5 Ways Valentine’s Day can Cost Your Business
Most businesses look forward to Valentine’s Day as the next big-bucks occasion following the holiday period. People are still reeling from their holiday spends in January, but come mid-February they are ready to pull out the plastic again to spend their hard earned cash on gifts for that special someone in their life.
What many people outside the retail industry don’t realise, however, is that the lovers’ feast can actually be a big drain on productivity and a security threat at the workplace. Below are five things you should look out for tomorrow when love goes to most of your employees’ heads.
1. Social media
The first, and most obvious, time waster is social media. Employees are guaranteed to be on the look-out for messages from people they like or love, and the slightly more nosy ones will be spending an entire day stalking their exes or taking note of which couples profess their love for each other publicly on Valentine’s Day.
2. Chatting
The more cautious employees will not display their love publicly because it would give them away to their colleagues and bosses, however they might still spend the day chatting away with their better half on Google chat, Facebook chat, or any other type of IM. Valentine’s Day is also a special day for chat portals – those tend to slip between most network admins’ fingers.
3. Shopping for gifts
Oops, forgot to buy your other half a gift? Why not look for something while at the office? Shopping for gifts online is practical and easy. And if your employee is looking for a racy gift, it saves them the embarrassment of choosing it in public. But, apart from the waste of time, does this open your business up to any additional risks?
4. Planning the night
A number of individuals will spend the day “researching new ideas” for that special night. Again, this is not only a big waste of time, but can also have legal and security implications on your business, because it is very easy for employees to land on pornographic and malware-ridden sites when they are searching around the darker underworld of the Internet.
5. Security
On a day like Valentine’s Day, it is much easier for people to fall for phishing scams and unwanted malware downloads. Scammers will play on people’s desires to feel loved and special. As a result there is a much higher chance of them clicking on malicious content when they receive an email with an attachment purporting to be a card from someone anonymous.
So before thinking of your own loved one, it might be wise to consider plugging any holes you might have in your company’s productivity and security solutions. Using advanced web filtering and monitoring software will help put your mind at ease by protecting you from time wasters and cyber-criminals. The latest programs allow you to manage the amount of time users can browse non-work-related websites, block chat clients and protect you from phishing and malware downloads.
You can enforce all of these points without ruining the spirit of the day, either. Most everybody smiles when somebody gets an unexpected delivery of flowers to their workstation, but just like the deliveryman is probably stopped at the front desk for security reasons, web security needs to be handled the same way, and employees need to know that unnecessary risks will be stopped by admins doing their jobs correctly.
In the office, I think social media has the upper-hand when it comes to being a top-notch time waster and productivity-drainer. How do I know this? Well, because me and my office buddies used to do this all the time on special occasions and holiday events, such as birthdays and Valentine’s days.
For most of us social media, particularly Facebook, is already part of our personal and professional lives. It’s OK if you use it at home or during office breaks. But when you are working, use it at your own risk. Most companies, such as ours, now have a strict policy against using Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Don’t totally blame social media, chatting, and other online activities for work-related inefficiencies. These so-called “nuisances” can also be used as a tool to drive growth and revenue in your business. Just like with all types on technology, social media usage can leap out of control if users don’t use it responsibly.
If you’re an employee, limit the time you spend on Facebook or Twitter. If you’re the owner or manager of the company, install in your computers a monitoring software that could keep track of each employee’s Internet usage. These are just some of the things you can do.
I agree Valentine’s Day comes with special distractions but I don’t think it is more of a security risk than any other day. For instance, some co-workers of mine, who don’t get on well with their so-called Significant Others, Loves of Their Life, or simply Spouses, chat every days with them to have the daily quarrel for hours and then spend more hours chatting with other people, who console them about the quarrel they had. Basically, they spend a lot of time chatting – first fighting over IM with their Better Half, then seeking comfort from friends. You can’t blame Valentine’s Day for excessive chatting, etc. The guys before me put it correctly – if you have the policy in place, Valentine’s Day or any other special day shouldn’t be a problem.
Well, I don’t agree with Agnes D’s comments re: don’t blame social media. Facebook and Twitter are two of the most infamous culprits of why some employees tend to be unproductive at the office. This is especially true to young staff aged 18 to 25. These employees are more into their selves. Meaning, they care what people will say or think about them. They also love to hangout with friends and take pictures. They’re also more techy than the older groups.
The moment they log on to social media, they can’t let it go for a while. And this will get worst if your office is not controlled with a monitoring software. For me, Facebook, Twitter, and all other forms of social media should be totally banned in a work environment (unless of course if your work is directly related to them).
It depends on the type of business. Valentines Day is one of the most celebrated (and therefore one of the most profitable) unofficial holidays in the United States, Canada, UK, France, Italy, most parts of Europe and some of the emerging economies. According to the Guardian Newspaper, this year Valentine’s Day revenue will be more than $17.6bn, which was an all-time high.
$17.6bn is a big money. Surely that amount can’t cost businesses some mollahs. Moreover, the US-based National Retail Federation estimated that Americans celebrating Valentine’s Day spent approximately $126 each – so that’s over US $200 per couple. Some of the industries that benefited from these figures include shipping, flower, gift wrapping, restaurants, malls and theaters, jewelry, and hotels / motels.