Christmas is coming and January’s staff morale will be flat!

Do you love Christmas? Or do you groan when it gets mentioned (particularly if it’s still Summer)? However you feel about it, Christmas is an opportunity to build morale in your team. The festive party is a great method of bringing people together in a more relaxed atmosphere than the shop floor. Add professional photography and you can extend those highs well into the Winter season, getting over the ‘January Blues’ and shortening the time until the weather brightens and the next holiday break.
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Early in my career working for an engineering company, the Christmas party was a sit down lunch in the company canteen. My fellow factory workers and I were waited on with starters, mains, pudding as well as drinks by the management team. It made the point of showing we were working together and the management weren’t above rolling up their sleeves and mucking in. In some ways, I’d have liked some photos of those early days, but times, and photography have changed.

These days not all businesses have the money to pay for a bit of a do, but if the firm can pay for a party, it’s a great way of showing the company’s appreciation for the team’s efforts that year. If staff contribute, it’s still a perfect opportunity for higher management to mix with staff they wouldn’t necessarily see.

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Sadly, the morale boost created by these acts are short-lived. Following the festive break, staff face the long slog to the Easter holidays while in the depths of Winter. If only there was a way of getting that feeling of working together back; returning a feel-good factor – without actually forking out again for another party.

Good news! There is and it’s called photography. Hiring a professional photographer that will capture shots of your Christmas do is a fantastic way of revisiting all those highs people experience. Shots of board director and post room newbie enjoying the hospitality of the party. Shiny, happy people, dancing together, singing together – bonding. The shots make great content for internal newsletters or intranet web pages.

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Running a photo booth with a range of props (hats, funny glasses, feather boas, etc) is always popular. Run a caption competition in January with a prize for the best entry extends the fun, reminds staff that they DO get along (given the right circumstances) and offers another way of boosting morale once more.

Not having a Christmas party? (difficult for one man bands, admittedly) Then do some charity work for the Season of Goodwill. Photograph that and again you’ll have a feel-good factor you can share with suppliers and customers.

So; don’t just groan when someone says, ‘Christmas is coming’. Remind yourself that the best way of preparing for the festive season is to plan for it. And by planning, I mean organising your works Christmas party – one of the only elements that makes the pain of closing for two weeks worthwhile.

Pete Bresser is Director of Bresser Photography & Digital Media.

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