Now that the fake spiders, Gremlin costumes and candy buckets from Halloween are all tucked away, it’s time for workers to get in gear for the holiday season. Getting your employees off to a running start is easy, but as the busyness of the holidays start to overwhelm them, helping employees stay productive is another story. Since productivity is crucial to a successful season, you must set guidelines, minimize distractions and do other things that encourage your workers to stay productive.

1. Let loose and celebrate. Embrace the celebratory nature of the holidays. Plan some type of after-hours gathering so employees can get to know each other and talk about their holiday plans. However, don’t do it too early in the season or employees might spend the rest of their holiday work-time chatting it up at the water cooler.
2. Help your workers prioritize. The hustle and bustle of the holidays can place many demands on workers, making them become frazzled and shut down. If you notice any of the staff having a particularly difficult time focusing on what’s important, offer to sit down with them to help them develop a priority list. This will give overwhelmed workers a clear focus so they learn to take care of their most pressing projects first.
3. Set guidelines to reduce distractions, but be flexible. When it’s holiday crunch-time, your workers may need to handle a few personal matters while they are at work. Establish guidelines that make it possible for employees to handle personal holiday-related issues, while still stressing the importance of fulfilling their responsibilities. For instance, you could hold a meeting discussing both work and home priorities for the holidays. By giving workers the opportunity to be open about their workload, it makes it easy to create a plan to execute their deliverables.
4. Stress the importance of balancing work and home life. It’s particularly crazy this time of year. Ensure your workers know that while the work needs to be completed a balance is key to success. Offer to have one on one sessions to make individual plans for workers who are particularly stressed about “getting it all done.” Five minutes now can save you hours with HR!

The rush of having to fit it all in during the holidays can interfere with the ability to be productive. When you help set priorities, reduce distractions, set expectation about work responsibilities and are flexible, you can help them stay productive during the holiday season.