As summer settles in for the season, you may have noticed a dip in employee engagement and motivation. Longer days and warmer weather may tempt your employees to take more days off and spend less time thinking about the company’s sales goals. Unfortunately, when several employees ramp up their sick leave, your productivity may suffer. Maintaining employee engagement can be difficult in the summer months, but there are several strategies businesses can leverage to beat the heat on their bottom line.
Encourage Vacation Time
Planned vacation time is always better to work around that absenteeism. That aside, even your most productive workers face burnout, especially if they haven’t taken a vacation in a long time. Summer is the best time for your employees to rest, recharge, and have fun with their families. If you encourage vacation time, they’ll come back well-rested and ready to take on new sales challenges.
Schedule Some Company Summertime Fun Activities
It’s natural to want to relax over the summer. There are a couple of ways that you, as a company, can also relax a little over the season without hurting your sales quotas. Here are a few suggestions:
- Organize a summer company outing. This may be a picnic, potluck, or barbeque, or a competitive activity such as whirlyball or mini-golf. No matter the activity, summer outings can encourage team-building skills and make your employees more engaged in your company. Photo-based documentation of these activities also works well on your website to emphasize your employee-centric culture.
- Consider an abbreviated schedule. Many companies use a shorter schedule during the summer – most notably a shorter day on Fridays. However, you’ll want to stress that a shorter deadline is contingent on meeting deadlines or other sales goals.
- Incorporate casual Fridays. Allowing workers to wear informal attire on Fridays has been linked to higher productivity.
Be More Flexible
As long as your employees are being productive, allow them some more flexibility during the summer. This may mean letting them work from home a day or two each week or holding meetings outside with a catered picnic lunch. This will help your employees feel more engaged with the summer season – after all, no one likes sitting in the office on a beautiful day.
Follow these tips and you’ll see a boost in productivity from your summer employees. A little flexibility and fun in the sun do a lot to help even your most unmotivated workers.
