Supporting and encouraging positive staff wellbeing during a pandemic – Cybertill

In the last year there has been a big push with companies wanting to help their employees adapt to the change in our work environments, with a big focus on ensuring a healthy wellbeing as we navigate this pandemic together. Positive wellbeing is beneficial for employees and employers alike. A happy team makes for happy work. When the mass move to working from home was kicked off last March, Cybertill had many wellbeing initiatives in place that made sure the transition was seamless for employees, and their concerns were heard and managed. Below I have shared some of our initiatives and tips that our staff have responded well to.

Family-friendly working hours

Cybertill is a family-friendly company, what I mean by that is that we offer totally flexible working to accommodate childcare, and more recently due to Covid-19, homeschooling requirements. The stresses of the last year have put a lot of strain on families with children at home full-time, so knowing that they can adapt their working day to be at their most productive is beneficial to them as an employee and Cybertill as a company.

Employee Assistance Programme

The team at Cybertill have access to the excellent Health Assured programme, the UK and Ireland’s most trusted health and wellbeing provider. The program provides guidance, resources, counselling, and general wellbeing support that our team can use for any issue or challenge they may be facing. From mental and physical health issues, to help with common issues such as stress, smoking, nutrition, managing weight and sleep, the service can provide all round support to help the team be healthier, happier, and more productive.

Non-meeting protected time of the day

With no chance to talk to colleagues at the water cooler anymore, zoom calls have taken their place. The dreaded zoom calls. What was once a novelty has soon been replaced with negative connotations such as ‘Zoom-fatigue’. Video calls are a lot less friendly, more formal, and sometimes exhausting compared to our casual office chats pre-covid. That is why we are going to start encouraging our team to have non-meeting protected time of the day to relieve video conferencing fatigue. Staff can use this time to focus, and we are going to recommend that when they do have meetings, that they only start 5 minutes past the hour or ½ hour to prevent back-to-back meetings. This coupled with encouraging shorter meetings as many people work better with more focused time, we hope will break the zoom-fatigue and have a positive effect on staff wellbeing.

Online Learning Portal for professional and personal needs

The Cybertill team have dedicated learning time, and access to free online learning courses with Udemy for both personal and professional development that they can complete during working hours as well as outside of working hours. The learning platform has thousands and thousands of courses from ‘Learning to draw’ or ‘Learning to meditate’, to the more professional ‘How to give a presentation’ or ‘How to impress your customers’. When unfortunately, some staff went on furlough last year they were encouraged to use their downtime to continue their learning paths online and maybe take up some new courses.

Non-work-related catchups with colleagues

Cybertill has been trying to keep the ‘community’ feel of the company with regular check-ins with staff a few times a week. Colleagues will use their catchups to talk non-busines and really ask “How are you?” It is a question many of us can forget to ask, but it is an important one that allows your colleagues to talk freely about how they are really doing.

Regular Company Updates

Weekly staff briefings have become a recurring calendar event for the Cybertill team. Each week a different topic related to the company is chosen and delivered by various people throughout the business. The briefings cover a wide range of topics and are attended by the whole company, so that all departments have visibility of what others may be working on and what plans the company may have for the future.

Working from home doesn’t suit everyone, but with these initiatives Cybertill has been able to make sure that our staff’s wellbeing has not taken a hit and their individual needs are still catered to.

Author:

Elaine Scott

Business Development Manager, Cybertill