In an office environment, it is easy to take for granted the daily interactions you have that inevitably result in the passing of information as well as a boost for morale. Without face to face conversations and those ad-hoc catchups keeping everyone in the loop – how do we know how our teams are doing? In the spirit of World Mental Health Day, we want to ask – How are you doing?
Even with a 1000% increase in Microsoft Teams video calls in March of this year alone, Gartner’s Reimagine HR Employee Survey found that employees are feeling disconnected from their colleagues. Whilst in many circumstances, the productivity of employees has increased with remote working, their mental health and wellbeing have suffered. 41% don’t feel connected to colleagues when working remotely and 26% of employees feel isolated when they work remotely.
At Circle, our people are at the heart of how we work, and this hasn’t changed with the new challenges we have all faced. We have always taken mental health and wellbeing seriously, being one of the first companies in Wales to create a dedicated team of mental health first aiders to be on hand if people need them. In early 2020, before the realisation of the severity of the effect of COVID, we had already signed up to Time to Change Wales, pledging to commit to employee wellbeing and ending the stigma attached to mental health. As we are truly dedicated to continuous improvement, we have a group of volunteers from across the business who bring feedback and suggestions on how we can improve employee wellbeing as well as an internal Mental Health Awareness Month.
I just want to say that the company's support during to the whole COVID lockdown has been nothing short of outstanding, so my feedback is simply thank you to everyone involved in looking out for me.
How we have adapted to COVID using our Teams platform to promote healthy working practices is a huge achievement for us. However, we already had a great wellbeing strategy in place. One where support is always available and people can talk to us regardless of the issue. When we moved into the new world of remote working, wellbeing stayed at the forefront. We understand that it is the people that make an organisation a success, so ensuring they are looked after is vital. We are proud of what we have achieved, and we will continue to educate our colleagues and support the mental, physical and financial wellbeing of our people.
Remote and hybrid working is here to stay, so we have to adapt our internal communications to the new ‘normal’. With such uncertain times ahead, it is vital that we communicate our organisation’s plans to manage the everchanging landscape of COVID.
If you want to learn more about how you can improve your internal communications and further support the wellbeing of your people whilst working remotely, join us for our next webinar.
