Have you ever noticed that you feel more sluggish and less motivated during the winter months? Everything feels like more of a slog, and you just don’t feel the same ‘get up and go’ as you usually do. You’re not alone.
As the clocks turn back and daylight becomes scarce in both the mornings and evenings, the opportunities for the average employee to get out in natural light enough get less and less. It’s not uncommon for productivity to take a hit when their minds are consumed by the cold weather rather than the tasks at hand.
However, since the weather isn’t going away, it’s better to embrace it rather than let yourself fall behind as the New Year begins. To help you maintain and even boost productivity during winter, here are our top tips.
What Are The Winter Blues?
The ‘winter blues’ is essentially that cloud of general sadness and fatigue that tends to overshadow employees during the year’s colder months. Particularly in January, when the festive glow of Christmas has passed and the realities of the new year are setting in. This causes a productivity dip, which often carries on throughout the winter months until the sun starts to warm us up again.
While it isn’t an exact science, there are generally 3 things that are known to cause a slump in productivity during the winter months. The first is a dip in energy levels since we become less active in the cold and rainy weather. We also experience a drop in Vitamin D levels, which pulls our energy levels further down, and finally, our eating habits tend to be poorer, because all we crave in the cold months are warm, filling comfort foods. All of this mixes together to create a cocktail of fatigued employees who aren’t as productive as they normally are. That’s bad for the employees, and bad for business as well.
What Can Employers Do To Help?
So, what can you as an employer do to combat the winter blues, improve the mental well-being of your teams and boost employee productivity for Q1? While there isn’t an iron-clad solution, here are a few of the things you can do:
Let In The Light: Did you know that human beings are all affected by the light levels in our environment? Specifically of sunlight. The more of it we get, the better we feel and the more productive we are. The less, the harder it is to stay positive and focus on our tasks, which is why the winter blues can be such a problem. Employees are coming into work while it’s still dark, and it’s dark when they leave, which means they’re getting very little sunlight and very little Vitamin D. As well as giving your team the time to get outdoors during the day, you might consider booking meeting rooms with windows. If that’s not possible, using full-spectrum lights in office spaces may help simulate the effect of sunlight.
Give People Something To Look Forward To: January is a stressful time for a lot of people, and the winter weather gets people down. Why not arrange some fun social events, like bowling, team drinks and dinner, or take a poll on what your employees want to do? Give your team a chance to let their hair down a bit, get to know each other better and use it as a chance to say thank you too.
Think About Giving Back: Recent research has shown that around 35% of under 35s who are working full time want to volunteer more than they do, with the figure going as high as 60% among 18-24-year-olds. Most employees also expect their employers to run some form of corporate social responsibility programme, so this is a chance for you to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Start looking into volunteering opportunities that could be beneficial for your employees and your business, and involve your employees in choosing the charity or organisation they volunteer for.
Offer Flexible Working: Or expand it if you already offer it. No matter how busy you are during the winter period, make sure your team is able to work flexibly where possible. By giving people more autonomy and freedom over their working patterns, they’ll have greater opportunity to make healthier decisions and follow some of the suggestions already mentioned. And what’s more, flexible working options don’t have to come at the cost of efficiency. A study by Gartner suggests that flexible working hours may improve productivity, while our UK Salary & Recruiting Trend 2023 guide reveals it could aid employee retention.
Manage Mental Health Effectively: January and the winter blues aren’t just bad for productivity, they’re often the cause of a spike in sick days. In particular, the 21st of January, also known as Blue Monday. While the day itself is a myth (it was dreamed up to sell holidays), is when some of the highest levels of sickness and absence happen. And a big contributor is the winter blues. A good way to reduce this is to provide your team with appropriate mental health support in the workplace. This may include mental health days, resources and support within the business to help those who are struggling. We’ve written a few blogs about how you can do this in the past, which you can read here and here.
The days may be darker, but it’s important to not lose sight of the bigger picture. Yes, work is important, but don’t let it overshadow your team’s wider interests and duties in life. As well as facilitating a healthy work/life balance, you should encourage your team to continue socialising and doing the activities that they enjoy.
At vivoHR, we’re on hand to make sure the winter blues don’t disrupt your business. We can provide you with tailored advice and practical support to keep employee morale up and productivity at the level you need it to be. If you think that vivoHR can help you in 2024, please call 01252 757359 email enquiries@vivohr.co.uk