How to Keep Employees Motivated in the Summer Months

This week, being the week of July 4^th, is a popular vacation time and although I was in the office I felt like I might as well have been on vacation too.  I always find it challenging when team members I work closely with are on vacation.  In their absence I have the pleasure of working with team members I don’t get to work with all time, but with that also comes some challenges.

Not to knock my team members that are understudying, relief pitching, or subbing in (or whatever you choose to call it), don’t get me wrong they’re great, it’s just a different dynamic.

So we wanted to know if we were the only ones experiencing these challenges, so we asked more than 1,700 business professionals across the Beyond.com Network of thousands of niche career sites, “How productive are you at work in the summer months?”  And to be honest we were surprised—more than 78 percent said that their productivity doesn’t change when the heat is on. 

So is there a way the other 22 percent can maintain the same work output as the other 78 percent?

Here are our top three suggestions of the best ways to keep productivity up in the summer months when team members are on vacation:

1. Cross Training: Cross training employees is not only good for the business it’s also good for employees.  It provides more flexibility to get the job done while at the same time it allows employees to broaden their horizons by learning new skills—thus making them more valuable to their current and future organizations.

2. Taking Your Own Vacation:  In general we tend to not take advantage of our own vacation time.  In fact according to Expedia, last year one-third of Americans did not use all of their vacation days.  We tend to take too few vacations, so after working extra hard to help out your team members that were on vacation, you deserve one yourself. It’s been proven that taking your allotted vacation time is a great stress release that will allow you to come back to work relaxed, refreshed, and ready to dive back in. 
   
   
3. Summer Hours: As a way to keep employees motivated throughout the week when the weather is beautiful outside, summer hours are offered as an incentive for a Friday afternoon off, the whole Friday off every week, or every other Friday off entirely.  Flexible summer hours are attractive to employers because it involves no additional cost as long as the work gets done, plus the promise of “free” time off helps boost employee morale and attract and retain workers.  

These three tips are definitely nothing new when it comes to increasing employee productivity, but put these three tips into action and you’ll see your productivity increase in no time.