Blue Monday: How to beat the most depressing day of the year

Today is supposedly the most depressing and demotivating day of the entire year. Blue Monday was first contrived by Sky Travel in 2005, and typically assigned to the third Monday of January when productivity in the office is at an all-time low.

A recent study by the University of Exeter has found that Blue Monday could cost the UK economy a staggering £93 billion.

HR Grapevine spoke to Justin Anderson, VP of Sales at technology consulting company Appirio, on how HR can help beat the Monday blues. He comments: “After the fun and festivities of the Christmas season, we now face Blue Monday. The mixture of bad weather conditions, high debt levels, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to take action add to this.

“Here is where HR can make a real impact in creating a sense of team unity and improving morale to eliminate any potential feeling that can impact on levels of engagement and productivity. Changing the way people feel about work can have a dramatic impact on what gets done. One way to do this is to improve collaboration.