The holiday spirit is a contagious one and when it takes over the workplace, it becomes important to also spare a moment for holiday compliance and safety amidst all the planning. Depending on what you are celebrating at work and how wild your team is about to be with the decorations, holiday safety can promise a stress-free experience instead of spending it putting out small fires and tripping over stray balloons. HR best practices also come into play during the holiday season, when holiday gift-giving policies can make or break the cheer.
If you’re starting your holiday planning early, let’s look at some holiday compliance and safety strategies to keep your employees safe and satisfied.
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Holiday Compliance and Safety Measures
Before we get to celebrating and decorating for the holiday season, it is important to remember that the celebratory time is still filled with work. Often, the holiday season involves many companies working overtime, entirely in overdrive, to keep up with the demands of the masses. It also involves many young workers seeking employment, especially part-time, to fill up the work demand. Their limited experience during the busiest time of the year can allow many errors to slip through the cracks as well.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) provides multiple guidelines on how to stay alert during the holiday season and maintain compliance and holiday safety practices that minimize the risk of danger. Some examples include:
- Proper training for young and inexperienced workers as well as efficient supervision
- Safe driving practices during delivery
- Limiting the performance pressure on employees to work beyond their limits
- Forklift safety principles and an emphasis on precaution
- Precautions considering ergonomics and physical conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis, muscle strains, etc
- Warehousing and care regarding electrical hazards, hazardous chemicals, material handling, lockouts, automation, emergency planning, etc.
- Ensuring stress and fatigue are handled immediately and employees are not overworked beyond their limits
- Crowd management training and preparations for the large crowds expected during the holiday season
- Ensuing barricades, sufficient staff, managers, visible signboards, etc., to direct crowds in an orderly manner
- Encourages workplace policies regarding workplace violence prevention programs, especially in late-night retail settings
- Maintenance of safety regulations and health compliance in all equipment used for work
- Promotes the creation of health and safety committees that oversee reports of violent incidents, conduct regular inspections, and enforce corrective strategies
Decorating with Care: Holiday Compliance and Safety
Transforming a workspace into someplace fun takes some planning and a whole lot of imagination. Between assigning a team and making sure everything goes off smoothly on the day of, holiday safety often takes a backseat. If you’re used to picking the cheapest Christmas tree or covering up unflattering vents and radiators to spruce a space up, you’re not the only one. However, these choices can often lead to collapsible hazards and overheating if not done carefully. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has many recommendations to keep in mind while decorating for the holiday that can be generalized to the workplace. Let’s review their holiday season recommendations for holiday compliance and safety.
Holiday Compliance Tree Care
If your holiday decor involves using a Christmas tree or any other live fauna, ensure that they are fresh and can survive inside. Old trees can become deadweights prone to falling over. Holiday compliance figures into every aspect of holiday planning.
- Ensure live Christmas trees are fresh—green, needles are resistant to pulling, sticky tree base, needle shedding is minimal. According to the American Health Care Association, live trees should be avoided entirely
- Cut two inches of the trunk to expose fresh wood and ensure water absorption
- Ensure any artificial trees that are chosen are fire-resistant
- Ensure a sturdy base and use wires if necessary, to keep it upright
Light Decorations
Putting up lights, whether indoors or outdoors, is an increasingly common way of celebrating any occasion. But if the space is too small or the lights poorly maintained, they can lead to the dangers of electrocution and fires.
- Only use decorative lights that have safety testing and recheck before use. No exposed live wires or frayed ends should be ignored
- Secure lights, especially external ones, to ensure they do not loosen
- Avoid attaching lights to the tree and creating a fire hazard or getting it charged with electricity
- Do not overload an extension cord—stick to the recommended size and number of light connections. The commission recommends no more than three standard-size sets of lights per single extension cord
Food Practices
Holiday compliance and safety most certainly extend to the food that is provided at office parties. Food poisoning can very easily take down the whole team and ruin the holiday season for everyone. From providing vegetarian options to ensuring no culturally offensive food is served, the food choices come into play very significantly but that’s not all you need to consider.
