Team Momentum Up Through the Holiday Season

While your team may be taking time off or dreaming of rib roast dinners and presents during the holiday season, your business isn’t taking a vacation. Somehow, you’ll need to find ways to keep your team on task at work while they’re thinking of trading work days for the upcoming holidays.

While managers should be compassionate and understanding about employees’ needs during the holidays, work still needs to happen and deadlines met before the New Year.

Keep employee engagement running high with these four ideas and help your teams finish the year on a strong note:

Encourage Time Off

It may sound counterproductive to encourage time off, especially if you’re pushing hard to meet year-end goals. However, team members who have the ability to focus time on their holiday shopping, visiting family, or planning their hosting responsibilities are likely to contribute successfully to their personal activities and professional responsibilities if they know they have time to balance both.

When you encourage time off, you’re reminding your team their priorities and well-being matter, too. When they’re able to take a day off to handle their own business without feeling guilty, they’ll be much more likely to return to work refreshed and ready to step in to help.

Plan a Team Building Activity

With people taking time off during the holidays, it can be difficult to rally everyone together. Hosting a year-end team building event can give everyone a chance to gather round once more before the end of the year to reflect and celebrate the past year, and get excited about the upcoming one.

With all the distractions this time of year, building comradery may be an excellent use of everyone’s time and attention. And there are plenty of giving back opportunities around the holiday that can really bond a team together in the process and spirit of helping others.

Celebrate Success Stories

The end of the year is the perfect time to pause and recognize individual and team successes. This could take the form of a formal meeting, or it could be as simple as writing thank you cards or purchasing small gifts to show appreciation.

Recognition can go a long way in reminding employees why they’re an essential part of the team. Keep your staff motivated by letting them know you appreciate all their hard work and look forward to working with them in the upcoming year.

Set and Reward Short-Term Goals

If you’re looking to boost productivity between now and the holidays, set short-term, tangible goals with rewards. The right incentives can be powerful motivators. Consider a daily contest, such as the first account manager to make 10 personal outreach calls to clients in a day. You can create different contests for each department to level the playing field and offer small rewards like a $5 gift card to the winner. These short goals work because they pay off quickly. People don’t have time to procrastinate, nor are they left wondering about the results weeks later.

If you decide to focus on these short productivity spurts, it’s important you don’t neglect your year-end goals. If you’re still pressing to make a quota for the year, consider how your short-term goals can help you reach that quota. Then, make sure you relay to your team how the two sets of goals relate.

In Closing

There’s always something to look forward to during the holidays, and work can certainly be one. When you use the holidays to make work life enjoyable, your team is more likely to reward you with their best efforts in return.