When we’re not working, we’re able to restore internal resources that we exhausted while dealing with the stress of work.
But not all time off refreshes us equally.
What is it about some holidays that make them so great, that we return to work feeling fully recharged and ready to be our most productive selves again?
Detachment
When experts are asked what the properties are of a really good holiday, in terms of returning to the office rejuvenated, they all jump on the same word first: detachment.
“The most important thing is detachment,” says Mina Westman, a professor of organisational behaviour at Coller School of Management, Tel Aviv University. Detachment means letting go of work psychologically and not thinking about it, or at least not thinking about it negatively.
Detachment seems to work across the board. In studies, detachment was positively associated with employee well-being in both white- and blue-collar jobs and in many countries around the world, according to Charlotte Fritz, associate professor of industrial and organisational psychology at Portland State University.
But for many knowledge workers, detachment is easier said than done. In an era when staying in touch with work colleagues is easier than ever via apps like Skype, Viber and WhatsApp, some employees end up keeping in touch with the office even while on holiday. Checking in throughout a holiday lets employees manage unexpected problems and not get slammed with work upon return, which they may believe will make their return less stressful.
Sabine Sonnentag, professor of work and organisational psychology at the University of Mannheim, Germany, says that “mentally detaching from work is crucial,” but added, “detachment is a means to recover and to restore.” She understands why people feel the need not to detach. “It might be better to check email once a day than constantly ruminate and worry about the emails that might have come in,” she explains.
Nevertheless, she still recommends limiting the amount of time during a holiday that one spends working or even thinking about work. “Feeling guilty because one is not working at the moment is detrimental, maybe more detrimental than working itself,” she said.
Relaxation, however you interpret it
Another attribute of time off that leaves workers feeling more fully recovered is relaxation. It may sound like common sense, but in the moment of planning a holiday, people don’t always prioritise relaxation. Family obligations, like visiting relatives, or designing a holiday that will be fun for the whole family, could leave you without any time to unwind. Don’t sacrifice everything you find relaxing about a holiday to please others.
Relaxation is a pretty subjective word, and Sonnentag said we need not interpret it as a passive activity. “Physical exercise can be highly beneficial for recovery,” she said.
Sonnentag also pointed out that because holidays are longer than other kinds of time off, such as weekends and evenings, they afford people the opportunity to do “more extensive outdoor activities.”
Westman gave a nod to physical activity being beneficial for recovery, too. If you find it relaxing to go on a five-kilometre walk while on holiday, don’t let anyone else talk you out of it.
Mastering a hobby
An unusual way you can increase your chances of having a rejuvenating holiday is to work on a hobby or activity that you’ve been trying to master. Mastery, which Fritz described in a paper she published with coauthors as “engaging in experiences that involved learning or broadening one’s horizons,” can be anything from painting to practicing jiu-jitsu.
Mastery has to do with building skills that are unrelated to our primary jobs, and while they’re sometimes assumed to be creative, they don’t have to be. Playing a musical instrument is just as valid as taking a language-learning class. Time off spent on a hobby or personal activity that improves with long-term and sustained practice helps us recover from work and may increase our ability to think outside the box and creatively solve problems at work, according to one study. So spending your holiday on a yoga retreat or going to dancing classes could have more benefits than you expected.
What not to do on holiday
In addition to not working, Fritz has discovered that “thinking about the negative aspects of your job during holidays has been associated with greater burnout, more health complaints, and lower job performance after holidays.”
Likewise dealing with “non-work hassles,” like getting a flat tire or arguing with family, has been shown to impede recovery during time off. While some non-work hassles are unavoidable, try to steer clear of locations and situations that you know might result in frustration, anger, or annoyance. If driving is a typical source of stress, for example, it might be better to plan your holiday around taxis, car services, and other forms of transportation.
So, what’s the ideal holiday?
While exactly what makes a holiday restorative varies from person to person, many experts do recommend taking more than one holiday a year. The reason has to do with a problem called holiday effect fade out. When we go on holiday, we rejuvenate, but the effects only last so long. Within three weeks of returning to work, employees are likely to be back to their normal levels of stress and burnout, according to a paper by Westman and a coauthor. The more holidays we take, the more total days of recovery effects we’ll feel, right?
What are you going to be doing on your next holiday?
By traditional measures of success, Uber looked like a great business. From its humble beginnings in 2009 to a current valuation of almost $70 billion in early 2017, the ride-sharing app has grown to become one of the most valuable private tech firms in the world.
Uber’s growth has been meteoric, something which many companies can only dream of, and yet its recent string of scandals reveal the story of a broken and dysfunctional company culture.
Management of these companies had created a culture of winner-takes-all, profit-before-all-else, instead of a culture where they asked themselves the question, ‘Are we proud of the work that we’re doing?’.
There are almost 2 billion people actively using the social media website Facebook – that equates to nearly 30 percent of the world’s population. Plus, they are spending an average of 20 minutes per day using the site. For funeral service businesses, a Facebook business ‘Page’ can be a highly viable channel for you to communicate with your community and potential clients about your services and to build a profile with wider community reach than you may currently enjoy. In this article, we will look at what a Facebook business Page is, how it can benefit your funeral business, how to build an audience, and tips on posting content.
Facebook business pages
A Facebook business Page is an extension of your funeral business. It is an easy way to share updates and information with the people who matter most – your potential clients and wider community. It is also a cheap way to help you engage with your clients across their range of digital technology: desktop computers, tablets and on mobile devices.
