Yep, it’s that magical time of year again. You know when the festive season has well and truly kicked in – John Lewis release their highly anticipated Christmas ad, it’s time to open the first window on your advent calendar and your colleagues turn up to work donning a competitive selection of Christmassy jumpers. What’s not to like?

Well for some – quite a lot. Few people it would seem, see Christmas as the 'most wonderful time of year'. 

Research suggests that the festive season can bring an abundance of different emotions ranging from sheer excitement to sheer dread and everything sandwiched in-between. In fact, around 42% quote December as one of the most stressful months of the year. Contributing factors include balancing work and family life, co-workers rushing to take their annual leave putting a strain on colleagues – as well as hitting end of year targets and mulling over next years’ strategy plans. It’s these professional and personal worries that can threaten their health and well-being.

Proactive and forward-thinking organisations recognise this. What they’re doing is stepping up and taking extra preventative measures at Christmas time. For example, arranging financial health workshops where staff can review their festive budgets and balance their spending and savings. Others create post-Christmas return to work plans, because being away from work for extended periods can cause people to experience uncertainty and anxiety before the big return. In fact, asking the very simple question 'is everything okay?', and reassuring employees that it’s safe to talk, is something we can all do. Should the answer be 'actually, no', what we need to have in place is the right support to help them. 

This type of proactiveness means that when your staff are in work, they’re focused – and when they’re on their well-earned annual leave, they’re able to switch off, relax and recuperate. A health and wellbeing strategy should be at the heart of any company’s people strategy and an all year-round consideration. By ending the year on a high, and sending your team off for their Christmas break in a positive frame of mind, you create a likely catalyst for starting the New Year off with a bang.

Talking of which, if you’d like a cracking start to 2020, then please get in touch and talk to us about our Broadly Thinking Planning Day or our Diagnostic Business Reviews.

Until then, from the team at Broadhead Global, we’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.