Working Through Winter

 

It can be easy to dismiss the memes that centre "we could be hibernating right now, but nooooo, we had to invent CAPITALISM and CUPS!" as "just more Gen Z whining", and further evidence that "people are lazy and just don't want to work", and sure, some people actually don't want to have any kind of job. That's a thing - people are allowed to feel resentful about the idea that they are obliged to do something they find to be either very intrusive, or actually harmful to their wellbeing.

A lot of people will just be posting those memes as 'engagement-scrapes'; complaining about work we don't really have too much issue with is part of human nature, and probably has been since we first started engaging in planned, focused, longer-term-thinking activity, rather than merely surviving day by day.  People like to bond through sharing low-key frustrations, so these memes will generate a lot of comments, shares, and likes - all of which boosts the initial poster's engagement scores, generates more traffic for whatever their online vehicle happens to be, and, often very subtly and indirectly, brings them a decent chunk of income.  Those engaging are not actually anti-work, and often they're very engaged in their jobs, they're just engaging with "moaning about work" memes as part of the necessary downtime that all of us need.

But, behind the light-hearted humour and human nature pull, there's a truth in these memes, as there often is in any form of cross-cultural communication - which memes are; winter is a tough time to be human.

Even if you're someone who likes winter, as I do, it is a season with many very real challenges.  I like winter, but part of my sight loss involves complete nightblindness, which, in winter, means that my day ends around 4pm, in terms of doing anything outside, going anywhere, coming back from anywhere, etc. 

I like winter, but I really feel the cold, and, at the moment, my boiler is out of action, so I only have electric heaters, which are expensive to run; I'm on a pre-pay electric meter, so I can't just "use it now, deal with the cost later"; I have a heating budget of a maximum of 2hrs of heating per day.

I like winter, but being blind means I can't see dangerous weather impacts such as fallen trees from storms, ice patches, etc, all of which causes significant anxiety around going out, especially in more extreme winter conditions.

By now, you may be thinking "What do you even have left to like about winter? Why do you like this season, if it's so difficult for you?"  
I like the way things feel, and the way what I can see looks in winter. I like that people are less hyperfixated on socialising in winter than they are in summer; as an introvert, this relieves a lot of anxiety and pressure for me.
I like that regulating temperature in my own home is easier in winter - I can throw on as many layers as I need, if I'm doing background work, admin, blogs, etc, I can be under any number of blankets.  In summer, I have to have a shirt on if I'm in a meeting, and even when I'm just doing background work, if I'm overheated, I can only take off my clothes - I can't pull off my skin, however much I may want to.
Summer necessitates having windows open, which, as I live on a busy street, in a terraced house, means I'm constantly beseiged by noise; this is exceptionally stressful for me, as I don't cope well with high levels of background noise.  In winter, there's a lot less noise, and it's routine to have windows and curtains closed.

Human beings are mammals, and most mammals will slow down during winter, even if very few species actually hibernate, in the true sense of the word.  

This suggests strongly that, while complete "do nothing" states are relatively uncommon among mammals, conserving energy by focusing on core 'life-support' tasks, and spending as little time outside of nests or dens as possible, is a natural mammalian drive, and a highly effective way to survive a season which comes with many very real threats to life for all animal species.

For humans, while we (usually) have abundant means to add warmth to our bodies, and can (typically) access plentiful nutritious food, two things which are much more challenging and life-threatening for other mammals, our winter risks include increased risk of falls and broken bones, increased risks of mental health impacts from more isolation than some may be comfortable with, a greater risk of debt, not just from buying holiday gifts, but also from increased heating costs, the need to use tumble dryers to get clothes dry in a timely manner, etc. Then there is Seasonal Affected Disorder (SAD), which, for the majority of sufferers, hits in winter, and goes far beyond "Ugh, I hate this weather! I hate Christmas!", and causes genuine, very real, depression, with all of the impacts on a person's physical and social wellbeing that causes.

One thing that often isn't considered is that family demands often become more intense during the winter - not just because of Christmas and other widely-celebrated holidays, but because many people find winter stressful, unpleasant, and generally difficult, and see their families as essential support systems, and reach out to them more often, and more intensely, often with far more "neediness" in their contacts, than is the case the rest of the year.  Those with elderly or disabled family members may be having to pick up very real care issues, including getting groceries when people aren't able to safely get to the shops, responding to central heating breakdowns, and filling in when paid carers are prevented from making scheduled care appointments by bad weather, or vehicle breakdowns, as well as the "feelings-based" needs, which arise not from objective reality, but from the way shorter, darker days, harsher weather, and a sharp drop-off in the willingness or ability of friends to meet up for coffee, impact peoples' mindsets and subjective sense of wellbeing.

You are probably not going to be aware of which of your staff are dealing with additional kinship care demands in winter.  You won't have any idea who struggles with winter-triggered Seasonal Affective Disorder.  You won't know which of your staff find that chronic depression is worsened by the turning-away of social focus that winter can often bring.  You won't have any idea who is at their financial breaking point as they try to placate expectations of family, try to keep themselves and their home warm enough.  You may not know, or fully understand, how winter impacts peoples' disabilities, and you almost certainly won't know what that means for the additional demands placed on kinship carers, let alone those who are living with disabilities themselves.

