End of the working year in pandemic mode: How to face the celebrations at work safely

Companies have different plans where technology appears as the main ally to maintain the care of workers during the year-end holidays.

The world of work will once again face new celebrations in pandemic mode in the coming days. This time the end of year festivities appear as another challenge
for companies that throughout 2020 have had to adapt to avoid contagion and continue operating in the midst of the largest health emergency experienced in recent times. 
This is well known to labor stakeholders, who are aware of what it means to celebrate Christmas and New Year's in the current climate. "There will undoubtedly be a significant change in the work holidays, not just now, but throughout the duration of the pandemic.

This is something we already saw, for example, with the recent Fiestas Patrias (National Holidays), a time when companies had to be capable of innovating and seeking tools other than physical contact, in order to maintain the continuity of personal relationships at work and perpetuate opportunities that allowed for cohesion among work teams,” explains Gustavo Yaquinto, commercial manager of the consulting firm Emprende360.

In this same sense, the expert says that holding corporate celebrations in a context of crisis like the current one "is a challenge not only for large companies, but also for start-ups and SMEs
. However, we have seen that most companies have exploited their creativity on the fly, opting for alternatives other than those that involve physical contact, and workers appreciate this, even more so in uncertain scenarios, since it allows them to encourage their sense of belonging to the company and that leads to greater well-being and improved productivity.”

Precisely at SAMTECH, an IT services, monitoring, control and fleet management company, they point out that they already have a plan to safely face the celebrations
that will be experienced in the coming days

“We are determined to prioritize the remote modality and health protocols 
carried out during 2020. Despite this, we are opting for Christmas and New Year with virtual meetings and activities where social distancing is respected, and applying all the technological resources available for it, ”says Camila Concha Lahsen, SAMTECH Human Resources manager. .
Likewise, he adds that "in our organization, we will promote celebrations within each family, we will reinforce the sense of belonging to the great SAMTECH family in each of our collaborators and we will maintain the usual benefits for these festivities, such as the delivery of Christmas bonuses ( …) We are a technology company, so remote communications are part of our organizational culture and DNA. In these festivities, clearly, these tools will also be used to transmit end-of-year messages and strengthen the relationship with our collaborators on these significant dates."

A similar digital path is the one that Emprende360 will take, from where they explain that “although it has been a special and particular year, we are going to do entertaining things for this year's end. Among them, we will have a virtual meal 
so that our collaborators who are working at home can do so via streaming with a virtual snack. To that, we will add a physical gift that will be sent to the workers' homes and will arrive more or less at the same time that we will celebrate virtually. In addition, we will perform a virtual karaoke. Although before we hired people to physically play music and motivate dancing and singing in person, now we are going to do it online and sharing with the family of each of the collaborators.” 
But, in addition, Gustavo Yaquinto continues, “we will generate online competitions
about Christmas tree decorations, and in case some people do not have their tree because they have just moved house, we will send them one so they can decorate it and participate in the contest. We will also carry out a “secret online friend” where we will see all the gifts with our own family and in our homes, without taking any type of risk, and making the activity entertaining and different.”
All of this, Yaquinto maintains, aims to take advantage of the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity
, “and that is what we recommend to companies. Entrepreneurs have to be creative since we are very passionate, and that has to be present even more in times like the ones we are currently living in ”, he affirms.
The importance of festivities
Although companies are clear about the importance of celebrating dates like Christmas and New Year for the work environment, they also know that at times like the ones the world is experiencing, the safety of the employees themselves plays an even more important role. 

“There is no doubt that this year has been very complex, and has required the resilience of the entire society to face a pandemic.”
of these magnitudes. But today the most important challenge is to take care of people's health, from the health to the emotional. And the best way to do this is to manage effective work psychosecurity in our collaborators, located throughout the country, who in moments as complex as these seek to be listened to and emotionally supported by the institution to which they belong,” says Camila Concha. 
Hence, as a Human Resources area, the company assumed the task of “accompanying and containing
"to its employees, in addition to "ensuring their jobs and recognizing them for their efforts in recent months. This, in our opinion, is undoubtedly what employees need today. While as a company we typically held in-person end-of-year activities, we have currently opted to provide greater security for our teams and will look for ways to continue these activities in a safe, remote format without health risks, which is the most important thing for us."
In Emprende360, meanwhile, they also recognize that corporate celebrations are established in the DNA of companies and workers and in fact not having these instances can affect collaborators 
since "the end of the year is a time of closure in which they can feel the accumulated weight of work, especially in conditions never before thought of as this pandemic."
That is why they highlight the importance that at the organizational level “instances of recreation continue to be generated. Although they are not in-person, if designed well, these activities can offer many of the key objectives of in-person activities and, at the same time, respect the much-needed safety measures. 
Lessons from this new way of working and living in Covid-19 mode
Although the upcoming holidays represent the most immediate challenge in the labor context, companies also project what the following weeks will be like in terms of operations, taking into account that the summer period is beginning and the crisis continues to hit the country. 

“For the summer period, the ideal is for companies to continue generating virtual meetings
that allow social interaction, especially since January and February are months in which most of the workers expect to enjoy the summer vacations and this time many will not be able to do so”, indicates Gustavo Yaquinto.
On the other hand, SAMTECH emphasizes extreme safety and self-care measures.
, and to this end they continue to opt for remote work to avoid social contact between collaborators. 
“The most important thing today is to ensure the safety and health of people (…) The scenario offered by the pandemic today will undoubtedly change the tone of the meetings
, given that people will seek to expose themselves less and, possibly, we will maintain a permanent dynamic of health protection, social distancing, greater hygiene measures, and self-care will be encouraged more," says Camila Concha Lahsen.

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Source: emol