How to Manage Holiday Stress in Your Business

For many businesses, the festive season turns out to be anything but merry. Holiday stress statistics show 54% of employees feel stressed leading up to the holidays. And the increased workload the Christmas season creates tops the causes of that stress.

But check out this good news. Adopt these strategies. And help you and your team manage the stress of the holiday season.

Read this list of tips and tactics. They help reduce holiday stress in your business. And keep stress low for your team as well.

Bring in Extra Help During the Festive Season

With permanent employees booking time off, at the same time the company experiences a surge in business, it’s hardly surprising many business owners and employees suffer ‘festive fatigue’ at this time of year.

One effective way of managing holiday stress is to hire extra helping hands at Christmas.

Help Alleviate Holiday Stress with a Christmas Party

There’s nothing quite like letting our hair down with colleagues at the end of the year than by having a Christmas party. This much-loved annual event has a multitude of stress management benefits, including giving employees the chance to mingle, giving them something to celebrate and making them feel valued and that they’ve helped achieve something worthwhile.

Get the Christmas Party Planning Done Early

Despite the many benefits of Christmas office parties, organizing the festive social gathering is not without its stresses. Eliminate this additional festive stress by ensuring the social engagements have been planned and ‘ticked off’ well before the bedlam of the festive season kicks in.

Get Christmas Gift Sending to Colleagues and Clients Out of the Way

Experiencing festive burnout by having too many things to do in a short space of time, is one of the holiday stress facts no small business can afford to ignore.

Similar to arranging the Christmas party well in advance, festive gifts should be sent to colleagues, customers, clients, partners and suppliers early, so it’s one less job to worry about during the busy festive period.

Pre-Plan Your Marketing Campaign

Christmas offers fantastic marketing opportunities, particularly for businesses operating in the retail, catering, leisure and food and drinks industries.

Another good stress management strategy to help reduce holiday stress caused by running marketing campaigns during this hectic time of year, is to pre-plan a marketing campaign.

For example, get blogs and social media posts written and scheduled well in advance, so you’re not having to use valuable employee time on such time-consuming activities.

Avoid Agreeing to Meetings

Holiday stress statistics show that up to 69% of people feel stressed due to having a “lack of time in the holiday period.

Even the most pedantic of clients won’t want to have a meeting scheduled on Christmas Eve. With a million and one things going on, the busy holiday season isn’t the time to schedule a month of back-to-back meetings.

Most meetings with clients and colleagues will be able to wait until the New Year, so don’t make the season busier than it needs to be.

Streamline Business Operations

Another key way of managing holiday stress is to streamline business operations throughout month of December.

Streamlining activities, such as turning inventory alerts on to notify you when certain stock is running low, is an effective stress management strategy that will help the festive season run smoothly and prevent stress overload from kicking in.

Tackle Festive Money Worries by Generating Additional Cash at Christmas

Check out another leading holiday stress fact. The festive season creates worry about money.

Read this survey carried out by the investment firm Principal Financial Group. It found 53% of people feel financially stressed at Christmas.

Do you worry about the financial impact Christmas has on your business? Aim to generate an additional cash flow by implementing strategies like festive sales. Other options include 2 for 1 offers. Or try introducing a special new festive product.

However, don’t wait for Christmas to put these strategies in place. Implement them well in advance. Then you won’t juggle too many tasks and suffer from festive burnout in the process.

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This article, "How to Manage Holiday Stress in Your Business" was first published on Small Business Trends