We’re now well and truly into winter, and the chances are that you’re starting to see the effects across your office. While the leadup to the festive period tends to be an exciting time, the winter working conditions we face in January and February can be crippling to happiness and productivity.
The simple fact is that, within a few weeks, the new working year can become a blur of depressing days and dark commutes home. It should hardly be surprising, then, that motivation can soon slide away with those winter rains. The chances are that even you don’t embrace the idea of arriving at and leaving the office in darkness!
Of course, you could be the best manager in the world, and you wouldn’t be able to overcome the winter work blues altogether. Still, there are a few steps you could take to get your team through the worst of the winter darkness, and we’re going to discuss them here.
Find New Ways to LetLight In
Short days are the most depressing aspects of winter, so your first goal should be to do whatever possible to bring more light into the workplace. Simple things, like incorporating desk lamps, is sure to improve morale at least a little. Equally, investing in options like the parking lot lights found at https://www.lepro.com/led-parking-lights ensures that it isn’t pitch black as your team members walk to the office. You’d be amazed by how much even just that can wake everyone up and get those work-based juices flowing.
Consider Flexible Working
As can be seen from articles like this one found on https://thehappinessindex.com, there are a host of reasons to consider flexible working and the benefits of a choice like this only increase during winter. After all, a work-life balance is fundamental for happiness, and it’s something your team could soon struggle to achieve if they don’t leave until darkness has already fallen. Far from heading out, they’re more liable to go straight home. This could lead to dissatisfaction, which you could easily overcome by allowing remote work that sees employees controlling their working hours around other winter commitments.
Something to Smile About
Lastly, you may find it beneficial to give employees a reason to smile. Winter is never the best for our mental health, but work won’t seem so bad if it’s a happy place to be. Something as basic as vases of flowers dotted around the office could improve employee efficiency and bring the added bonus of a summery feel to the place. Equally, getting into the habit of writing daily feel-good quotes on the noticeboard may make a difference. And, of course, a mid-February bonus is never a bad idea, either.
Realistically, you’ll struggle to make winter a ‘positive’ time in the workplace, but efforts like these could still skim the surface of those blues to help everyone keep moving forward. Focus your efforts here, and you should find that spring soon brings a full productivity boost when you need it the most.
