This month, workplaces across the country are aiming to boost employee morale with loads of holiday initiatives, including holiday parties, gift exchanges, cubicle and cookie decorating contests, charitable collections and other events to mark the season. But the same events designed to make workers feel warm and fuzzy can leave many feeling aggravated and demoralized.
Here are seven ways some employers ruin morale during the holidays. Take a look and see if you recognize your own workplace in any of these.
1. Overloading on holiday events. Employees tend to have especially busy lives this month, with lots of other holiday-related commitments. A single office holiday party is usually appreciated — although not always — but some offices go overboard with holiday events, including daytime potlucks, evening parties, cookie decorating gatherings, Christmas sweater contests and separate gift exchanges. While some might love these festivities, other employees will feel annoyed and overextended at the intrusions into an already busy month. Pick one holiday event, do it well and free your employees from the burden of additional obligations. Or, if you must do more, make it clear that everything is opt-in only.
2. Being insensitive to differences of faith — or non-faith. Assuming that everyone celebrates a particular holiday will quickly make some of your employees feel isolated or uncomfortable. It’s fine to have holiday decorations up, but keep them reasonably secular. Don’t put out a nativity scene in your reception area, sing hymns at your holiday party or invite staff to participate in a religious prayer. And watch out for inclusivity efforts gone awry, such as putting Hanukkah ornaments on a Christmas tree.
3. Pressuring people to participate in pricey gift exchanges. At a time of year when many budgets are already stretched thin, it’s not thoughtful to put more spending obligations on people. If your office does a gift exchange, keep it optional — no side-eye for people who don’t participate — and limit it to a low dollar amount.
4. Allowing expensive gifts for the boss. Gifts in the workplace should flow downward, not upward. This means that gifts from managers to employees are fine. But employees should not be expected to give gifts to those above them. Yet many offices take up collections to buy gifts for the boss — sometimes pricey gifts that are more extravagant than what employees will buy for their families. Smart offices will ban the practice altogether because many workers understandably resent being asked to fund a gift for the person who signs their paychecks — and may make significantly more money than they do — yet will feel uncomfortable opting out if everyone else is participating.
5. Requiring attendance at the company holiday party. Workplace holiday parties are ostensibly intended to treat employees and build morale. They won’t do that if you make attendance mandatory. Some employees, particularly the more introverted on your staff, may see the holiday party as something to be dreaded. Others might simply prefer to spend the evening with their families or friends instead of having another social obligation this month. If that’s the case, make it okay for them to opt out. And don’t penalize people, even unofficially, for not attending.
6. Making it impossible for some people to attend the holiday party. While not everyone will want to attend the company holiday party, anyone who wants to join should be able to. That means that companies need to make arrangements to have their phones covered, so the receptionist can attend the party. They should not ask some people to work at the party as coat checkers or caterers. It doesn’t build morale to invite people to a party where they have to work, or where their job duties mean they can’t attend.
7. Giving gifts en masse without thinking about what works for everyone. Some companies give everyone a ham or bottle of wine, which sounds generous until you think about vegetarians, Muslims, Jews who keep kosher or recovering alcoholics. And sure, it’s true that gift recipients shouldn’t be choosy, but in a workplace setting, these sorts of gifts from an employer say, “We don’t realize our staff is a group of diverse people.” When you need a gift that will work for a large group of employees, bonuses or extra time off will never fail to make people happy.
More from U.S. News
8 Ways the Holidays Bring Out the Worst in Your Co-Workers
6 Kinds of Annoying Co-Workers and How to Deal With Them
7 Ways to Ruin Employee Morale During the Holidays originally appeared on usnews.com