REPLAY PMC AUDIO SUMMIT 2025 / Keeping Your Team Energised Through Year-End by Deb Gidman

We talk about why the end-of-year rush drains teams and how connection helps us stay steady when pressure climbs. We share research, planning tips for property management, and simple traditions that keep morale high without adding more stress.

• Why end-of-year workload and Christmas pressure hit morale so fast
• Australian engagement and mental health stats that make connection a business issue
• Planning inspections, vacancies, and move-outs to reduce December chaos
• Keeping office energy calm so stress does not spread
• Low-budget ways to build belonging through food, games, and shared laughs
• Recognition and psychological safety as practical productivity tools
• Weekly habits that lift spirits and carry culture into January

Take care of yourselves, take care of your work colleagues and have a wonderful Christmas.

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Transcript

Why Morale Drops In December

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everybody, my name is Deb and I'm from Resident Property here in Western Australia. Today I'm doing a little chat on teamwork makes the dream work, keeping morale high to the end of the year. So as we're heading into the end of the year, where everything just seems to get a little chaotic, the phones don't stop, tenants are preparing for holidays, clients want to make sure everything's done before the end of the year, and everybody just seems to get a little bit too busy, as well as the mental strain of preparing for Christmas. So as the pressure ramps up, team morale can sometimes start to dip. Here's the thing though, this is exactly when teamwork matters the most. When your team is feeling connected, appreciated, and supported, you don't just survive the silly season, you finish it strong with energy and positivity intact. So today I'm sharing how to keep morale high through the final push of the year, why it matters, and what the research says. Some practical tips and some fun ideas to bring the team together. Because at the end of the day, teamwork really does make the dream work.

The Research On Engagement And Stress

SPEAKER_00 1:23

So why morale and connection? In Australia right now, 16% of employees say that they feel fully engaged at work. That's according to ADP Research Institute, People at Work 2025 report. So that means 84% of the workforce is showing up, but not necessarily feeling connected, valued, or inspired. When engagement drops, so does performance, retention, and overall well-being. Safe Work Australia's latest psychological health report found that mental health conditions now account for about 9% of all serious workers' compensation claims, and those claims can result in significantly more time off than physical injuries. So it's a reminder that stress, disconnection, and burnout are not small issues. They're costing businesses and they're affecting lives. The Australian Bureau of Statistics also reports that around one in five Australians experience a mental health condition in any given year. So when you think about that, look around your workplace. It's likely that someone on your team is struggling right now. So when we talk about things like team lunches, bake off, secret centre, it's not about the fluff. It's about building connection, reducing stress, and supporting the well-being of people who keep our businesses running. Connection has been proven to reduce workplace stress and increase psychological safety, which is really just a fancy way of saying that people feel okay to be themselves and speak up. And when they do, they're more creative, more resilient, and far more productive.

Planning Property Work Before Holidays

SPEAKER_00 3:13

So end of year challenge. By November, everybody's running on fumes. I do it every single year. I always seem to get ill. As that first day of annual leave comes at Christmas, my body just goes into shutdown. So you can see concentration dips, the tempers shorten, people are like, oh, let's just get through the last few weeks. And it's normal, but it can snowball fast if you don't keep the energy going. For property managers, there are some things that we can do to try and alleviate that stress towards the end of the year. My top tips in regards to this is to everybody to sit down at the beginning of December and plan out what's going to happen as best you can for that year. So, what inspections are due December, January? How can we work these so that we're, you know, maybe doing some before Christmas and some after Christmas, but we don't really want to be doing those around the Christmas period. What do your vacancies look like? How many vacant properties have you got? What tenants are moving out? How can we best work this around that Christmas period? Obviously, it's not best to have tenants moving out at Christmas, but it does happen. So having an idea of what that looks like for the month of December and trying your best to plan and be prepared for that will definitely help with that stress towards the end of the year. So the reality is that everybody's energy is what will everybody else will feed off. So if the energy in the office is starting to get a bit strained, things can escalate. As leaders, leaders need to keep that relaxed feeling and like we're still in control. But as team members amongst each other, we need to try and remember that as frustrated as we are, or as you know, maybe stressed that we are, the more that we sort of spread that around the office, it does become contagious. So there was a study by Reward Getaway, and it found that Australian employees who feel recognized and connected are more than twice as likely to feel productive and engaged compared to those who don't. There was another report, Intellect's 2025 Workplace Wellbeing report, showed that while well-being improved slightly across Australia, the feeling of organizational support actually dropped by 2.6%. That's a warning sign. People are looking for connection, but they're not always feeling it. So the good news is that connection doesn't always require big budgets or HR departments. It just needs to be intentional. And when people feel seen, heard, and included, they're more willing to go that extra mile. And that's what carries you through the busiest time of the year.

