Many of us look forward to the end-of-year holidays as a time to step away from work for a longer period to recharge. Indeed, more and more companies are giving their employees a week or more paid holiday, stretching from late December to early January, to express their appreciation for their team members’ hard work over the past year and to foster a better work-life balance.
However, when coming back to work from an extended break, it can be difficult to get back into the groove and refocus on tackling the upcoming year’s challenges. Such a “holiday hangover” can hit professionals and teams in any industry—including tech. Below, 16 members of Forbes Technology Council share their best tips—including the special efforts and events they rely on themselves—for getting a tech department back on track after the holidays.
Members pictured from left to right.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Block Off The First Day Back For Planning
After a long holiday, there is always a “holiday hangover.” The best tip for getting back on track is to block the calendar on the first day to have time to plan what lies ahead. Use this first day to set objectives and key results with your teams and see what the roadmap looks like. This planning day sets the scene for the rest of the quarter. – Valentin Buzea, Waydev
2. Share Holiday Experiences And Set Short-Term Goals
Tech is a mentally exhausting job, and tech teams need periodic breaks. At the end of the day, these breaks help clear the mind and allow team members to come back with new experiences. We always talk about what we saw, learned or ate over our holidays. We then talk about our goals and set clear expectations for what we want to achieve today, in a week and in a month. – Tripty Arya, Travtus
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3. Implement Daily Meetings For Quick Alignment
Try implementing daily meetings to quickly align and refocus the team. Set clear goals and priorities for the new year, and establish a strong team culture centered on open communication and collaboration. Set a time limit on the first day for exchanging holiday experiences between employees—that shows respect for their personal lives. – Shahar Hania, Rail Vision
4. Work Together To Solve A Current Problem
Start a transformation project. This could be a continued journey to the cloud, building a data-driven solution, or identifying platform rationalization opportunities or technology optimization opportunities. Get the team excited about the future while solving today’s problems. – Dutt Kalluri, Celsior Technologies
5. Review The Progress From The Previous Year
I’ve found it helps to go over the year. Review the previous year, and go over the team’s history. It usually turns out that you and your team have done way more than you might have thought. A pat on the back is always good! And if that previous year was not good, and you can’t find anything to get you revved up for the year to come, then it might be time to reassess. – Rhonda Dibachi, HeyScottie.com
6. Schedule A Meeting With Company Execs
Start the new work year with a retrospective and a planning meeting with the company’s executives. First, it’s a way to shift into the work atmosphere and kick off the year. Second, it’s a chance to get some motivation by looking at last year’s achievements and planning realistic goals for the new year. – Yuriy Berdnikov, Perpetio
7. Remind Everyone Of Your Mission
January is a great time to remind everyone of your mission. Call a full team meeting and start with the “why.” What is the company trying to accomplish, and how will the technology team support those goals? Lay out the strategy and roadmaps with milestones for the year. When people can draw a straight line between what they do and the purpose it serves, it reenergizes and refocuses everyone. – Claire Rutkowski, Bentley Systems
8. Acknowledge Team Members’ Accomplishments From The Previous Year
Does the holiday hangover have your tech team down? Start the new year by acknowledging the accomplishments and jobs well done from the previous year. Even give out some rewards—both serious and fun. Then, have a planning session for the new year’s strategy and goals, where everyone participates in planning for success. So often we forget to celebrate and recognize how it fuels the future. – Kerrie Hoffman, Hoffman Digital
9. Don’t Leap Straight Into Big Projects
Let your first 90-day goals be based on continuing to deliver a strong, stable environment for ramps and prescheduled initiatives. Allow your team to transition back into the flow of working together and possibly come down from the holiday rush volume. Save those big non-service-impacting upgrades and automations for a later date to drive work-life balance and quality of execution. – Bob Dechant, ibex
10. Discuss January Deliverables And Q1 Priorities
Holding a new year kickoff meeting has been effective for us year after year. I scheduled it in December for the following first week in January. We focus on the year’s roadmap of deliverables that were built during the previous year for execution in the following year. A solid discussion on priorities for Q1, with an emphasis on deliverables for January, aligns the teams and managers after the holiday break. – Ken Isaacson, Assembly Software LLC
11. Acknowledge How Everyone’s Feeling And Show Your Appreciation
Acknowledge the “holiday hangover” feeling! It spreads throughout the whole company, so let your tech team know it’s normal and you’ll all get through it together. Stay excited for them and point out the small wins to help build momentum. Expressing appreciation and small gestures also go a long way, and ending a workday an hour early to hit a happy hour together is a great way to boost morale. – Jordan Yallen, MetaTop
12. Create A Video Message Including A Recap And New Priorities
Send a Loom video message recapping where the business left off, and reinforce what the priorities are in the new year. The nice part of Loom experiences is that they can be delivered and viewed asynchronously. Usually, team members’ returns from the holidays are staggered, so a recorded, concise visual message delivered in a way that people can absorb asynchronously is effective. – Amit Jain, ServiceMax
13. Hold A Full-Day Kickoff Session
One of the best ways to get the dev team together after the holidays is to conduct a full-day dev kickoff, similar to how sales teams do a sales kickoff session. You can talk about the company and dev team goals for the year, describe the product and technical vision, present the planned roadmap and make sure that everyone is on the same page and motivated for the year to come. – Itai Sadan, Duda Inc.
14. Include The Whole Company In Goal-Setting For The New Year
It’s important not to wait too long to set clear goals and priorities for the new year so that everyone can get up to speed quickly again. I recommend having a clear framework for goal setting where the whole company is included. OKRs are a game changer for aligning the organization and reaching ambitious goals. – Marcus Wennmo, Eletive
15. Establish Clear Communication Channels And Protocols
One way to get your tech department back on track after the holidays is to have a team meeting to discuss priorities and goals for the new year. This can help to refocus the team and ensure that everyone is aligned and working towards the same objectives. It can also be helpful to establish clear communication channels and protocols so that team members can easily stay in touch and coordinate. – Alex Senemar, Voxel
16. Hold A Hackathon Week
One thing that we do every year is to hold a hackathon week. It sets the mood and gets people excited in various ways—they can catch up on an idea that they didn’t invest time in during the previous year or play with ideas before the roadmap for the year is set in stone. In general, it fosters creativity, gets people thinking in different ways and encourages them to solve near-term or outrageous problems. – Varun Singh, Daily