Look after yourself in the silly season!
Are you rushing through December in a desperate bid to get to your close-down date, leave period, or other stopping point? For many, this is a busy part of the year both personally and work-wise. For others, there’s not even a holiday on the horizon—if you’re in hospitality or tourism, you might be working flat-tack for most of December and January.
While there is certainly good reason for the last few weeks of the year to be extra stressful for employees, managers, and business owners alike, it’s not the ideal way to set yourself up for a happy and healthy new year. If you want to come back refreshed and ready in the new year, you need to not only wind down intentionally but make sure your holiday time fills your bucket.
Why should you care about winding down well?
For most employers and employees, bringing the year to a close without a huge amount of stress is, if not impossible, then fairly improbable. So why should it be a priority?
Simply put, it sets you up for a better start in the new year. Also, and more importantly, it’s better for your health to have a properly relaxing (or at least rejuvenating) holiday than to absolutely crash and spend the week or two you have off work recovering.
A super-stressful lead-up to the holiday period can bring:
- Burnout and other mental health issues.
- Reduced job satisfaction and engagement in the future.
- Reduced job performance and productivity in the new year.
On the flipside, of course, are the benefits of a more productive EOY period and a fulfilling holiday: improved mental health, performance, productivity, and engagement. On a personal level, this is all great news. On a company level, it’s clear that well-rested and happy employees are good for the bottom line. This small-scale study showed that vacation time reduced burnout and absenteeism, and there are other studies and articles with similar findings. Science says that time off is good for health and productivity.
End the year on a good note
We’d like to take a moment here to acknowledge those who are working flat-tack throughout December and January. Look after yourself as best you can! Get good sleep and move your body where possible. Plan a holiday after the busy period.
If you are working towards a holiday, here’s how to make sure—collectively—that you don’t crash and burn before you get there, so you can enjoy a rejuvenating time away from work:
- Consider all aspects of your mental wellbeing (take a look at the Te Whare Tapa Whā model) and attend to them during the busy period.
- Get exercise! Even when you’re busy, it’s important to take time to move your body.
- Get sleep, too. Don’t save it up for when you’re on holiday.
- For employers and managers: take some time to review and debrief from the year. Tying a mental bow on the year and reflecting on what happened, what you learnt, and what you’ll take into the next year can help you to go into your time off more relaxed.
- Another tip for employers, managers, and those with some degree of control over their work schedules: plan ahead to reduce stress before the holiday period or shutdown. Start things early, and set a hard date for wrapping up important projects that’s several days before your actual end date.
And when you do get that treasured time off—whenever it comes—then make sure you’re using it well. And by that, we don’t mean that you should be productive but rather that you should ensure you are recharging effectively. Here are a few things to consider:
- Figure out what relaxes you! For some, it’s lying down with a book. For others, it’s hiking. It could be learning a circus skill, or boar hunting. Do some self-reflection if you need to, to identify what brings you joy and fills your cup.
- Prioritise the things you have identified. Make holiday plans with these as the “big stones” in the jar, fitting all other bits and pieces around them.
- Allow yourself to say “no” to invitations, functions, and anything else in order to make rest and relaxation the priority. It’s so easy to fill up your holidays—and your pre-holidays—with obligations, but it’s setting you up for exhaustion.
A low-stress end-of-year period and relaxing, recharging holidays are good news for everyone, with benefits ranging from good health to a more productive workforce. If you’d like to continue a focus on wellbeing into the new year, Emendas can help—in addition to guidance in HR, H&S, and overall governance, we offer corporate boxing (Auckland only) which is a fantastic way to improve mental and physical health amongst your teams.