Yes, kind of a forced vacation week. I think people come back in Jan feeling less burned out… vs having to sneak some random work days in on Dec 28th or whatever.
That’s a nice gesture; hopefully you can keep it up!
I once worked at a place that tried to always give close the office two extra days during that span. As long as Christmas wasn’t a Wednesday, they always made it such that you had an extra long weekend twice in a row, and announced it in early November so people could plan well enough in advance.
They also, for planning purposes, assumed that there were only 11 months in a year. That is, each person was only expected to do one full month of work total in Nov and Dec. it gave people time to catch up, work on tech debt, learn something, experiment with something, shop, take vacation, etc. I’d say that more often than not it was overall more productive.
I once worked at a place that tried to always give close the office two extra days during that span. As long as Christmas wasn’t a Wednesday, they always made it such that you had an extra long weekend twice in a row, and announced it in early November so people could plan well enough in advance.
They also, for planning purposes, assumed that there were only 11 months in a year. That is, each person was only expected to do one full month of work total in Nov and Dec. it gave people time to catch up, work on tech debt, learn something, experiment with something, shop, take vacation, etc. I’d say that more often than not it was overall more productive.