The Monday Blues is the idea that employees “start the week with a negative attitude” because the weekend has ended and the workweek has just begun (Pindek et al., 1449). This bad mood increases sensitivity to work stressors, specifically incivility and work constraints (1449). Past research has shown that workplace incivility can lead to “decreased retention, productivity, engagement, job satisfaction, organization commitment, and lower self-rated health” (Nicholson & Griffin, 2). Protecting employees from the negative effects of the Monday Blues is imperative. If employees aren’t protected from incivility, the employees and the company will suffer.
A recent study conducted in the U.S. found that employees felt less job satisfaction at the beginning of the workweek, specifically on Mondays (Pindek et al., 1460). In addition, employees perceived and/or experienced heightened incivility on Mondays (1460). This means that on Monday employees perceived more mistreatment and unkind behaviors from others at work. Importantly, the researchers found “that perceived incivility had a negative effect on job satisfaction” only in the beginning of the workweek (1460). Employees were also more likely to perceive work constraints on Mondays (1460). Work constraints were defined as “work conditions that inhibit employee’s ability to perform job tasks” (1453).
Since employees are most dissatisfied with their jobs on Mondays, it would be wise to minimize perceived and/or experienced incivility. It would also be prudent to decrease perceived and/or experienced work constraints. The goal is to increase job satisfaction, specifically on Monday since employees are most sensitive to incivility and work constraints on this day. Decreasing incivility and work constraints should increase job satisfaction, job engagement, and employee retention. Below are ten suggestions that may help to make Mondays merrier and less blue. The suggestion will be broken up into two categories. Category one will consists of suggestions that may help alleviate perceived and/or experienced work constraints. The second category will consist of suggestions that may help mitigate perceived and/or experienced incivility.
1. Allow Your Employees to Work from Home on Mondays
If you can, allow your employees to work from home on Mondays. This can help alleviate potential work constraints. For example, some employees may feel like they aren’t able to get as much done at work because there’s bound to be a colleague who interrupts his/her concentration. The colleague may have something important to say, but an email would have been less distracting. Allowing employees to work from home on Mondays can also help ease employees back into the workweek. Overall, it’s difficult for employees to go from resting at home to working back on-site.
Teleworking can help mitigate the negative mood associated with going from a relaxing state to a working state. Teleworking can help eliminate several factors that can contribute to the Monday Blues. For instance, teleworking reduces stress associated with getting to work on time, driving to work, and waking up early. Working from home eliminates the need to drive to work, which in return can help reduce anxiety related to not getting to work on time. Lastly, employees have the opportunity to sleep in because their commute has been reduced, for some employees this reduced commute may be significant depending on how far they live.
2. Have Casual Mondays
Casual Mondays can be a helpful way to reduce perceived and/or experienced work constraints on employees, especially if is not possible for your company to have Work from Home Mondays. Every Monday workers start off the week with the opportunity to wear casual clothes that are appropriate for work. On Casual Mondays, employees should be encouraged to wear comfortable clothes. Note, Casual Mondays are the exact same as Casual Fridays. However, Casual Mondays might be more beneficial since employees are typically in a bad mood on Mondays. Casual Mondays may help reduce the Monday Blues by possibly elevating mood and job satisfaction.
3. Minimize Monday Deadlines
Minimize stress on Mondays by minimizing Monday deadlines. If you can help it, schedule deadlines closer to the end of the workweek. People are sensitive to stress at the beginning of the week, so adding multiple Monday deadlines isn’t helpful (1449). Employees have more vigor at the end of the workweek and are better equipped to handle stress (Nicholson & Griffin, 6). For the reason, deadlines at the end of the week are more favorable.
