5 tips to support frontline employees through the holiday season
The Christmas season is approaching and although many of those who celebrate it look forward to an abundance of gifts and festive music, the end of the last quarter can be extremely stressful for frontline employees.
According to research, 84% of workers report finding the holiday season exceedingly stressful. At Yapster, we believe that work should be meaningful – or at least not suck – even through stressful, busy periods for frontline employees. But how can you ensure to smooth out inconveniences that can eat at the morale of your people? Here are some tips you can use to help your frontline employees through the holiday season – without stress.
1: Offer flexibility
Before you jump on creating schedules for the holiday season, asking your employees what their preferred availability is can be a total game changer. By sending out surveys in advance, you can anticipate the needs of your workforce and create schedules that match their needs and expectations. When it comes to employee satisfaction, assumptions are a tricky matter – you may prefer to get your information straight from the vein. At Popeyes, for example, the Make My Day Difficult form is regularly used on the Yapster apps tab to ask employees their opinions and needs – anonymously or not.
2: Double down on inclusivity
Share updates and reminders with your colleagues on your Yapster newsfeed.
According to research by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, the holiday season has a tendency to worsen pre-existing inequalities at work. Women, for example, have been proven to show higher levels of stress during the holidays. Inclusivity is an important matter all year round, but keeping in mind that some employees may struggle more than others during this busy period is key to accommodating their personal needs. On the Yapster app, sending out regular reminders regarding inclusivity and allowing healthy dialogue to happen between frontline employees and their higher-ups can help leaders better understand their workforce and avoid putting extra stress on those who already feel left out.
3: Provide mental health support to your employees
With research repeatedly proving that one’s job satisfaction is a key contributor to mental health, ensuring that frontline employees feel understood and cared for during the holiday season seems to be crucial. At East Coast Concepts, for example, employees are offered mental health first-aid training to help their peers through difficult times. This incentive allows teammates to voice their concerns and struggles in a world where access to psychologists and psychiatrists is increasingly expensive. Assessing stress levels and providing help when needed can be a great way to support frontline employees during the holiday season.
4: Instill a strong sense of team spirit
When times are tough, close-knit teams grow through obstacles. By ensuring that you’ve got the right people in the right roles and stressing the core values of your company, you can create a team where all employees hold themselves and each other accountable for their success. During busy periods for retail and hospitality teams, the need to come together around shared goals and values becomes evident: employees can only reach their targets if they believe in the mission their company has set out for them. On the Yapster newsfeed, regular reminders can be sent out to double down on the company’s values and instill a sense of meaningfulness in all workers.
5: Provide employees with appropriate time-sensitive benefits
To support frontline employees through the holiday season, ensuring that the benefits you offer them are aligned with their needs, beliefs, and lifestyles is key. Not all employees celebrate Christmas, for example, with many needing to use their annual leave allowance to celebrate holidays pertaining to their culture. By allowing employees to swap out Christmas annual leave for other holidays, you can make employees of all backgrounds feel more included.
If you’d like to jump on your Social Leadership journey and make your company a better place for all workers, book your demo now! Let’s start Yapping!