Helping Your Employees Prepare for Back-to-School Time

After an interesting and hopefully fun summer, it is back-to-school season once again. Parents are already planning for it. Students are going back full-time, online, or hybrid learning depending on where they are across the country. Back-to-school season is stressful for parents and their children, and they have additional pressure from COVID-19. Here is how you can help your working-parent employees prepare for the new school year. 

 Offer Flexibility

Back-to-school is different this year because schools are focusing on the safety of their students with social and physical distancing. Some differences compared to other years are later starting dates, online learning, shortened hours, and changes in days off from school. Consider offering a flexible schedule to your employees so they can still pick up their children from school and help them with their schoolwork when needed. Sometimes important school meetings and orientations might come up that they will not want to miss. Finding a babysitter has been difficult for parents during this time. Your employees will appreciate the flexibility of getting to leave work early or work from home so they can care for their children.

Stock Up On School Supplies

Another way to help working parents prepare is by providing them with school supplies. Students will always need pens, pencils, notebooks, and folders for their schoolwork. Other miscellaneous supplies that would be helpful to them are backpacks, lunch bags, or even gift cards to purchase new clothes. Because of COVID-19, masks and hand sanitizer will be vital supplies that parents will send their children to school with. 

Provide a Calendar

Parents have a work schedule, social life schedule, and schedule for each of their children. One of the best ways to plan for that is by carrying a calendar around. Offer a quality calendar to those employees to help them keep track of the busy lives that they have. This will ensure that they do not overlap times. A calendar will also prevent miscommunication and forgetfulness at work.

Show Understanding and Compassion

Since back-to-school is a stressful time for working parents, express to them that you and your company are here for them. Scheduling changes and concerns for their children affects worker productivity. When you show them you care for them and understand that they have a lot on their plate, they will be more upfront when asking for help instead of letting deadlines go by. 

Happy Back-to-School Season

Education is important to youth. Help your employees prepare for the upcoming school year so they can feel confident with the change from their summer schedule. 

Skylight Creative hopes that your back-to-school time runs smoothly. Stay safe and have a fun year! We offer a ton of supplies to help students and their parents out. If you have questions or want to learn more about Skylight Creative, call us at 410.879.8401 or contact us on the website.

4 Warm Weather Employee Appreciation Items

Even though COVID-19 means this summer will start off a little different than usual, warm weather and outdoor activities are still right around the corner. Showing your employees how much you appreciate them in times like these can help you retain good talent. The items below are great warm weather employee appreciation items that can help you say “thank you” for keepin’ on keepin’ on during this trying time.

Insulated Water Bottles

Summertime can get hot and humid, especially in the mid-Atlantic. Lately, health and safety have played a more dominant role in the news than ever due to COVID-19 – but that’s not the only thing that you should be focusing on when taking care of yourself.

Staying hydrated can help you prevent heat-related illness and recover more quickly from illnesses that include fevers. By providing refillable, insulated water bottles, you can help keep your employees hydrated and healthy throughout the hot summer months.

Company Branded T-Shirt

You may have seen on our social media this past week that the average person owns 27 t-shirts. That may seem like a lot of t-shirts. But the truth is, you can never have enough. They’re the perfect casual go-to in the summer months.

For people who are working remotely, a comfortable company t-shirt with sweats is the ideal outfit for a team Zoom meeting. Then, when things start to open back up, these t-shirts work both as ideal weekend apparel and a walking company advertisement.

Coolers

Spending time outside can help with cabin fever and dealing with any leftover winter blues. Many people enjoy going for long hikes or camping trips when the weather warms up, which makes a good cooler an important piece of summer equipment.

There are a number of different types of coolers that you can choose from for warm weather employee appreciation items:

·         Simple cooler lunch bags

·         Roll up cooler bags

·         Flap cooler bags

·         Cooler tote bags

If you know that your employees are outdoorsy or enjoy spending time poolside, these make great gifts as the summer months set in.

Can or Bottle Koozies

There’s nothing like knocking back a cold one in the summer months. Whether that means water, soda, or an adult beverage, keeping it cool makes it all that more enjoyable. Branded koozies are classic for keeping drinks cold in the summer months. In fact, brides have even started giving them away as favors during the wedding season.

There are a few different types of koozies you can choose from. Classic can and bottle koozies are made from the scuba fabric that you’re used to. However, in the past year or so, stainless steel koozies have started to explode in popularity. Whichever route you go, you can customize color and add branding!

Get Your Summer Employee Appreciation Items

With Memorial Day coming in just a few weeks and the official start of summer on June 20^th, there’s no better time to order your summer employee appreciation items than right now.

Looking for more recommendations or wondering about current order times? Current clients can contact their sales reps directly. If you’re new to Skylight, you can give us a call at 410.879.8401 or contact us on the website.