How To Support Your Team’s Mental Health During the Holidays
The holiday season is a time of joy, celebration, and stress.
As festive music and twinkling lights begin overtaking our surroundings, it’s easy to get swept up in the magic of the holiday season. However, the season can create the perfect storm of work deadlines, social obligations, and personal pressure.
Employees are juggling deadlines, performance reviews, increased traffic, and personal holiday celebrations on a to-do list that never seems to end.
So how can our workplaces help ease the burden employees feel and support mental health outcomes during this demanding season? Let’s find out.
In this article we’ll explore:
The Impact of the Holidays
The holiday season often brings a sense of joy with it: often it means bright lights, a first snowfall, and spending quality time with family and friends. However, the reality of the season can look very different up close. The season brings a unique set of challenges to the workplace, where we often start to blend professional pressures with the emotional demands of the season.
For all their joy, the holidays can amplify stress and disrupt routines because of the added responsibilities from work and home.
You’ve likely seen it happen, or had the unfortunate experience of going through it first hand. It starts with managing end-of-year deadlines and goals to navigating the inevitable social events of the season, from holiday parties to new year celebrations. With all these pressures coming together at once, employees are often forced to juggle multiple roles.
Here’s a closer look at some of the biggest work stressors during the holidays:
Increased Workloads: Many employees are experiencing deadlines, reporting on goals, finalizing projects, and conducting/receiving performance reviews. This can increase hours and put undue stress on employees and organizations at large.
Social Pressures: Much like your personal life, our workplaces may celebrate with parties and gift exchanges, too. These are well-intentioned, created to bring team members together and show appreciation for the work that they do. There’s no denying that they can add more layers of stress in an already stressful season. This is especially true when it comes to having to navigate team dynamics, financial limitations, and time constraints.
Emotional Challenges: To maintain a healthy attitude between work and home, we require balance. However, as professional responsibilities increase during the holiday season, as do personal ones. From family gatherings to the heavy lifting—sometimes literally—that comes with finding and buying gifts, people are experiencing pressures fiscally, professionally, and personally. With all those moving parts placing new burdens on everyone, employees are left feeling overwhelmed and drained.
Understanding these challenges is the first step to creating a supportive and balanced workplace during the holidays.
What Can You Do to Support Your Employees?
As a leader or manager, supporting employees’ mental health should be a crucial part of your work. Why? Well, research by the World Economic Forum shows that, not only does mental health and neurodiversity play a huge part in the wellbeing of employees, team members, and organizations, there is also no one size fits all approach or solution.
Of course, this isn’t surprising. Mental health challenges are unique to the individual, from their treatment options to the way people manage them. It only makes sense for managers, executives, and HR professionals to approach mental health from an open, empathetic place. A common question asked is how leadership teams can approach their employees directly about neurodivergence in a way that doesn’t create an uncomfortable environment.
Below are some of our ideas and suggestions to help improve the mental health of your employees this season:
✅ Do not ask someone directly about their neurodiversity or mental health. It can come across as aggressive, or create discomfort for individuals who may have already faced prejudice for their struggles.
💡Instead, approach employees with a strengths-based approach. For example, ask questions such as:
When are you the most successful?
What is the most challenging part of your role, and how can we make it easier for you?
Is there anything I can change in my approach to help you?
✅ Do not use phrases or comments about “real” holidays or exclude certain faiths or practices from office events.
💡Instead, train employees on cultural humility and provide guidance on inclusive language and practices. By addressing moments of microaggressions constructively or before they happen, leaders reinforce an organization's commitment to equity.
And, of course, expand your holiday celebrations by including diverse traditions and festivities too!
✅ Do not force team members to participate in gift-giving events and exchanges.
💡Instead, make sure all holiday-related celebrations (especially if they cost money) are emphasized as optional. Or, even better, provide company-funded events or introduce charitable giving campaigns as an alternative. This helps reduce financial stress across the team, especially at a time when financial inequities often become emphasized.