4. Regulate Workloads
Regulate your employees’ workloads on Monday. Every week, have your employees write their upcoming Monday and Tuesday deadlines in a shared document. Make sure that the document can be updated just in case deadlines are added or changed throughout the week. On Friday, before the end of the work day, take a look at the document. If you notice the majority of your employees have an unrealistic number of Monday deadlines, it’s time to make a change. Encourage your employees to schedule deadlines towards the end of the week. In addition, as the employer, it’s important that you communicate with clients about deadline dates. Inform clients that there are limited slots for Monday deadlines, but that the rest of the week has a lot more availability.
5. Provide Support
Provide support to your employees who are most in need. Similar to having a deadline document, you can also create a workload document for Mondays and Tuesdays. Have your employees rate how stressful they think their workload will be on the coming Monday. On Friday, look at the document and determine which one of your employees has the most tasks and which employee rated their upcoming Monday workload as most stressful. This is helpful because the employee who has the most work will be getting help, as well as the employee who feels like their work will be most stressful.
Once you determine the two employees who need the most support decide how you will provide that support. Will you personally help those two employees, or will you ask your interns to help those employees, or will another coworker help those employees? This is an important question, and one that needs to be answered. It might prove helpful to email those two employees on Friday and ask them what they would prefer as well as which tasks they need the most help on. More importantly, when you do help these two employees, don’t make them feel inferior or bad for needing help. The whole point is to increase job satisfaction, not to decrease job satisfaction by making employees feel bad for needing support.
6. Encourage Giving Words of Affirmation
The biggest stressor associated with Monday Blues is perceived and/or experienced incivility. Incivility in the workplace has been shown to decrease work satisfaction and to increase turnover rate, which is why it’s imperative to eliminate bad manners in the workforce. One way to reduce rude behavior is by promoting words of affirmation, especially on Mondays. You can do this by randomly assigning people within the same department to one another. For example, an employee named Greg may be assigned to an employee named Carol. The person Greg is assigned to is the person he will email words of affirmation to. Greg might write “Good Morning Carol, I want to let you know that your hard work doesn’t go unnoticed. I really appreciated when you did X for our team.” As the leader, it’s important to join in. Write a kind note to an employee who has been randomly assigned to you.
7. Give Positive Recognition
Give your employees positive face-to-face recognition on Monday. This is different from encouraging others to give words of affirmation. Since you are the boss it is likely that you are very busy and probably don’t get to converse with your employees as often as you would like. For this reason, it would be valuable to set time aside on Mondays to give your employees positive recognition face-to-face. Employees want to know that they are doing a good job and that they are valued by you. Make a list of all of everyone you are managing and take time every Monday to tell them thank you for something specific that you know they worked hard on. If you can’t get to everyone on Monday, continue to give positive face-to-face recognition on Tuesday. Make sure your employees know that they are respected and valued every single week.
8. Avoid Making Critiques
Avoid making critiques on Monday, even if it’s constructive. The critique can wait another day. Employees are sensitive to incivility on Monday, and any kind of critique can be perceived as a personal attack. If the critique really can’t wait, try your best to be delicate and make sure to give positive affirmation afterwards.
9. Give Small Gifts
Money doesn’t grow on trees, which is why giving small gifts is merely a suggestion. Small gift giving can be something that you do on the first Monday of every month instead of every Monday. You can bring coffee, donuts, snacks, lunch, or gift cards for your employees. Maybe you can create a raffle and the winner gets a gift basket, or employees can compete in a fun game for a gift. If you do games, make sure that they don’t interfere with your employees’ work.
10. Acknowledge & Make Mondays Merry
Lastly, acknowledge your employees will probably always feel a little blue on Monday. Don’t make your employees feel bad that they aren’t excited to be back to work. Most people prefer to rest, and that’s okay! Nevertheless, try your best to make Mondays a little bit brighter for your employees. Mondays can be more merry than blue. Cheers to merrier Mondays.
Works Cited:
Pindek, Shani, et al. “Workdays are not created equal: Job satisfaction and job stressors across the workweek.” 2021.
Nicholson, Tahnee, and Barbara Griffin. “Thank goodness it’s Friday: weekly pattern of workplace incivility.” 2016.