Simple Rituals That Build Connection

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Okay, what's some fun stuff that we can do to keep that morale going? Over the years, there have been various things that myself and my team have done when I was working in a big office. I'm not great at organizing, so what I would generally do is get the person in the office that likes to organize and plan things for those periods leading up to Christmas. One of the great ones was office bake-off. It doesn't have to be sweet, it can be savory as well, but everybody has to bring something in. Now, this again doesn't have to add to the stress. You can make cornflake cakes, if anybody doesn't know what that is, melted chocolate and cornflakes in the fridge. You know, it doesn't have to be a whole time consuming thing, but we can you can have little fun ideas, you know, most creative, taste best, all those kind of things around that. I mean, the one of the best stories was that I decided to do a lemon meringue pie, baked the pie, brought it in, and we put it down on the table, it looked awesome. The minute that I took the surrounds from the cake off, it actually all just melted for want of a better word, all across the table. Hilarious. And it tasted pretty good, although we had to scrape it off the table. But, you know, just stuff like that is actually going to bring your team together. So another couple of ideas are, you know, we used to do Taco Tuesdays, we'd have a whiteboard up, and everybody's name would go down, and everyone had to write next to their name what they were going to bring in. Doesn't have to be massive. There's always going to be that one person that wants to bring in the meat, you know, the pulled pork or the beef or whatever it is. And you can have someone bringing lettuce and someone bringing cheese and someone bringing, you know, the taco shells. Like it doesn't have to be too elaborate, but just that coming together, eating food together, sitting together, having a chat, you know, what are your plans over Christmas? Are you doing anything nice? Learning about people on a on a more personal level, it always helps to bond those teams. You could even just do a coffee morning. So we could bring some biscuits and maybe a charcuterie board or something like that. Just really simple, but make time to come and sit together, have a coffee, have a chat, air anything's in the office that's working or not working, and just bring that team together. Obviously, the one that we've had most fun with over the years is your Secret Santa or your Bad Santa. So this can be just before the Christmas period. Again, you know, we used to just order in pizza for everybody and just sit down and do a Secret Santa or do a Bad Santa. Just, you know, we used to think outside the box. We had a $10 limit, and you can't get very much for $10, but just thinking outside the box and being creative with those gifts were we had some great laughs, some great team bonding happened in those Secret Santa coffee catch ups. So there's lots of things that you can do. One of the other ideas that we had was you know, making decorating the office a thing. So I I'm not a big fan of Christmas, and so every year my team would decorate my office as the Grinch's office. And you know, again, it's it's just a little bit of lighthearted fun, but they used to think it was hilarious. I'd walk into work, they'd literally come in early to decorate my whole office as the Grinch. And you know, we'd have photos and take photos. It was it was it was quite a fun thing to do.

Recognition, Belonging, And Leading By Tone

SPEAKER_00 9:59

So the ideas might sound lighthearted, but they are backed right by research. Sake Work Australia's 2024 report on psychological health in the workplace, emphasize that social support, recognition, and team belonging are among the top factors protecting mental health at work. You know that we spend so much time with our work colleagues, a lot of time, eight hours every day, five days a week. It's a lot of time. So if we're going to be together, let's have that sense of belonging. It makes your work day so much better. The Australian Mental Health Commission's Mentally Healthy Workplaces report found that businesses that actively foster community and connection experience higher performance, lower absenteeism, and less burnout. So, yes, the bake-offs, the team launches, and the bad centres actually matter. They're not just distractions from work, they enable good work. Because when people feel good, they do good. So this is not just on leaders. I mean, if there are any leaders listening to this, obviously it's great if you take the lead and you push through this initiative. But even if you're working in a smaller team, team members can come together. You know, the a few of you can just come together and decide to do this yourself. The attitude sets the tone. So if the leaders are showing up with energy, appreciation, and humor, then your team will mirror that. So something else that we used to do all together on a Friday afternoon was we used to play the game heads up. It's on a mobile phone, it's an app, and you put it up to your head, and some the one team has to guess what you have on your head, or you have to guess what it is, the other team acts it out. I mean, needless to say, we had lots and lots of giggles watching those enactments. So it's definitely worth doing. This time of year can be exhausting, but it can also be an

Weekly Momentum And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 12:01

opportunity to strengthen culture and remind your team why they do, why they love what they do. Because once January rolls around and those bonds will carry on into the new year. So as you look at your calendar this, you know, leading up to the December period, make time for something that builds connection. Schedule maybe one thing in every week just to lift your team's spirits. Schedule a lunch, set up a full fun competition, even a colouring in competition. Get simply give a genuine praise to someone who's been given their all. It might not feel like much, but it creates a ripple effect of positivity that can carry your team right through to the finish line. Because at the end of the day, teamwork really does make the dream work. Thanks for listening, everyone. I'm Deb from Resident Property. Take care of yourselves, take care of your work colleagues, and have a wonderful Christmas.