These are not impacts that will melt away with enough "resilience training" or "emotional intelligence."  They are not "perceptions of difficulty" - they are real difficulties.  They are not "opportunities for growth" - they are very real, very brutal challenges.  And people have  no choice but to handle these additional, intense demands alongside paid employment.

What Can You Do To Help?
While it's likely not possible to just shut down your company for three to four months, especially if you're expected to keep paying peoples' salaries, there are ways you can make it easier for people to cope with winter's additional challenges, and push through our innate desire to hunker down, stay indoors, and wait out the winter with minimal commitments and demands.

1. Inclusive holiday planning
Does your business really need to be open over the Christmas period? If you're a non-essential-services office based business, let's be real - you could probably close for a week, and no one would notice.  I've worked the Christmas-New Year period in four separate offices so far; it's been dead. Literally, nothing happening, no emails, no phone calls - and typically only 2-3 other people there. All of them the same junior level as myself, because guess what? 90% of management and senior colleagues call dibs on holiday periods for their annual leave.  Those places could have closed,  or at least allowed those who were denied Christmas leave permission to work from home with an understanding that all that was really needed was checking emails a couple of times a day, and responding to anything genuinely urgent.

If you're selling non-essential goods, you could probably close at least from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, and you do not need people to "come in on Boxing Day to set up for the next day's trading" when you're closed for trading on Boxing Day; management can stay late the day before Christmas Eve, set up...then the store will be closed for the next three days. Nothing is going to be disrupted. Again, if management are anxious about things being "right", they can go in early the day after Boxing Day - that's what the additional pay is for.

"But what about people who need things on Christmas Eve?! What about people who need to exchange things they got as gifts on Boxing Day?!" - what non-essentials do people actually need on Christmas Eve, which they can't possibly live without for three days?  Essentials include food, pet food, toilet roll, and sanitary products. Even with these things, a bit of organisation and focus should mean you're fine for three days. Otherwise? You can absolutely cope.

The UK has a statutory period of 14 days for returns. Gift vouchers are typically valid for at least a year. You do not need to go out immediately Christmas Day is over to get to the shops.

If it is genuinely impossible for your business to close over the Christmas period, then you need to be fully inclusive with regards to holiday allocation; a consistent issue in workplaces is the perception that "Mums with kids get all the holidays! I've got family and friends I want to spend time with, too!"

. Anyone with family - children, spouses, parents, siblings, nephews, nieces - should be given equitable access to request annual leave over widely-accepted holiday periods. This starts before holiday periods, with a focus on ensuring there's a genuinely even mix of personal situations on every team, so that there is enough cover for everyone who wants to spend a holiday period with their family to do so.  If this isn't achievable (because you have the people you have, and recruitment is expensive and time consuming), then there needs to be a genuine sense of fairness - perhaps nobody is able to take the whole holiday period off, to enable everyone to get part  of it off.  (This is a good reason to look into the feasibility of creating an all-ages creche in your workplace, and allowing people to step out during their workday, as well as facilitating fully remote work for office work, as this makes it easier for parents and kinship carers to balance being in work with their family commitments.)

Have a zero-tolerance policy around people trying to get colleagues to swap holiday allowances, complaining about their allocation, etc - winter is difficult enough without dreading Becky wheedling around trying to get more annual leave so she can "have a proper Christmas with my littles", or listening to Dean ranting about how "no one even wants to work over Christmas, there's literally zero point!" 

. People with a genuine religious faith should not have to use their annual leave to cover their religious holidays. Religious celebrations are far more than "just enjoyable social opportunities."  They are key aspects of mental wellbeing for those who believe in that faith.  They are very effective social support systems, and save the State a considerable amount of money in fully building and staffing a truly functional State social support network.  

Not everyone's religious festivals are the Christian celebrations; if I live within walking distance of a job site, or can work remotely, I don't mind working over Christmas, as my main focus of celebration, as a Pagan, is December 21st, the Winter Solstice.  If I have to travel to work, Christmas Day and Boxing Day are usually out, because public transport doesn't run on Christmas Day, and runs a limited service on Boxing Day in my area.  

This will be the first year I've exclusively been working on The Productive Pessimist; I will actually be taking a complete break from 21st December-5th January, because I've come through a lot of stress and challenges in the past year, and I know that people are either going to be absent or managing multiple "urgent demands" during the festive period, so they're not going to be prioritising reach-out emails, etc.  I'll see how it goes, and that extended close period may become a feature of how The Productive Pessimist Ltd works going forward.

Someone shouldn't be required to use annual leave for a religious commitment "because we give you another religion's special day off for free!"  Either everyone has to use annual leave to accommodate their religious observances, or no one has to.  And I'll anticipate the workaround - no, you do not get to demand that people put their religious faith second to their work; their employment merely provides them with money to afford to live; their faith gives them the motivation to live, and to live well, in a way which keeps them going through the harder times, meaning they are still able to show up for you, and for others, even when they're struggling.

