It’s that time of the year and the holiday craze is unavoidable – it’s everywhere you turn. Are you feeling the crunch as yet? As we get ready for the holidays socially and professionally, don’t forget to pencil it in when scheduling all of those projects.
It’s well known that lack of time, pressure to reach end of year expectations and fear of having work tiptoe its way into holiday time can reduce the time spent enjoying the festivities.
With everyone in the festive spirit encouraging your team to ramp up productivity during the holidays can be a task in itself – I know, no one wants to rain on anyone’s parade, especially around the holidays so here a few tips to have a encourage a productive team and to help get your team feeling less stressed , more productive and appreciated during this season.
Synchronize Your Teams Calendar
Spending time with family and friends are important and planning vacation time for your team members as well as yourself openly will allow everyone to know what to expect professionally as well as allow everyone to get some time off without having a strained project. Synching calendars will make decisions simpler when it comes to managing project expectation and personal commitments. This will also help cover all areas of the project making it easy to meet deadlines.
Don’t Introduce or Accept New Projects
The last couple months of the year is most hectic and closing projects are most vital for businesses to prepare for a fresh start in the New Year. Launching new projects during the holiday season is not the best idea. The extra pressure you put on your team to complete the current projects and wrap their heads around a new initiative will eventually cause burn out and due to lack of time, the project may not be completed on time or to expectation. Planning and discussing those new projects for the New Year will lessens the stress and have all working projects reach completion sooner.
Have Fixed Due Dates to Help Prioritize Work
No one really wants to bring work home during holidays, even if they say they will. Most people want to enjoy the downtime and time with family and friends. It’s important to remind yourself and team that delivering results on working projects is where the focus should be and implementing fixed deadlines will help manage expectations better and it will clearly outline project goals. You don’t want to make a promise you can’t deliver so be realistic, don’t over promise on results. By knowing what is expected when, it makes it easier to create clear personal and collective goals so each task is completed and on time during work hours.
Embrace the Holidays
With all of the hard work done throughout the year, all work and no play is not fun – especially during the holidays. During work hours make sure to encourage your team to take breaks for less fatigue. Some ideas is to have a festive potluck luncheon to let everyone get a chance to step back from the projects and enjoy being at work or a short work day is always nice too. You can also plan a Festive Holiday Wreath in Primavera P6, offer flexible work hour or longer lunches, this will help lower stress levels during this time of the year.
Its best to plan, plan and plan some more in advance to ensure stress levels remain low with a healthy balance of work and play.
Happy Holidays!