Keep These Tips in Mind:
Don’t assume you know what’s best for your team members.
Discuss taking time off openly with employees, and remind them of time off benefits and vacation days that may expire by the end of the year should they need them.
Offer small gatherings for employees who may otherwise spend the holiday alone. Holidays can often amplify feelings of isolation, especially for individuals who do not have family nearby, are estranged, or come from underrepresented backgrounds.
What Kinds of Support and Resources Can Employers Provide?
There are a variety of resources available for employees and employers to provide mental health relief and assistance across your team.
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) can provide private, accessible counseling and coaching services for employees.
Workshops and training around neurodiversity and mental health awareness can help employees and leadership teams incorporate healthy practices into their daily life and reduce workplace stressors.
Approximately 78% of U.S. employers can provide mental health benefits, including employee assistance programs and psychological services. It’s important to emphasize the use of these benefits, as they are often overlooked by many employees.
Perform annual reviews on policies and procedures, updating them as needed to focus on employee wellness and draw clear guidelines on how team members should treat each other.
Strategically and proactively train staff on the importance of positive interactions, emphasizing interpersonal skills with frameworks in place to deal with employees who are engaging in bullying behaviors.
Navigating Workplaces that are Hesitant to Provide Support
1. Understand Your Rights and Laws
Research your local labor laws and workplace policies to know what rights you have to reasonable accommodations. For example, in many regions employers are legally required to provide accommodations for mental health conditions and disabilities.
Workplace accommodations in the U.S.
Workplace accommodations in Canada
2. Workplace Policies
Reference and familiarize yourself with your company’s policies on inclusivity, accommodations, and mental health supports.
3. Frame Requests as a Win-Win
When you’re asking for accommodations or time off this holiday season, especially in an environment that is hesitant to do so, present and highlight how these adjustments can make you perform better. Use specific, strength-based language to discuss how accommodations can leverage your skills.
For example, you could say something like, “I’d like to adjust my schedule to leave early on Fridays so I can manage my caregiving responsibilities at home and not become too overwhelmed. That way, I can stay focused and productive during work hours without worrying about the things I need to do later.”
This approach emphasizes the positive impact of the accommodation on your performance, framing it as a proactive step toward sustaining your contributions to the team.
4. Boundaries and Self-Care
If work is not providing enough support, prioritize your mental health by setting clear boundaries around work hours and responsibilities. When you aren’t working, separate yourself from your workspace—especially if you work from home—and engage in activities that recharge your energy.
5. Build Connections
When you can’t count on leadership for support, you can often count on coworkers and friends to support you, share your values, and discuss ways to reduce stress together. By building a network of support with coworkers you trust, you often feel less alone in your struggles and can share the pain points that are, in all likelihood, affecting not only you, but your team members as well.
Quick Resources to Help Ease Stress
🍅 Pomodoro timers are a great way to stay on task with short rests in between to make sure you’re not becoming too overwhelmed.
⌛ Project management applications such as Trello or Asana can help you keep on top of your projects.
🗣️ Speech to text apps assist with notetaking, especially in long meetings where task lists can become muddled.
🧘 Meditation apps such as Calm, Headspace, or Balance can help give your mind a quick break and provide some relief.
Creating a Season of Support
The holiday season can be joyful and challenging, but work can help by creating community-focused environments where employees feel valued, supported, and understood. It’s important to recognize the unique pressures of the holiday season and take steps to address and alleviate them wherever we can.
If you or your employees require additional, outside support, these resources can help:
The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) provides mental health programming and crisis support lines for every U.S. state.
The Canadian government lists a number of province-specific support lines, as well as contacts for veterans, youth, Indigenous peoples, and more.
And Remember: small changes can make a huge difference—for example, offering flexible schedules, creating open communication channels, and encouraging self-care significantly improves the wellbeing of team members. It also cultivates a healthier, productive workplace culture that lasts beyond the holidays.
