Navigating Holiday Chaos with Smart PR Strategies and Employee Engagement
Christmas and the Holiday season – we’re not all Christians, but we all celebrate – can be counted on to be chaotic. Employees – especially parents – can be counted on to spend work time searching online for the right gifts for kids. Those who love Christmas parties are busy planning office events that will be memorable – except for those excursions from propriety that are best swept under the office rugs. In retail, a year’s worth of profitable sales depends – desperately – on sales between Black Friday and Christmas Eve. Even businesses without any link to retail see a slowdown because their clients are tied up in a bright red Christmas bow, with no time for business-as-usual. So where does that leave the PR Department?
Well, first, something is required, top-down, from Corporate Central. Having seen the impact of the Christmas season every year since the CEO was a college intern, wouldn’t it make sense to recognize that business is disrupted during the holidays. For retail, this might mean rescheduling the office Christmas Party from mid-December to the week between Christmas and New Year.
If your business is not retail, recognize that employees will be distracted, while sales and overall business will also be distracted. Instead of fighting it, give the employees a break. Perhaps set aside a rotating cluster of thirty minutes per week per employee group – allowing employees to do their online Christmas shopping without disrupting business. Rotate this so everyone gets their thirty minutes per week, but if they abuse their time to shop, they might lose that privilege, period.
Each business can and should find their own set of accommodations, but then it’s up to PR to both make a big deal of it, and effectively and positively communicate the benefits of this new policy, while warning employees of the consequences of trying to “game the system.”
Once it’s up to PR, it’s time to get creative. Based on a long career of serving as a buffer between top management and the rank-in-file, promoting new employee “benefits” – of whatever kind – to the people for whom the benefits are intended.
PR should stress the new benefit, but not underplay the “stick” that goes with the carrot. Be candid. Explain that management recognizes that, for one reason or another, the last month of the holiday season, from Black Friday through Christmas has built-in problems. Employee distraction. Maximizing retail sales. Business slow-down. These new benefits are designed to minimize those problems, but it’s up to the employees to “play fair” and uphold their end of the bargain.
How these messages are communicated will vary from business to business, based on their “corporate culture.” But in all cases, it’s easier for PR to do its job if they have something to work with.
