New to HR A Short Guide to Surviving the Holiday Season - Workology

New to HR A Short Guide to Surviving the Holiday Season Support Struggling Employees Rule #1 Dont Get Drunk at the Holiday Party Rule #2 Dont Get Drunk at the Holiday Party Just continue replaying the rules over and over again and youre halfway there. For HR, the holiday season can bring a huge variety of reports, emotions, tasks, and more. As the HRNewbie in the office, it is your job to figure out what that role means for your career, but its more important that your employees understand what this role means to them, as their support. Support Struggling Employees While the holiday season is a wonderful time for a large number of our employees, for some, the holidays represent a part of their lives where everything wasnt wonderful. Were generally not licensed counsellors, but we still have the responsibility of being a listening ear for those employees who may have lost a loved one, are in a financial struggle for the holidays, have bad family memories, or just feeling lonely. Whatever the problem may be, their emotional being is just as important as that of employees who are celebrating. Being an introvert during the holiday season brings out more stress for people. Coworkers want to talk about their holiday plans, family traditions, and end of year parties. Dont force your employees to be apart of these conversations, but dont allow them to rude and this also goes for you. Its still the end of the year and a lot of projects needs to be finished and some even still need to be started, but it is still your responsibility to get out and have conversations with your employees. If you dont know whats going on, you wont know what role you can play in helping them achieve their end of year goals. Plan A Good Party In my experience, HR is the department that gets the holiday party  together. We plan, we budget, we send out the invitations, we decorate we are the holiday party. It is important that in the rush of getting it done, we dont forget to take moments to ourselves and enjoy. The arrangements will go off flawlessly, no one will say anything offensive, Bob and Jerry from the mail room wont get into a fight, and no one will try to cop a feel on the coworker theyve had a crush on the entire year. Trust me. But dont limit your work partying to your workplace. Participate in your local SHRM end of the year chapter party. Making the connections that will help you and the company thrive into the upcoming year. Continue the rules given at the very beginning of this post, but always have fun. Use the opportunity to get ideas on activities for your companys end of the year holiday party. You dont want to go to a boring SHRM party (and it wont be boring), so dont force your employees to come to an end of year party that wont keep them entertained. Showing appreciation is a great way to bring in the new year, its even better if the company or organization can keep the same energy throughout the year. Surviving the holiday season as an HRNewbie can be overwhelming. Its a big learning curve to take in what your company has been doing for the team over the past few years, how you now fit in, and what value can you bring to the table. But you can do it and have a happy holiday too!