- Plan rationally for food options and how they can be accommodated at work
- Ensure food is sourced from a trusted location
- Plan for perishables and how they will be preserved without spoiling
- Plan for food disposal as well—having food left unrefrigerated can be unhealthy
- HR best practices ensure prevention rather than dealing with the consequences so check for any food allergies and ensure food is uncontaminated and separated if necessary
- If employees are involved in providing the food, ensure there are guidelines to follow for its preparation
Miscellaneous Holiday Safety Measures
Holiday safety practices involve ensuring caution in the physical space as much as possible. Especially if employees are drinking during the holiday celebrations, having too many objects and safety hazards is not a good idea. This does not mean sparse, uninspired decorations, but instead emphasizes being careful in choosing the material and quantity of all celebratory artifacts carefully.
- Avoid using flames and flammable material as much as possible
- Clear clutter from any areas with open flames
- Ensure an emergency plan is in place and all exits and exit signs are cleared of any obstacles
- To ensure holiday safety, avoid using artificial snow in small, closed spaces
- Attach decorations firmly to avoid any hazards from their falling
- Avoid excessive use of confetti, smoke, sprays, and any other respiratory interferents
- Do not hang decorations from fire alarms, smoke detectors, sprinklers, etc. as they can interfere with safety
HR Best Practices to Ensure Holiday Compliance
The HR team is just as integral during the holiday season as at any other time of the year. It falls to them to ensure that all precautions are considered and, more importantly, enforced without excuse. They have access to every department and employee and as a result, have to do what they can to coordinate plans all across the company.
Employee Privacy
The holiday season might be the best time of the year for some, but not every employee from an organization celebrates equally, whether due to personal preferences or cultural conditions. While it is fair for companies to celebrate, it is also necessary to consider employee privacy and their personal choices to celebrate.
- Inform employees about any changes in work schedules, safety protocols, or privacy measures
- HR best practices involve respecting employees’ personal time during the holidays and avoiding unnecessary intrusions
- Reinforce the importance of data protection and cybersecurity, especially if employees are working remotely
- Provide guidelines on the secure handling of sensitive information and the use of company devices
- When organizing holiday events, respect your employees’ privacy preferences as a key component of holiday compliance
- Communicate the purpose and nature of any workplace celebrations and allow employees to opt-out if they choose
- Communicate safety protocols, such as mask-wearing and social distancing, in the workplace
- Ensure employees are aware of resources to support their mental health and well-being during times of celebration that might be personally difficult for them
- Establish confidential channels for employees to provide feedback or raise concerns about privacy, compliance, or safety. The holiday season should never result in lax policy enforcement
Holiday Gift-Giving Policies
Who doesn’t love gifts? Well, many people don’t but it’s usually something to look forward to during the holiday season. Again, it often falls to the HR and top management to determine what policies they want to uphold regarding the exchange of gifts at work. It also becomes important to consider whether companies are to reward employees with any special gifts, benefits, or bonuses as there might be certain expectations among employees.
- Clearly outline what types of gifts are considered appropriate within the workplace
- Specify whether tangible gifts, gift cards, or homemade items are acceptable
- Establish a suggested, reasonable budget range for gifts to ensure parity among employees
- Encourage gift exchanges that are inclusive and considerate of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds as a party of holiday compliance policies
- Make participation in gift exchanges voluntary to respect individual preferences
- Clearly communicate the holiday gift-giving policy to all employees
- Address the acceptance of gifts from external parties, such as vendors or clients and oversee this holiday compliance carefully
- Consider encouraging charitable contributions or group activities that benefit the community
- Periodically review and update the holiday gift-giving policy to ensure it aligns with the evolving needs and values of the organization
According to EQS, the IRS maintains that in the U.S., businesses cannot gift clients with items valued at more than $25 per person at the client’s business. While an interesting law, it helps us to consider the importance of investing in holiday compliance policies. All policies have a role to play and holiday safety and compliance policies are much the same. They encourage enjoyment and cheer while also ensuring it happens in a safe and controlled manner that considers everyone involved.