The holiday season affects workforce engagement.

The researchers warn that workforce engagement declines by up to 50% in the weeks before the holiday season. Additionally, engagement is affected during the first week back after the holidays:

“Workforce engagement is also slow to ramp back up the week after the holidays. During the first week back, employees identify critical tasks and deal with urgent issues left unanswered before the holiday. Organizations should realize this and adjust expectations accordingly.”

Disgruntled employees.

DTEX observed that research and creation of resignation letters increased by 20% in the first half of 2022, increasing the potential for disgruntled employees to cause harm to the business:

“Departing employees are a real and ongoing risk for organizations. In most cases, an individual planning to leave the business is not pleased with the company’s product, co-workers, work environment, or compensation. Disgruntled employees are usually jaded by a business that has not shown any steps to alleviate concerns, even after communication attempts. This causes feelings of mistrust, and they do not believe the business deserves a response.”

Departing employees taking sensitive IP.

The study also found that 12% of departing employees take sensitive information with them when they leave the company:

“Customer data, employee data, health records, sales contacts, and the list goes on. More and more applications are providing new features that make data exfiltration easier, for example many now provide the ability to maintain clipboard history and sync across multiple devices.”