Has your physical office arrangement changed due to recent COVID-19 events? Have you considered what affects that might have on your well-being?
TRR’s doors currently remain open as of the date of this article, however we have made some significant changes to the way we do business by following recommended social distancing and sanitary measures. With these changes though, we have also implemented some new ways of how we operate in our office, including having some of our employees work from home on a rotational basis, to better facilitate social distancing, and to limit the amount of traffic through our office spaces and training facility.
As many of you have likely experienced, this can bring with it some new challenges, and in order to overcome them, we have been exploring new ways to help maintain our employees mental health and well-being while away from the office.
One of our favourite new tools is we’ve been using, is Google Meet to help ensure our employees still feel connected and encouraged throughout the work day, as this can play a significant role in keeping employees motivated and in good mental health, especially in a time of so much uncertainty. (Here’s a link for a helpful “how to guide” for Google Meets & Google Hangouts)
Some of our tips for using this kind of technology:
- Depending on your staff size, you might have all employees log on in the morning for a team briefing, company update, or task assignment, or you might limit this to specific working groups, or teams, to make sure you can encourage interaction between all attendees on the call, rather than just one person speaking. In our experience, a call size of 8 or less seems to be a golden number.
- Setup different conference rooms for different teams or working groups. If you have multiple teams or projects, setup specific meeting rooms for each individual group where they can login throughout the day to chat or collaborate.
- Schedule coffee breaks throughout the day, where employees can login to the meeting room and catch up with their colleagues on the morning or afternoon events
- Maintain a scheduled workday. Keep your work day scheduled to as close to normal hours as possible, and encourage employees to shut down the computer at the end of the day and make time for family or personal interest. This new work environment and technology can make it attractive to work all hours of the day or evening, but it’s important to maintain a schedule, and to “disconnect”. Consider reading some new books, cooking a nice meal for your family, going for a walk, or whatever else helps you to refresh while practicing safe social distancing and adhering to the advice of our Health Care Professionals.
We encourage you to check out this recent article from Forbes with valuable tips on managing some of the challenges that this new work environment can bring, and we want you to know that we are here to assist you navigate these new challenges. If you have questions, our would like to learn more about what we’re doing as a company, reach out to us anytime.
ARTICLE >>> When Home Becomes the Workplace – Mental Health & Remote Work – Forbes <<<