The real working year is over

Today is the day that most of us ‘check out’ of work, mentally if not physically as we prepare for the holidays and the end of the year. Research by Mortar London revealed that, as Christmas creeps ever closer, employees admit to a whole raft of distractions from their everyday work duties.

Two in five confess to opting out of work in order to do some online shopping, while 35% said they’re minds are already on Christmas day and the break. One in six confess to indulging in the odd Christmas tipple on the job – with men twice as likely to take advantage of a festive drink than women, and 17% even admitted they would be more likely to duck out of work earlier than other times of the year.

When asked why they’d slacked off, with many even sneakily taking longer lunches or using up their remaining sick days, one in five workers said they were simply ‘too excited’ to focus in the office. 32% said they had too much to plan ahead of Christmas day, 21% admitted to feeling ‘burnt-out’ and a fifth said workplace festivities such as Secret Santa or the office party were to blame. One in three said it was simply the case that business has slowed down and there’s less work to do at this time of year.

Dan Rogers, co-founder of Peakon, which helps businesses to measure employee engagement and retention, says: “I think it’s fair to say that the great Christmas ‘click-off’ is well and truly a thing, with a silent agreement in most workplaces that productivity takes a hit at this time of year. As a business, the worst thing you can do is bury your head in the sand; it pays to try to understand what is going on.

“Acknowledge that this dip is inevitable and plan around it. Think of it as good time to regroup as a team, gather feedback on the progress you have made during the year, and plan how you will continue in January. Most businesses, with the exception of retail, experience a slow down around this time of year anyway, so trust your team and let them relax a little. Many employees are unlikely to have taken a break since summer, and will be more prone to burnout. If you look after the wellbeing of your team, you’ll ultimately get the best out of them.”

Some employers are tackling this head on. Online marketing agency Distilled has offered employees Christmas shopping hours, whereby workers can take Friday afternoon off if they make up the time during the week.

Distilled’s CEO, Will Critchlow, says: “A bit of distraction is inevitable at this time of year. We’re all human. So at Distilled, we don’t try to fight it too much – with flexibility for shopping, the odd long lunch, and generally trusting the team to plan their time. We might take a bit of a hit at this time of the year, but we trust our team and we know it balances out over time.”