One of our promotional graphics for our Working from Home Wellbeing Webinar
Background
COVID-19 hasn’t just been physically harming, it’s also been mentally draining. If your wellbeing has suffered whilst working from home then we’ve got a webinar just for you! Working from home has become a large part of many of our lives as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. As a health and safety company, we believe it’s important to promote good wellbeing during this challenging time.
Hosting the webinar
Megan McGinney, our resident Wellbeing Ambassador and Training Coordinator, has designed a Working from Home Wellbeing Webinar. Megan has experience with face to face learning and an honours degree in applied psychology, making her the perfect host.
What will be covered?
The webinar will cover different topics surrounding wellbeing. There will be focus on:
What mental wellbeing is and why we need to focus on it
The impacts of poor mental wellbeing
How stress, anxiety and depression can present itself.
We will focus on providing ways in which attendees can develop a good work-life balance as well as tips on how to express their needs and mindfulness. We have included a section on how to access resources from work alongside free resources that are available to each attendee should they not want to go through official channels.
Who is it aimed at?
Our target audience is attendees who have been, and are currently, working from home during COVID-19.
Resource Pack
Each webinar attendee will be provided with a free resource pack containing additional information on everything discussed. There will be links and contact details to apps and online resources designed to support wellbeing.
When is our next webinar?
Our next webinar is on the 27th of July at 11:00. Tickets are available through Eventbrite, you can click here to register for free now!
Here are a few links to some of our previous articles about wellbeing:
Working from Home: Physical and Mental Wellbeing – click here.
Taking Care of Employee and Colleague Wellbeing – click here.
If you have any questions about our webinar or would like more information please get in touch through t: +44 (0)141 244 0181 or e: info@amalgamate-safety.com
The Institute of Employment (IES) recently carried out a survey to evaluate the physical and mental wellbeing of employees working from home during the COVID-19 crisis. Thousands of employees have been forced to work from home raising concerns around the possible impacts this might have. Employers will have to attempt to manage these impacts including deterioration in mental and physical wellbeing, work morale and motivation.
Their survey considers the following:
Whether employees feel trust with their employers
Whether they are worried about job security
Have employees lost sleep worrying about finance, family, health, work-life balance, etc, and is this affecting their work morale?
Launched in March 2020, the survey was designed for homeworkers to measure their wellbeing whilst working from home during COVID-19.
This infographic from WeAreTheCity illustrates and explains 7 ways to get a better work-life balance, aiding in well-being.
Physical Wellbeing
The survey asked homeworkers, ‘how often have you had this condition in the last 2 weeks compared to normal?’ More than half of respondents suffered from aches/pains in neck, shoulder and back, eye strain, headaches or migraines and loss of sleep from worry resulting in fatigue. Less than half experienced aches/pains in knees, hips, wrist/hand and elbow, heartburn or indigestion, leg cramps and chest pain.
These results illustrate that working at home as a result of COVID-19 is having an affect on many components of employee physical health. It also illustrates that a good ergonomic set up plays a significant part in employee’s physical wellbeing at work.
Emotional Wellbeing
It’s clear that the current situation is also having a detrimental influence on the emotional wellbeing of homeworkers. A significant amount of employees stated that they don’t feel rested, calm or relaxed. In addition feeling inactive and having no interest in their day, was noted. Some respondents also felt anxious about the health of family members and friends.
It was recorded that respondents were also worried about family finance and job security. Loneliness and isolation featured heavily in responses with many suggesting they don’t feel cheerful or in good spirits.
Mental Wellbeing
The survey used the WHO-5 well-being index to determine the mental health of employees working from home. This suggested that those who are suffering most are:
looking after elderly relatives;
living with parents or renting;
new to home renting;
working more than 10 hours longer than contracted per week; and
in less frequent contact with their boss and younger workers.
These categories cover the vast majority of employees working at home. It’s clear this situation is having an impact on thousands of people’s mental wellbeing across the country.
Other health concerns
It was noted that over almost half of respondents worried that they were exercising less, they did not have enough time to get their work done and were working long and irregular hours.
A significant percentage of home-workers admitted they were under too much work pressure, their alcohol consumption had increased, they were eating less healthily and had continued working despite illness.
Action for employers
The overall findings from the survey suggest that there has been a significant decline in both the physical and mental wellbeing of employees working from home. Results show that musculoskeletal health, diet and exercise has declined in the majority of homeworkers.
However, the effects aren’t just physical, increased emotional concerns over finance, isolation, energy, work-life balance and family health were also recorded from the respondents.
It’s clear that many employees working from home are facing a challenging time and support from fellow employees and most importantly employers is crucial during this crisis to maintain wellbeing, work morale and motivation.
There are a number of simple steps that employers should consider taking, as well as the normal compliance requirements around ergonomic set up (Display Screen Equipment). We recommend supporting the physical and mental wellbeing of employees with regular check ups – informal messaging groups or virtual coffee mornings are a good place to start. Regular contact with bosses and colleagues, particularly those at ‘high risk’ is essential. In addition, access to an Employee Assistance Programme would be valuable.
We would also recommend that performance targets and monitoring may need to be adjusted accordingly, this may involve the reallocation of tasks and priorities.
If you would like support developing strategies for managing the physical and mental wellbeing of your employees who are working from home please do not hesitate to contact us on t: +44 (0)141 244 0181 or e: info@amalgamate-safety.com
Working during lockdown can be challenging for everyone – that’s why we need to be taking care of employee and colleague wellbeing, as well as our own. We’re being made more aware of the impact that quarantine and isolation can have on mental wellbeing. We need to look after ourselves, our friends, family, colleagues, employees, etc.
