Seasonal Celebrations

November is a month when our society starts to ramp up its celebratory gatherings.  In 2020, this will look a lot different than most of us have ever experienced.  

We have already been given guidelines and advice, oh so much advice from informed sources and much from uninformed sources.  Our new way of living, working and socializing has created pandemic fatigue.  

Is there a way to celebrate with colleagues as we have in years past?  As I have conveyed to clients, over the years, when discussing a case, creativity is, at times, the heart of accommodating an employee’s injury.  True for celebrating in 2020.

As the seasonal company party involving a meal and dance with gifts is not likely to happen, consider “pod-sized” activities with a group of less than 10 employees who can gather safely (2 metres apart) in a portion of the workplace to share a meal with music from a laptop or phone.

If your workplace typically has social gatherings during the upcoming season, ask the employees for input.  To reduce the pandemic fatigue and lessen the stress experienced by many, a wellness-approach during November may help.

Stress is one of the top three leading causes of absenteeism prior to the pandemic.  One could make a case that stress has moved to the top of the list!  Employers faced with responding to the risks of the pandemic in the workplace are now contending with the secondary issues of attendance and presenteeism (whether the employee is working from home or not).

My point is that employers need to turn their minds to having an awareness and solutions for the workplace stressors faced by their employees.  With the elimination of the seasonal party, offer the employees a different way of celebrating with one another.

“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’

—George Bernard Shaw