Supporting Colleagues in Challenging Times

Following my previous article on the impact Covid has had on businesses, I wanted to take the time to reflect on the impact it has had, and continues to have, on colleagues and individuals. It has been clear that everyone has had a different experience through lockdown and into recovery; some have faced challenges around home schooling, job security and isolation whilst others have been liberated from long commutes and office based roles. As leaders, we have a role to support colleagues through these challenges by helping them to embed healthy and positive habits.

Impact

At a work level, we know that the pandemic has had a significant impact on ways of working and this is often called out in the media in terms of the impact on city centres, office blocks and the traditional 9-5 work pattern. However, it has also impacted how leaders have needed to guide, support, motivate and encourage their teams through these challenging times. I often say that work is something you do not somewhere you go but what’s happening now - are we now working from home or have our homes become work? Working remotely has highlighted longer term challenges which leaders will face into with their teams who are experiencing unheard of uncertainty. This can manifest itself in mental health challenges, impact on motivation and productivity, and be seen in lower levels of engagement and resilience. We have, temporarily, lost the in-person face to face interaction we had with our colleagues, stakeholders and customers. How do you build rapport in a virtual setting? For many of us, this represent new challenges in terms of how we approach conversations, meetings and stay engaged.

Mindset

It is well known that the mind and our mind-set can be one of the most powerful coping tools we have when faced with life’s challenges. You often hear of people who have a ‘growth’ mind-set seeing problems as challenges and learning experiences to overcome, showing greater levels of resilience as a result. Looking after ourselves has to be a priority before we can look to lead others: as they say on planes, ‘please put on your own oxygen masks before helping others’. This has never been more true. In challenging times we will all work through a wellbeing / resilience curve as we tackle challenges with fresh enthusiasm, make things work in difficult times, become worn out by the challenge before we adapt and understand how to make the situation work in a sustainable manner. Having a growth mind-set doesn’t diminish the challenges, but can help to set positive thought patterns for those who need to lead by example.

My top tips

One of the things which I think is so important, is to ensure that we take the learnings from the recent months and not lose the good habits which we have started to embed. This can manifest itself in a number of ways such as commitments to go for a daily walk, have virtual tea/coffee breaks with colleagues and role model that it’s good to chat about non-work stuff or ensure you switch off from work at a set time. If you can put your work out of sight, put it away or close the door to where you work. For many of us the daily commute has created more time, so what are you doing with that time… more work? more social? more family? more personal development?

I have found it important to ‘book-end’ my day, to ensure that I have a balance between work and home life and actively encourage colleagues to do the same. By doing this, I won’t fall out of bed and start work first thing – I will go for a walk or read or listen to the radio, even just for half an hour. I’m also trying hard to have a set break at the end of the working day which allows me to see family and friends (at a social distance!) and gives me the opportunity to exercise and ensure I eat well; diet and exercise can have huge mood boosting properties and it is important to have downtime from work. I also have started to have walking ‘check-ins’ with my teams during the day without notes or a pen!; this is a great chance to have a change of scenery and really focus on listening and having constructive conversations and understand what challenges individuals may be facing into, rather than stare at a screen of faces, emails or lists.  

How are you looking after yourself and supporting colleagues / those around you during these times? One of the questions you have to ask yourself is; I read a really thought provoking article recently by Harvard Business Review – the line that made me think the most was this question… “are you now working at home or living at work?”