Benefits to your funeral business
A Facebook Page makes your business discoverable, so that when people search for you on Facebook, they will be able to find you. It also allows you to have one-on-one conversations with your potential clients, who can ‘like’ your Page, read your posts and share them with friends and family. A business Page can help you to reach large groups of people frequently, with messages tailored to their needs and interests. Plus, Facebook Analytics will give you a greater understanding of your potential clients and the success of your posts. When you set up a business Page, a web address can be requested such as facebook.com/xyzfuneralhome, which makes it easier to find you. This Facebook address can be included on your business card, website and other promotional materials.
Once your Page is established you will want to start engaging with Facebook users. Your first step is to create an ‘audience’, which happens when people ‘like’ your Page. To build your audience, encourage your family, friends, suppliers and supporters to initially ‘like’ your Page. They are the people who are most likely to see your posts in their News Feed. Letting the people in your life know about your Page, so they can support you by liking it, creates an initial audience, which helps you to establish credibility and spread your message straight away – and make sure you ‘like’ it yourself. However, it is not the number of likes that matters. It is more important that you genuinely connect with the people who are likely to use your services or that are willing to share your Page posts and updates and to help tell your story on Facebook.
Posting styles
As you post updates, photos and videos, think about what your potential clients find interesting and inspiring. How will you talk to them about your funeral home? What do you want to consistently communicate about your funeral business? You can experiment by posting different kinds of content. For instance, does your audience like photos or prefer it when you share useful links? You can gauge reactions quickly by using Page Insights to see which posts are performing the best. A word of warning, Facebook users generally do not respond well to shameless selling or promotion of any products or brands; inspirational messages, for instance, with photos or video have far better traction and share-rates with the Facebook community. Funeral homes will have better success on Facebook with uplifting stories, good news events and other positive posts.
How to interact
It is suggested that you interact with users on Facebook as though you are communicating with a friend whom you greatly care about. Social media experts suggest:
That you remain authentic and share what you are genuinely excited about and your audience will respond favourably.
Be responsive when people comment on your posts to show that your funeral home is listening and that you care. If you need more time to answer a question, let them know that you are looking into it and get back to them promptly.
The more regularly you post, the greater an opportunity you have for connecting with people and building trust. Setting a schedule for your posts can also help create brand recognition.
Focus on posts that get more engagement, let your audience’s reaction decide what you post in the future.
Your recipe for success is to create Page posts that are interesting and useful to your potential clients and to target your messages so that the right people see them.
How to get the most out of your Facebook posts:
Posts with fewer than 80 characters receive 66% more engagement than lengthier counterparts.
Questions within posts have 92% higher comment rates than non-question posts.
Posts that have a question located at the end have a 15% higher overall interaction rate and a 2x higher comment rate than those asked in the middle of a post.
82% of people think Facebook is a good place to interact with brands.
The number one reason 73% of social media users “unliked” a brand on Facebook was because the brand posted too frequently (balance is the key here).
Measuring your success
Facebook has different tools to help you measure how your page is performing. Page Insights help you look for trends so you can develop more of the best-performing content. Use Page Insights to understand who responds to your messages. Make sure that you look at the gender, age and location of the people who are the most engaged with your business so you can continue to engage them through targeted posts. Keep in mind that if one person likes your post, then all their Facebook friends will likely see your post, and that is significant, since half of all adult Facebook users have more than 200 friends in their network.
Summary
Facebook can be a useful tool in being able to communicate and interact with your potential clients and to build your profile in the wider community. A Facebook business Page is cheap and easy to establish, however you must be consistent with your posts and promptly respond to questions and comments coming from your audience. Remember, Facebook users are most likely to share your content that is inspiring and positive and always communicate with users as you would with a close friend, because social media is just that – social.
The Chester family came to us with an idea that they wanted an Expression Coffin for their beloved Aunty that reflected her love of New Zealand. Our Lake Wanaka design was just what they were looking for.
“My Aunty Jean was from the South Island and loved the Southern lakes. She often talked to us about her childhood in New Zealand and her family holidays with her parents and siblings in the mountains. We were all shocked when we lost her and when we saw the Lake Wanaka Expression Coffin on the website we knew that this was the perfect choice for her. The funeral was a difficult day, however her coffin was absolutely beautiful and many family and friends told us that we couldn’t have chosen a better scene for our Aunty.” -Kora Chester
We chose a high-resolution image of Lake Wanaka for use on the design
The custom-wood coffin was built and prepared for wrapping
The image wrap was created and applied to the coffin
The final design featured an image that wrapped seamlessly around and over the coffin… perfection!
We were very proud and honoured to see one of our special Expression Coffin designs on the televised funeral of local hero and police officer Senior Constable Brett Forte recently.
Senior Constable Forte was posthumously presented with policing’s highest honour – the Valour Award – for removing his colleagues out of harm’s way after he had been fatally shot.
The moving public service was attended by thousands of mourners who turned out to pay their respects to the officer and his family. The video eulogy depicted images of Mr Forte at the beach and his coffin was fittingly covered in a full-length picture of a surfer riding a perfect wave.
We want to sincerely thank you, our wonderful funeral home clients throughout Victoria, that have supported us in the region and helped us to grow…and grow.
Because of your amazing support we have outgrown yet another distribution centre in the state, so we are moving to a bigger, better location for you.
The move to larger premises means that we can carry even more stock for you, especially those items that you may urgently require from time-to-time, such as:
Double, triple, quadruple oversize coffins
Child’s coffins, or
Special coloured coffins.
We will also be stocking more of our standard product lines:
Expression Coffins,
Our traditional casket/coffin range,
Return to Sender, and
Batesville caskets
Funeral homes are welcome to pick up stock from our new address, please just give us a call to arrange a time. And, if you are out our way, you are welcome to stop in for a coffee with Patrick and Pardeep anytime.
Please call our office on 1300 263 346 if you would like any more information.
We look forward to seeing you at our new location in Campbellfield soon.
