HOW TO MAKE WORKING A HOLIDAY SUCK LESS FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES

Working on a holiday can be a bummer for your employees. It’s understandable. Everyone looks forward to holidays. Holidays give us an opportunity  to either enjoy some time with family and friends or just enjoy a day off work to relax. For others, holidays may have significant meaning to some employees. So being scheduled to work can be something that doesn’t make them too happy.

Ideally, small businesses owners would give all their employees (and themselves) holidays off with pay. But that’s not always realistic for all businesses. Some businesses just can’t close for holidays. Retail stores, medical facilities and restaurants are often open on holidays because those are huge days for sells among many reasons. More people are off work and willing to spend money. Your business may provide a service vital for public health and safety or provide a support service to another business that is open for operation on the holiday.

Even still, you don’t want to have a shift full of employees watching the clock and grumpy that they are not with their families.  If you must have employees work on holidays there are some things that you can do to make working the holiday suck less for your employees and maybe even make it a fun experience for them.  Here are four strategies that you can try for the next holiday:

Let Them Volunteer to Work

It’s a different thing to work a holiday when you don’t want too, but you also want to keep a  job and volunteering to work because you want too. Decide early how many employees you will need work over the holiday. Once you know that, begin to ask employees to volunteer to work. You probably have some employees who don’t care about working holidays or would prefer to work those days. You can always fill staffing gaps through your normal scheduling process. But recruiting volunteers is always a good place to start.

Give a Pay Incentive

The saying “money talks” applies here too. A little cash incentive could make  it worth it to work a few hours on a holiday. Create a pay incentive that is valuable to the employee but also works to meet the needs of the business. A few ideas for incentives include: 

Paying a shift differential 

Consider paying a higher hourly rate to employees who work holidays. Common differentials are double time pay and normal overtime pay (time and a half). 

Double time pay: Employee is paid twice their normal hourly rate of pay
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Example:
If an employee normally earns $10 an hour their holiday rate of pay would be $20 per hour
{$10 x 2 =$20}
Overtime pay: Employee is paid their normal hourly rate plus half

Example:
If an employee normally earns $10 an hour, their holiday rate of pay would be $15 per hour
{$10 x 1.5 =$15}
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Give them a set bonus amount

Decide how much you can afford and give employees a set holiday bonus.  Don’t be cheap though,. Remember the incentive has to be valuable enough that maybe an employee would even volunteer to work the holiday to receive the incentive.  Also keep in mind how much the employee earns. An employee who earns $50 per day may be happy with a $25 bonus or gift card. While an employee who earns $150 per day may be more interested in a $75 to $100 bonus or gift card.

Make it Fun

If employees have to work the holiday, make it fun. Creating a fun day at work can be as simple as ordering pizza for lunch or providing snacks. Or you may want to hold a contest of some kind to help make the day pass faster. Some fun ideas include:

• Feed them. Lunch, snacks, soda, candy, cake, just have food out all day to show that you appreciate them. {You can get more employee appreciation ideas here.}
• Dress down: A holiday is a great time to have a dress down day. If your employees can’t normally wear jeans to work, let them.
• Play games: This will really depend on your business but you could either design a team game that is played through the shift or set up some board games in the break room for employees to enjoy during their breaks.
• Have a contest: You could have a themed dress contest based on the holiday or a contest that is fun but promotes specific business goals. The possibilities are endless, just make it entertaining for the employees.

Let Them Take Another Day Off With Pay

You can reward employees for working holiday by allowing them to take another day off with pay. So for example, if they work the holiday offer them the day after the holiday off. Or allow them to take a day of their choice off with pay within a certain time period.

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Putting any of these ideas into action will ease some of the dissatisfaction employees feel about working holidays and could help get you some happy volunteers to work holidays. Which will you use? Let me know in the comments.