However, isolation doesn’t mean zero contact with the outside world. We are lucky enough to live in a time where we can talk to people from across the world within the safety of our own homes. There are so many different platforms designed for virtual contact; Skype, iMessage, Email, WhatsApp, FaceTime, Zoom, the list goes on.
Here’s a few things we’ve put together which you can do to help your colleagues, and yourself, stay on top of your social interaction and wellbeing.
Connect
Working from home means we don’t have the same opportunity to bump into each other in the office and have a quick, casual chat. It might be that conversations with your team feels scripted because your only form of contact is centred around work. Set aside some time to have genuine conversations with the people you work with and ask them how they’re doing. Do little things together that will improve your team’s mood, this could be making a playlist for work, collective coffee breaks or lunch group calls. Include people that may have been furloughed as a way to keep them involved in the team dynamic.
Be Compassionate
It’s important to understand that people who are normally very self-sufficient and focused may be struggling without the office structure. People might have young children that don’t understand the situation. This can increase stress and anxiety levels, resulting in a decrease of work quantity and quality. Lend a hand to someone who might be feeling overwhelmed by their workload and if possible, encourage flexible working hours. Emphasise that once their working day is done, work equipment should be put away. A healthy balance between ‘work’ and ‘life’ needs to be established to maintain mental wellbeing.
Listen
A team needs to know they can talk to each other and ask for help when they need it. Everyone is busy and trying their best to continue their usual workflow which can lead to people feeling that they’re causing a disturbance or inconvenience when asking for help. Take some time to let people know that even though you’re busy, you’re not too busy to help. Let each other talk and vent without being judgmental. Keep in mind that everyone has different tolerance levels and things that one person may not find a big deal, could be keeping someone else up at night. If you think someone may be struggling in a way that you don’t know how to help, ask them if they want to speak to someone qualified and direct them to help through ‘higher-ups’, HR or Occupational Health.
Give Direction
There hasn’t been a scenario quite like this one in recent history. Finding a good balance between giving direction to your team and smothering them can be a challenge. Decide who within your team needs more attention to keep on track and who is managing well on their own. Encourage group interactions such as, “I’m finished this task but can’t get started on the next until xxx has finished their part. Is there anything I can do to help anyone else?” Each person should have a clear objective and know how to work towards it.
Have Fun
Whilst getting work done is everyone’s main objective, having fun should also be a high priority. Find things that your team can do outside of working hours as a group activity. Things like online yoga classes, quiz nights, cooking competitions, starting a TV show together etc. can be great. Activities like this can really help to bring a group together and improve morale. Even though you can’t be together physically you can still have fun and interact virtually to prevent feeling alone/isolated.
RewardGateway have created this infographic showing 16 ways to Connect, Support and Recognise Teams in Times of Uncertainty, click here for their full article.
To Conlcude
Taking care of employee and colleague wellbeing is important, but so is looking after your own. Click here to read our article on maintaining wellbeing whilst working from home during COVID-19. You can also click here to read the NHS’s Every Mind Matters article on mental wellbeing while staying at home.
If you have any further questions or require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us by t: +44 (0)141 244 0181 or email: info@amalgamate-safety.com
Before COVID-19, there was a crisis in mental health in the workplace, costing the UK economy almost £35 billion. COVID-19 has highlighted these problems, with mental health collectively suffering and deteriorating across the UK. Here is what we think workplaces should be encouraging to help support their employees and colleagues.
How can you make wellbeing a priority?
Doing 2 of these 5 things each week is said to make a huge difference to mental wellbeing.
Connect
Be active
Take notice
Learn
Give
Developing a routine that works for you:
Plan how you will spend each day including when you will take breaks and finish working.
Try to get as much sunlight as possible, work with the window open, and spend some time each day outside if it’s safe to do so.
Keep active, build physical activity time into your routine.
Eat well and stay hydrated.
Keep taking any medication you’re on.
Don’t overload yourself with information, take breaks from the news and try to stick with reputable sources.
Understanding your mental wellbeing
What keeps you well? – Think what helps you to balance your day and lift your mood. Is there a particular way of working that makes things easier for you?
What are some triggers and early warning signs? – What things create a negative environment and how can you work around this? If you can think of things that trigger your mental health then you can begin to eliminate these from your day or work on how to manage these triggers better.
Impacts of mental wellbeing on performance – How is your mental health affecting your work life and personal life and are you able to separate these two?
Negative coping strategies – Are you using healthy coping strategies and if not, how can you change these strategies for the better?
It’s important that you’re asking yourself these questions but also relating this to the people you work with and discussing it. This way, you can better understand yourself and others, therefore helping to promote mental health wellbeing in the workplace.
Resources
Here you can find more information on how to work well from home during lockdown. This can be used to develop your wellness strategy or as an individuals guide.
Here is a great source of information that gives advice for staying at home, looking after mental wellbeing, support for work and checklists for staying at home.
Do you and your employees/colleagues know what mindfulness is and how to use it to your collective advantage? Find out more about what mindfulness is here.
You can also read our other article on taking care of employee and colleague wellbeing here.
If you have any further questions or require any further support, please do not hesitate to contact us by t: +44 (0)141 244 0181 or email: info@amalgamate-safety.com
