What To Do About The Productivity Drop In December?

Working in the winter is synonymous with bad productivity. Whether that be starting and ending work in the depressing dark or not being able to take breaks outside because of the rain, wind or snow. People start to feel distracted by the festive spirit, looking forward to spending time with their family, finding the perfect presents. Research has shown that there is a clear productivity drop in the winter months, especially December. You may consider a productivity calculator to help measure performance and output of your team, your business or even yourself.

Research has shown that companies achieve around 25% of their tasks during December rather than 35% during the autumn months. Another reason that productivity drops is because of absences, there are on average 50% more sick days taken in the month of December than in January. All these reasons add to the less productive nature of December, this guide will show some of the ways that you can attempt to battle this productivity drop and try to keep employees engaged and working during this month.

“Whether you work from home or an office, winter makes our work environments a warm and cosy haven. Does this mean that our productivity should drop as a result? Absolutely not! With Chanty, your team’s productivity will be thriving regardless of the external environment.”

“It’s just you, your team, and Chanty. Seamless team communication and collaboration, project management tools, and hundreds of app integrations will ensure your productivity booming this winter period. We constantly work on perfecting Chanty to provide the best possible user experience for all our beloved customers. We want all businesses and organisations to reach their full productivity potential in 2022, and this precisely was our biggest motivator coming close to the end of this year,” said Mia Naumoska, CMO at Chanty.

Set Short-Term Goals

Many people feel like the winter is endless, working in constant darkness it can feel like the month will never end. However, you can boost productivity in the office by providing employees with the opposite. Giving employees short term goals and objectives to work towards can help them feel purpose during the long winter months. It gives them direction and purpose and when tasks are done employees can feel happier and therefore want to work longer and harder in the future.

Increase Incentives

Although this may come at a financial cost to the company, increasing incentives for good work can help boost productively massively during these months. With many looking forward to the holiday season with their family, having better incentives that might help them enjoy that time more will make employees eager to work productively. These incentives do not always have to cost either, offering team days off or free fruit and drink can help your employees feel happier, reducing stress and boosting morale.

Encourage Time Outdoors

The weather might be frightening but encouraging employees to take time outside and get fresh air can make a big difference to their mood and productivity. If they are feeling the winter blues then some exercise outside or simply some fresh air can do them the world of good. Encouraging regular exercise and spending time outside during breaks can boost the productivity of the company massively. If people do not want to spend time outside, organising indoor exercise activities such as yoga could be a great way to keep employees feeling happier during the cold months.

Businesses can also look to encourage better communication between teams, to help them work through potential winter-related productivity challenges better than they might do with limited communication. There are a range of team communication software options out there that can help improve collaboration and communication between teams and employees.

Embrace The Festive Spirit

Lastly, it is super important that companies embrace the festive spirit when they are trying to keep productivity up during these months. Catering a celebratory lunch or a Christmas party so that the team can celebrate the great year that they have had can keep employees feeling wanted and happy when productivity is seeming to drop.

Embracing and accommodating employees who enjoy the festive spirit and want to celebrate can help employees do productive work when they are working rather than feeling lonely and unhappy that they have not been able to celebrate this festive month of December. These are just some ways that you can keep company productivity somewhat high during the cold but festive December months.