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When the holiday season is coming, for us it is the Chinese New Year next week, what is your experience about the productivity drop during this time frame?

Christmas is bad for workers’ productivity said "Over 60% of employees are mentally distracted from their jobs by Christmas as early as mid-December"

This is the day people are the least productive over the holidays said "In the US, over 50% of employees expect to lose their focus at work and ready themselves for the festive season between 15th and 16th December."

I am a software engineer in Beijing, China. Through my own observation I find the number varies. Some of my guys are still quite productive. I guess one of reasons maybe they want to get everything done so they can have an undisturbed holiday. Some do drop dramatically and use social media all the time. Of course I don't want to be a terrible boss that demands their 100% focus during this time.

I would like to hear, through your own experience, how much drop you have seen. How much drop do you think is reasonable? For example do you have a ballpark figure, say 50% drop reasonable? And when they are below that number I can kindly remind them that "guys I know the holidays are coming but still, try your best to get your job done (something along the lines)"

I also want to point out that being a software engineer is relevant to my question. From my experience I find software engineer is not that different whether you are Chinese or American. We all believe, among many things, talk is cheap show me the code, or X language/framework is much better than Y or ...

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  • Are you in an area where the majority of people go through the same holiday season? Or is your team specifically composed of an ethnic group celebrating it in a region where most other people don’t?
    – AsheraH
    Jan 27, 2022 at 6:03
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    I personally am most productive during the holiday season because other people are distracted or on holiday and i can concentrate on my stuff full time without interruptions. In fact i have entire year long projects where 50% of the actual heavy work has been done on hoiday seasons in one or two weeks. Making the whole year of work feel entirely wasted time. (Its not but thats another matter)
    – joojaa
    Jan 27, 2022 at 10:15
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    Measuring people's productivity by percentages is unreasonable in the first place.
    – mrodo
    Jan 27, 2022 at 14:13
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    @Qiulang邱朗 While it is strongly implied by your username and context and included in your profile, questions should stand alone. A simple "I am a software engineer in Beijing, China" would have helped.
    – Comic Sans Seraphim
    Jan 27, 2022 at 14:54
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    @Qiulang邱朗 Chinese New Year is celebrated in many countries, not just China.
    – Gregory Currie
    Jan 27, 2022 at 16:05

3 Answers 3

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People's productivity is dependent on many factors, many of which are hard to measure and predict.

Lots of things affect how well people work. January is a time of increased depression and melancholy; Spring may mean people focussing on outdoor activities; summer may have people thinking about their vacations; a big sporting competition like the Olympics may distract people. A big birthday of a relative may distract a key employee. Flu season reduces productivity. And productivity fluctuates for no reason at all. All of these factors affect different teams differently.

Why am I saying this? Because it's not going to be productive to try and predict whether the "reduced productivity" is going to be 50% or 60%. Don't waste time trying to get it exact. Factor in the actual time that people will not be at work. Allow for some reduced productivity in your planning. Use past year's experience to predict this year's. And then get on with something else.

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  • Thanks for answering my question. But I also want to point out that I didn't try to get it exact as I said in a comment I just want to get a ballpark figure at the best. I also agree with you that "... then get on with something else."
    – Qiulang 邱朗
    Jan 27, 2022 at 15:06
  • Make a guess. Your guess is probably better than ours for your company.
    – DJClayworth
    Jan 27, 2022 at 15:07
  • Of course I didn't need others to make a guess for me. That is NOT why I asked this question in the first place. I want to hear other opinions about this. I had thought I made it clear in my question. But it seems not according to your response.
    – Qiulang 邱朗
    Jan 27, 2022 at 15:12
  • This site is looking for answers where there is, at least potentially, a single clear cut answer. Asking for lots of people's opinions is generally off topic.
    – DJClayworth
    Jan 30, 2022 at 17:42
  • Thanks for the comment. Through my experience I feel people down vote more often here than other SO sites, they seem to be more impatient.
    – Qiulang 邱朗
    Feb 5, 2022 at 15:17
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When the holiday season is coming, for us it is the Chinese New Year next week, how much productivity drop is expected?

It is not possible to find a general number that would be acceptable everywhere.

You can make an informed decision on how much productivity drop you can tolerate yourself by taking into account the needs of your team, the needs of your employer and overall culture in your area.

From my experience, having some celebration (however small it is), leaving an hour early and generally doing relatively easy work the day before Christmas holiday is a great morale booster later on.

It may be different in your workplace/cultural setting, so the best judge to find a reasonable level of productivity drop before holidays is you.

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That obviously depends on the job, company and the type of work. Many factories close down completely so productivity falls to 0.

Most project schedules that I have seen add about 2 weeks of padding to accommodate Chinese New Year. That's roughly a week of people of actual holiday plus another week for ramping down and ramping up again.

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