They’re bound to happen, but it’s important to communicate about them properly.

The holiday season is in full swing, and with it comes a month full of company gatherings, gift exchanges and parties. With all the social events going on this time of year, you might wonder how there’s time to get any work done! While it’s important to remain on task in our day-to-day roles, seasonal events and gatherings are also a major boost to company culture. If you’re noticing a slight dip in productivity at your organization around the holidays, it’s important to consider the overall reasons for the dip and how to best communicate around it.

Productivity downswings and cultural events

A prime example of a potential for productivity dips this holiday season is the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Across the globe, billions of workers have taken early lunches or set aside meetings to tune into the games being played in Qatar. In the United States, most of the matches are broadcast during work hours. And according to a report by Bloomberg, there hasn’t been a major detectable change in work getting done, but there have been some shifts in when it gets done:

As many commenters noted, even if banned from watching during business hours, many employees are likely to skirt such rules by livestreaming games on their work laptops alongside their Excel spreadsheets or Zoom calls, especially if they’re working remotely, or simply calling in sick. (That last strategy could put your job in jeopardy, employment law firms warn.) Still, productivity-monitoring platform ActivTrak said its data shows employees continue to get work done at near-equal levels to non-World Cup weeks. Data from more than 4,500 US-based workers the day of the US versus Wales matchup, which was held on a Monday afternoon at 2 p.m. New York time, showed no clear departure from business as usual based on the measures watched by ActivTrak.Hive.com, another productivity-tracking system, has seen a major shift toward work getting done later in the day, even though there has been only been a nominal dip in overall activity so far during the tournament. The company has seen productivity surge between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. New York time, as most games are wrapping up, as well as a modest boost in evening activity. Hive, whose data points include creation and completion of tasks and other status updates, did note a 30% decline in activity across its workspaces as the US team played Iran.

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