Starting the Year in a Healthy Way

Returning to work after a break can seem like a daunting task, with the 'back-to-work blues' affecting a huge number of workers. The good news is that there are a number of strategies you can employ to tackle the issue.

Feeling nervous or low about the return to work after a break is a common experience for many, and is a normal, healthy response. An online survey of 1,119 US-based workers undertaken in 2020 found that 87% felt apprehensive or anxious about returning to work after the holiday season.

At the same time, the start of a new year at work offers a number of opportunities for a 'reset', both as individuals and as a work group or team.

These simple strategies provide a way forward for tackling the year in a healthy way.

Spend Time Taking Stock

When your team returns after the break, it's a good idea to take time thinking about what is working well in your team, what could be improved, and identifying any changes.

Leaders and managers should support their teams through this process, asking questions such as:

• Do team members communicate effectively with each other and other parts of the business or organisation? How could this be improved?
• How would you characterise your team? Are there elements of this characterisation you want to change?
• Do team members understand each other's roles, responsibilities, strengths, and skills?
• What changes have happened in your working environment that affect your team?

When working through this process, it's important there are clear guidelines in place for providing a safe, open, and non-judgemental space for discussion.

Invest Time in Reflection

The end-of-year rush and the pressure to 'hit the ground running' at the start of the year often means we don't invest time reflecting on the year that's been.

It's important for our health and well-being, as well as job satisfaction, morale, and productivity to spend time - as individuals and as teams or work groups - reflecting on the past year.

Questions to explore include: What went well in 2022? What were you most proud of? What solutions did you implement to address challenges or barriers and how successful were these?

Plan, Plan, Plan

Equally important is the process of preparing for the year ahead. Doing so will help reduce team members' anxiety levels and give employees specific things to look forward to, while strengthening team connections and, over the year, improving productivity and facilitating a team's ability to achieve objectives.

As individuals, think about what's important for you as an employee: what do you want to achieve in the year ahead? What are your development goals? What lessons can you take from last year?

A useful approach in this process, particularly if you are struggling with the return to work, is to think about the elements of your job that bring you joy.

It's also important for teams to explore similar questions:

• what is your team's 'vision' for the year ahead? How does this align with the wider organisation's vision?
• what are some key milestones and/or changes you can expect this year?
• what are your collective team goals?
• what are your team 'norms' and values you want to introduce, refine, or strengthen?
• what initiatives would team members like to see happen to make the team's vision a reality?

There are two elements that are essential to this planning process: ensure you explore how you can apply lessons learned from 2022 and spend time ensuring team members understand where they fit into team (and organisational) goals.

To support this process, you can leverage team members' different strengths and experiences, fostering a sense of belonging, strengthening team culture, and providing development opportunities for individual employees.

Take a Breath and Reconnect

Often, we can feel guilty about not 'hitting the ground running' when we return to work, while also feeling overwhelmed by the large number of emails that inevitably await our return.

While the urge to tackle those emails head-on and start making 'to do' lists and the like will be strong, you should give yourself a break. Take a breath. Invest your time taking a step back. Importantly, you should spend time reconnecting with your colleagues.

Investing the time in rebuilding the social capital that supports collaboration and teamwork is priceless; the long-term benefits to your work and your own health and well-being far outweigh the benefits of clearing your inbox or crossing off the next item on your list. Leaders can support this by putting aside time early in the year for?team building or bonding and social activities.

When doing so, it's important leaders:

• consider the needs of all team members - not all team members will be comfortable in?all group activities; leaders have a key role in understanding and respecting team members' individual needs and preferences; and
• be mindful about balancing 'enforced fun' against the need to strengthen intra-team relationships - an imbalance here can sometimes have disastrous consequences for team building

Focus on Health and Safety

Alongside reflecting, planning, and reconnecting, it's important you focus on health, safety, and well-being.

As individuals, it's worth reflecting on questions such as: what does it mean to you to be healthy, safe, and well? What support do you need to protect and promote your health and well-being? What health, safety, and well-being goals do you have for the coming year?

Similarly, leaders should spend time exploring: how can team members' health and safety be supported? How can your team's culture be improved to support health and safety? What resources are needed?

Make Healthy Choices

Incorporating healthy habits is an oft used resolution at the start of the New Year. While changing our diet and exercising more are common examples, there are a range of other strategies we can adopt to undertake a reset for the year ahead.

• Schedule regular exercise by starting or ending the day with a walk or other exercise to improve your physical and mental health and well-being.
• Explore how you can incorporate mindful activities, such as meditation, breathing exercises, or grounding techniques into your workday.
• Boost your health by staying hydrated; sip water throughout the day, incorporate water-rich foods such as cucumber or watermelon into your diet, and cut back on alcohol and caffeine intake.
• Improve your diet by making small changes such as eating smaller portions through the day, replacing processed or sugary foods with fruit and vegetables, incorporating more fresh ingredients into your meals, and following an '80/20' rule (80% healthy foods, 20% less healthy).
• Improve your health, productivity, memory, and overall functioning by aiming to get at least seven hours of good quality sleep each night. These strategies from the CDC can help you to take up good habits to support your sleep.
• Set and communicate your expectations and boundaries with colleagues and leaders to reduce the risk of burnout and other risks to your health and safety.
• Practice the Five Ways to Well-being developed by the Mental Health Foundation. This approach is empirically proven to improve your overall health and well-being.

Alongside these strategies, it's important you find out what support mechanisms (e.g., EAP or similar counselling services, supervision, Health and Safety Reps) are available at your workplace.

Leadership Support

Without positive support from your leader or manager, being able to devise and implement positive change to improve your health, safety, and well-being can be, to say the least, challenging. Importantly, effective leadership from managers etc. can support a positive health and safety climate even when we have little faith in, or a negative perception of, support provided at the organisational level.

There are a range of ways leaders can support their teams, but key messages to emphasise on employees' return to work include:

• Prioritise team members' health, safety, and well-being above?productivity (e.g.,?meeting KPIs).
• Actively encourage and promote?healthy and safe ways of working (e.g., taking lots of breaks; minimising long virtual meetings; supporting connections between team members; keeping to work hours etc.).
• Check to ensure team members have the resources they need to do their job in a hybrid model (e.g., workers have the technology needed to work effectively from home).
• Promote different avenues for team members to access support where and as needed and reporting lines (i.e., reporting health and safety issues).
• Prioritising (re)building social capital within the team.

At the same time, leaders - including senior leaders - need to ensure there are effective communication and engagement mechanisms in place. To that end, it is vital:

• Leaders make themselves available for team members to speak with them or, if they are not comfortable doing so on particular issues, team members have others they can speak with when or as needed.
• Messages are clear, consistent, and timely.
• The communication approach emphasises honesty,?transparency, and inclusion?and avoids a 'need to know' approach that excludes stakeholders.
• There are multiple avenues and modes of communication available that are accessible for all workers, and which reflect employees' needs and preferences.
• All workers have a reasonable opportunity to provide feedback, contribute to decision-making, and have their views taken into account, for any and all health and safety matters.

Finally, research suggests that, in particular, transformational leadership?(in which leaders work to inspire, motivate, and encourage workers to bring about positive change) and transactional leadership (in which leaders focus on results, formal structures, and performance management practices) styles have been shown to improve organisational health and safety climates and optimise safe performance among workers.

By taking the opportunity at this time of year to engage in a team and individual reset, while leveraging the support available via leaders and the wider organisation, you can support your ability to navigate 2023 in a way that will support your health, safety, and well-being.

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