. Allow people to "over-winter" at work; let them reduce their focus to what is core and essential to the business. No one actually wants to be dealing with non-essential emails over the festive period. Many people, even those without disabilities or care commitments, are genuinely better, and more energised and focused in the mornings, for being able to get home before it gets dark.  If you are in an essential provision business, and can't facilitate shorter days (for the same pay), consider bringing in light therapy lamps, and ensuring your heating is actually functional.  If a meeting can be an email, let it be an email. 

. Not everyone is thrilled about Christmas. Instead of decorating the workplace for Christmas, allow people to decorate their work areas, or their work uniforms if they don't have a designated area, however they want, on a personal level, and with regard to genuine safety considerations.  

If you genuinely feel your workplace won't be the same without a Christmas tree, then don't decorate it - instead, provide everyone with tags that they can write "unbuyable gift" requests on - eg:
Amir from Accounts: someone to come by and do a flashdance to brighten up my day

Jess from Transformation: support with Excel

Shyla, CEO: People to wear purple on Fridays

The 'gifts' requested have to be things that aren't items, that don't cost anyone money, and, obviously, are within the bounds of safety and respect. If someone feels they can meet a gift request, they remove the tag, and carry out the request.  

Retail workplaces...please...let your colleagues get a break from  Christmas songs! I've worked retail before...Christmas songs are fun...but not for the 375th time on repeat.  And not when they prompt whinging from customers about "How much they hate Christmas",  "what a bl--dy rip off it all is", etc.

. Stop doing performance reviews. Seriously.  Or at least make them reciprocal - start your reports' review with asking them to review you. Replace performance reviews with "gap assessments" - and start those by allowing people to identify their own gaps - they may well identify the same gaps you'd noticed, and have better ideas on how to bridge them.

Winter is an exhausting, stressful, depressing time for many people - don't add to it by going "let's focus on how you've disappointed us this year, and how you can do better next year!" - especially not when you feel you "have to include some negatives", even when they're a real reach. (For example, I once had a review which included "I have to say something bad, but, honestly, it's very difficult to see what to say about you... Maybe you could consider the impact your sense of humour can have on your colleagues?" - my sense of humour is automatically dialled back in a workplace, because I'm aware it's a bit dark. I just stopped making humorous observations - which caused my next review to include the fact that I "didn't engage in humour with my colleagues, which makes them feel uncomfortable." Honestly, if you're reaching like that, just don't bother.  Performance issues should be being addressed through regular line management sessions throughout the year anyway, so there's actually no need for anything more than "What would you like to experience or achieve in the next twelve months?", and then guidance around how that can become reality.

. If you genuinely need holiday cover, do not ask for volunteers. The same people volunteer for everything - and the same people quietly avoid eye contact, and say nothing. Be conscious of the people who genuinely can't easily accommodate additional demands over the holiday period, because of their personal circumstances.  Put the names of those with minimal personal demands into some form of random generation tool (physical or digital), and have someone who isn't management run the selection protocol, or simply name people directly.  In either case, note down who was selected this time, and exclude their names from the next holiday cover call options list. People will still not be thrilled, but they will be able to see that things are as fair as they can be.

. If you genuinely don't feel you can not do Secret Santa, make it an "unbuyable gift" deal. People make an offer to do something that costs them nothing for someone, and those are what are put into the Secret Santa, with the tasks being carried out on a designated day/time. Christmas is expensive, and even adding an extra £5 could cause issues for some people. Plus, there will always be colleagues who choose to spend more than the advised amount, which can create issues, people will buy inappropriate gifts, including ones which are perceived as offensive by the recipient, allergies aren't always considered... it can easily become a mess.

. Not everyone is comfortable eating around other people. Don't make a "team Christmas meal" something people have to attend, and allow people to bring partners/friends/family from outside work. 

I personally don't like being around people when they're getting drunk, and am not relaxed eating in front of other people in general. I also don't do well in noisy, crowded environments - Christmas meals are absolute hell, and I will invent excuses to avoid them - even when they're set in the middle of a regular workday.

As a manager, your anxieties about business performance, five-year plans, how 2025's first quarter goes, are your problems. If you can lens them through actionable tasks and projects, then do so, and give those tasks and projects to your team without any "Because things haven't been as good as we'd hoped"... "Since we need to make £500,000 of savings through 2025"... or similar.  Your staff are not paid enough to share your anxieties.

If individuals within your team have indicated they would be interested in pursuing management responsibilities, bring them in privately, and in person, and ask them for support with management responsibilities - don't make it an anxiety dump, just present it for what it is: "These are things I have to consider as a manager, and that all managers will eventually face; I'd appreciate your insight and support, and helping me work on these challenges will enhance your competency and awareness of the demands of a management role."

If you want to know more about how to make winter tolerable for your team, email us: theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com, and book a session with us 

(last 1hr session available before the end of 2024 is 1pm-2pm Friday 20th December for onsite support in Norfolk or Suffolk, and 4pm-5pm Friday 20th December for remote support.)