If you’re working for any kind of business, Christmas is a time of great pressure. Retail and hospitality businesses can expect their busiest time, from sales in October, through to crowds passing through right up to Christmas day and often sales beginning again on Boxing Day or in the New Year.
Even if you’re not directly relying on Christmas to provide a substantial chunk of your revenue for the year, it’s still a busy time: you need to fit in a full month’s work when your business might be closing for a week or more. If you rely on input from colleagues or counterparts in other businesses you might also find obstacles strewn in your path as they take leave to spend time with their family. Totally understandable of course but inconvenient for you.
You also have the dreaded office Christmas party to deal with. This can be a source of real stress – especially if you’re in charge of organising it!
Today we’re presenting a short guide to surviving a Christmas in business so you can start to plan for your success now.
The Christmas Party
If you are in charge of arranging this for your colleagues you need to start now. People organise this early, and while, if you’re looking for an office Christmas party venue London has plenty to offer, they do begin to book up from July so start looking.
Even if you can’t start to finalise venues yet, you can work out how many people you expect to attend, the budget you have available and at least define what you need, so when the time comes you’ll be ready!
Absence and Work
Try to establish early on when or if your office will be closing for Christmas – some only close down for the bank holidays, others go into hibernation from before Christmas eve through to the new year!
Once you’ve established when you’re closing, you can start to take account of it. If you have regular meetings or contacts that would fall during that closed period you can decide early if you will simply skip them in December or reschedule, and inform people appropriately. Doing this early will let people integrate your plans into their own holiday schedules and minimise disruption.
Planning like this means that when Christmas comes you won’t be caught unawares, trying to fit in a fortnight’s work into a single week before you can relax. You’ll be cruising gently to a stop, while your colleagues are pulling their hair out!