Have you slipped fully into the festive spirit already despite still being at your desk? Not getting a whole lot done? You're not alone.
More than half of employees mentally check out today for Christmas, according to a new study.
Peakon, a Danish startup that looks at employee data, named Friday December 16th as the moment when 54% of British workers start thinking it's holiday time in their minds. And the younger you are, the more likely you are to be daydreaming of a White Christmas right now.
Some six in 10 millennial workers are already finished with any serious business, gazing out the office window, compared to just four in 10 baby boomers.
By December 20th, the overwhelming majority of even older workers have had enough, the study of 3,000 employees found.
Getting way ahead of themselves, 12% of employees will have already started to wind down before December has even begun. Some 26% of workers predicted they wouldn't fully-focused past Friday December 9th.
“Christmas seems to be starting earlier every year,” says Dan Rogers, co-founder of Peakon. “When I started my career 15 years ago, we were lucky if we got a half day on Christmas Eve. Now it appears the whole week ahead of Christmas is a productivity write-off, and in many cases, the next week is too."
“Part of this is commercialism impacting the workplace. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are now big events in the UK. Christmas is starting earlier every year because businesses want to profit from an extended festive season. The irony is they might be losing money on lost staff productivity.”
He concluded:
“It would be in everyone's best interest if we stopped bringing Christmas forward – before we start celebrating it in summer clothing – but fighting against the trend is likely futile.
“The best thing to do is to recognise this productivity down-time and use it in other ways. For instance it's a great opportunity to do team activities, donate your employees’ time to charity, or work on creative and fun ideas that you might not have had time for earlier in the year.”
