Three day holidays are always anticipated and enjoyed, but too often employees return still in “holiday mode” and rather than a three day holiday - the holiday turns into a five day “retreat” from work! How do you prevent this? One of the easiest ways is to acknowledge the “true meaning” of each holiday and incorporate that into the day prior to the holiday. This puts focus on the meaning vs. the “time out” of each holiday period.
When employees return to work after time off, whenever possible it’s a great idea to ask each person to describe what they did over the holiday. This will waste 20-30 minutes first thing in the morning, but then your employees are ready to get back to work.
One of the greatest morale busters is making your employees work until 5:00 PM the day before the holiday where there is nothing happening. A great example is Christmas eve or the day before July 4th. You can’t put a price on the value of letting your employees leave at 3:00 PM! It’s these types of actions that improve retention and glue your employees to your organization. I learned years ago when you capture their hearts, their heads and loyalty follow!
I hope each of you have a fabulous Memorial Day Holiday Week-End! Why not try some of these ideas over the July 4th Holiday?
Barb Bruno

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