Christmas stress at work can become a psychosocial risk factor if it is not addressed from a preventive approach by Human Resources managers.
These weeks are often accompanied by several holidays, and many people take advantage of them to use up the annual leave they have pending and take an important break, similar to the summer. Despite this, Christmas has a bad reputation in terms of its actual relaxation, rest, and unwinding level. In this context, Christmas is known as a period that, both work and non-work, overload us and alters our mood (either because it depresses, overwhelms, or angers us). Of course, this is not good for our psychological well-being or performance in and out of work.
Aspects to bear in mind when dealing with Christmas stress at work
1. Work organization before the vacations
This suggestion includes organizing the tasks that need to be done before taking vacation days and the tasks that will await your return. It may be useful to hold a team meeting to close the year or simply, organize the work. Keep in mind that there will be days of vacation in which not everyone will always coincide, and coordination, completion of tasks, deadlines, reports, etc., may be affected.
On the other hand, during these dates, it is important to mobilize an extra dose of flexibility and patience with oneself but, above all, with colleagues so that the work environment does not suffer due to an increase in Christmas stress at work. This is a period in which the calendar is strange, the pressure to finish tasks is high, social and family commitments sometimes saturate us… Let’s not forget to take care of ourselves and others.
2. Digital disconnection during the vacations
Adequate work performance requires real breaks so that our organism can rest, reset and get back to work when the time comes. When work and the tools we use to perform it are a continuum, interrupting the time we need to devote to other aspects of our lives, physical and psychological health is impaired. Christmas stress at work can be a clear example of this.
Therefore, all team members must be able to disconnect from work after hours and on their vacation days. It seems very obvious, but we often forget about it. We fall into bad practices, or we induce our colleagues to fall into those bad practices, contacting them in an unnecessary, avoidable, or inopportune way. Let’s avoid it.
3. Careful with work Christmas dinners
Sharing quality time with our co-workers, even outside the office and working hours, is one of the tools for generating cohesion in teams and forging bonds of affection among employees that can also help everyone’s performance.
However, it is important to be careful with certain events, such as Christmas dinners organized by the company. These meetings can be a source of conflict or stress at work if they are not well planned or if, for whatever reason, they don’t come at a good time: we can’t afford it, we don’t feel like it, our situation in the company is compromised, we feel obliged to attend, but it makes us uncomfortable or, unintentionally, we make a scene between drinks.
In this post about company dinners, we give you some ideas so that you or the team members come out of these corporate events on a good note.
Protecting emotional well-being in organizations
At ifeel, we would not want the Christmas spirit to become a source of work stress for your team members. No one is obliged to enjoy this time of year or participate actively, but their psychological well-being outside and inside the workplace mustn’t be harmed if it can be avoided.
Our team of psychologists, experts in well-being in the workplace, has created an emotional well-being program for companies that brings truly relevant benefits to the entire team, including those responsible for Human Resources.
Thanks to our integrated corporate well-being service, the HR manager and their team can receive personalized, data-driven advice on improving the psychological well-being of the teams in charge. Try our program now to see how it could help you.
In addition, this program offers all company employees a complete mental health care service that they can use depending on their needs. Employees have access to an online therapy service with one of our psychologists, specialized in cases like theirs, or they can interact with one of our professionals to receive emotional support in a more specific circumstance that concerns them.
In our Resources section, you can find different materials, such as Podcasts, HR Guides on various topics (e.g., the employee experience or how to design a good HR strategy), or Interviews with HR managers. In addition, we have a Psychosocial Risk Factors Template, which you can use to comply with the requirements of the Labor Inspection.
We hope you found this post about addressing Christmas stress at work interesting. If you want more information about our emotional well-being program for companies, you have to request it, and we will contact your team as soon as possible.
