The holidays can be a particularly stressful time for everyone as they try to work, attend holiday get togethers, school plays and events, shop, and deal with out-of-town guests. Business owners as well may feel the crunch of year-end inventories or holiday sales. Finding a solution that meets everyone’s needs can prove challenging, but ultimately well worth the effort.

Flexibility can be a business owners friend around the holidays. How so? By providing your employees with a flexible work schedule, you ultimately increase morale and productivity. A company policy that incorporates flextime to be used for meeting personal needs makes life easier on everyone.

For example, you could adopt a policy that allows employees time off as long as they agreed to make up the time or allow them to take a shorter lunch and bank time to leave earlier on a Friday. There are several other creative approaches that will keep morale up, employees relaxed and productivity high.

If you are concerned about year-end issues or an increased holiday workload, you can hire temporary help, move year-end inventories up a little or when possible, put projects off until after the holidays. You’ll be more relaxed and that can only help reduce everyone’s stress levels throughout your company.