Autumn’s Surprising Ability to Affect Employee Productivity

The 22nd of September marked the beginning of Autumn. While cold weather and dark days may seem daunting, they can have a positive effect on your employee productivity. Hence why the more you can prepare for Autumn, the better your employee engagement, wellbeing and productivity will be. Likewise, understanding your team's needs during this time can help exponentially. 

How Can Autumn Affect Employee Productivity? 

Positive Effects on Employee Productivity:

According to a study carried out by Redbooth, a company helping other companies stay organised, the highest percentage of tasks were completed in October and were at their lowest in January.

Social Life

As the days get shorter and temperatures drop, people are less likely to be distracted by their social life. Therefore, more rest inside will enable your people to feel more awake and prepared for work every day. A huge comparison to Summer, when many people enjoy spending most of their outside and seeing friends and family. Additionally, the cold weather may affect some people’s ability to venture outside if they are sensitive to harsher conditions. Although, this is dependent on how often your people go out, to begin with. 

Christmas

Many individuals also want to save their money for Christmas. Ultimately meaning they stay in more and work longer hours where possible, meaning more productive work. But for those on a salary, this may not be the case. Instead, it may mean higher employee productivity when trying to work towards the all-important Christmas bonus. 

Empathy

During the colder seasons, people also have a heightened amount of empathy. Community spirit and allowances for lower mood increases because we all understand that feeling! In effect, this increases employee relations and company culture. Furthermore, increasing your people’s enjoyment within the workplace.

Negative Effects on Employee Productivity:

Lower Mental Wellbeing

However, it is important to note that some of your people may be affected by seasonal change. In other words, less sun can negatively impact their mental wellbeing and disrupt their ability to work.

Absenteeism

It may not be a surprise that colder weather can increase sickness. As a result, there are fewer people to complete tasks and support others. 

How Can You Avoid Lower Employee Productivity?

Rewards & Recognition

Rewards and recognition are fundamental to any business looking to improve or maintain employee productivity. Individuals have 14% higher employee engagement in organisations where recognition occurs. Therefore, implementing an employee reward scheme will fortify your productivity.

Community

Enable meaningful and friendly connections between teams and individuals to support a sense of community. This way, your people will feel more emotional support and connection. Those who struggle in the cold may find it easier to reach out for help as a result. 

In essence, it is hard to determine the exact effects Autumn might have on employee productivity. However, to help your people, you must support, listen and understand their needs. This can be said all year around. In doing so, you will create a culture built on trust and helpfulness, which will exponentially help productivity. 

Implementing the nudge theory has also been recognised as a simple but effective way to improve employee engagement, wellbeing and relations. Learn more about how this theory works in our blog!

To find out how Each Person can help your employee productivity all year round, contact us at info@eachperson.com.

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