Holiday stress is like every other stress, except that it’s also combined with the end of the year. If your business’s financial year matches the calendar year, then you have the added stress of finishing annual projects and making up for lost time in other ways. However, that doesn’t mean you have to feel all that stress or accept it. If you’re leading a team, you have a lot of influence over the stress, or lack of it. Try some of these:

• Model self care by taking breaks, leading breathing exercises with your team, and choosing calmer ways to respond to stressors
• Check in with your team about how they’re feeling and how their work is going
• Remove obstacles that are within your control, such as expediting a key project step
• Create breaks in the work for yourself and your team
• Give your team flexibility to run errands over lunch or leave early
• Cross-train your team so people can time off without coming back to a bigger pile of work 

Now, let’s look at how to implement any of these during the busiest time of year.

Talk with your team. Tell them you want to help them expedite their projects, give them flexible work hours, or whatever you all think would be most beneficial. Just talking with them could ease their stress.

Be self-aware. Notice when you could intervene to improve a situation or model a better behavior. Also, understand when your actions could be making things harder and take action to improve.

Set realistic goals. There may not be enough time to implement everything on that list and that’s okay. The idea is to make the changes you can make and not create more stress about the stress-reducing measures you couldn’t fit into this year.

See each one as a series of choices. Most of these can be accomplished with small, incremental steps. Remove one obstacle at a time. Lead a breathing exercise today. Every stress-reduction choice you make is a vote for less stress.

Notice the positive things too and reward them. There will inevitably be good work all around you too. Team members will step up to help a customer have a better experience. They’ll help each other get more done. Whatever it is, acknowledge it via a formal recognition program or simpler methods like providing everyone with a healthy lunch, a hand-written note to a super star, or giving your team a surprise Friday afternoon off.

• Get creative with your rewards
• Know how individual team members like to be recognized for good work
• Take notes about who stands out so you’ll remember that during their performance review

At elteve, we’re all about making your work easier and more effective through our nimble online platform, which we’re giving away early access to now through New Year’s Eve. We also know there’s a lot more on your plate than retargeting. We hope these tips have given you some ideas that’ll make your holiday season easier and more valuable.