The holiday season is an exciting time of year for businesses. However, the holiday rush stretches their resources thin as some businesses try to meet the high demand. For others, work has slowed down considerably and won’t pick up again until spring.
Plan in Advance
Your holiday scheduling should start well before the snow begins to fall. There are many things you need to get in order in advance that will make the holiday season so much easier to handle. So start making your plan as soon as possible.Make a Daily Checklist
Each day, set a checklist of things you want to accomplish for that day. Your checklist can include any scheduled appointments you have, sales calls to make, or logistical tasks that need to be completed. You can have a checklist for the entire team—or you can break it down for each individual employee.For busy companies, this will help break down the workload into more manageable doses. It also ensures that nothing falls through the cracks due to the high intensity of the season.
Pin Down Your Employees’ Scheduling
Getting your team’s work schedules in sync will get your company to hit the ground running each and every day. Reducing scheduling confusion and making sure every day is well-staffed will take care of many holiday headaches.Businesses with high demand levels will need to make sure that enough employees are scheduled each day to take on the workload. They can even consider hiring seasonal employees to take some of the strain off regular employees who don’t want to work too much overtime.
Set Short Term Goals
Goals will give you something to work for until the end of the year. It will also concentrate your efforts on something attainable instead of doing nothing but a bunch of busywork.Take Advantage of Holiday Marketing
The holiday season is one of the easiest times of year for businesses to market themselves. Consumers are more active this time of year in their hunt for gifts and sales. Holiday themes are easy to pull off for your graphics, videos, and other campaigns, as it’s what customers expect to see anyway.Make Room for Social Distancing
We still have some ongoing concerns about COVID-19 with the breakthrough cases and the Delta variant. Businesses need to keep the virus in mind when planning for this time of year, when stores typically get more crowded than usual, and social distancing will be put to the test.Give Back and Give Often
The holiday season is all about giving. You and your company should make the time in your schedule to give back to employees, customers, and the community as thanks for a successful year (or, in this case, surviving a difficult one).You can partner with local charities and organizations to donate materials or put together a team of volunteers to help out with a project. You can also put together gift packages for your customers and employees, the backbone of any company. That is what the holidays are all about, after all.
You’ve had your plans ready for your successful holiday season done for months—now it’s time to execute them. The further ahead you’re able to schedule out, the better prepared you’ll be for anything that comes your way.