MyTeamSafeWhat is “wellbeing” and how can MyTeamSafe help?
Staff Wellbeing is a critical element in every organisation. Some employers are more provocative than others but ignore it at your peril. The consequences both on staff and the business can be far reaching.
Wellbeing and the law
All employers have a legal duty of care to support staff health, safety and wellbeing. “Home” or “lone” workers require particular attention as their remote situation means their work environment is more variable and not under the same control as on business premisses.
ACAS has some clear information on requirements and actions. https://www.acas.org.uk/working-from-home/health-safety-and-wellbeing (Even though many updates are Covid-19 focused the actual requirements are no different).
Understanding Wellbeing
Wellbeing is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy. But wellbeing is a complex mix of physical, mental, emotional and social health".
Wellbeing is not simply a measure of how “happy” an individual feels they are.
We found this great summary based on NHS Lambeth programme;
“Wellbeing can be understood as how people feel and how they function, both on a personal and a social level, and how they evaluate their lives as a whole.
To break this down, how people feel refers to emotions such as happiness or anxiety. How people function refers to things such as their sense of competence or their sense of being connected to those around them.
How people evaluate their life as a whole is captured in their satisfaction with their lives, or how they rate their lives in comparison with the best possible life.”
Consideration
There is a fine balance between “care” and “intrusion” but the legal duty of care obligations should never be diluted and an organisation must remain aware, proactive and consistent about supporting all staff. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has been doing some good to work in this area https://www.cipd.co.uk/news-views/viewpoint/employee-health-well-being
As well as a some detailed facts sheets on specific situations. https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/culture/well-being/health-well-being-work
Ensuring strong staff Wellbeing is important to building a great business but also under this umbrella term are the life critical elements of mental health and depression. There is a useful A-Z of Mental Health Terms here
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z
Depression
Of course we shouldn’t ignore the most serious elements of “wellbeing”. 1 in 10 adults (9.7%) experience some form of depression.
This has currently nearly doubled, during the Covid-19 pandemic, to 1 in 5 (19.2%).
The factors, symptoms and severity of depression are extremely complex and varies across Psychological, Physical and Social conditions. The NHS has summarised typical symptoms here; https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/clinical-depression/symptoms/
The NHS has also created a self-assessment tool (which of course is not a crisis management tool or replacement for seeking expert advise). https://assets.nhs.uk/tools/self-assessments/index.mob.html?variant=42
How Can MyTeamSafe Help?
MyTeamSafe's awarding Lone Worker system dose much more than simply protect remote staff.
We also understand the difficulty organisations have monitoring wellbeing for remote staff that aren’t working in the more controlled environment on business’s premises. With MyTeamSafe you can now monitor and log staff wellbeing by setting specific questions that periodically require answering.
You can define all the questions, the range of answers, how often they appear, if they are named or anonymous as well as the opportunity to enter specific notes.
Typical questions could be "How are you coping with your workload?", "How are you feeling?", “When was the last time your boss was in contact?” or simply "Have you taken your screen break?"
1 = No
2 = Shorter than Usual
3 = Yes (Full Break)
How Does This Feature Help?
Depending on the questions asked you could simple nudge an employee (eg Screen breaks) but also you could get them to think about their own wellbeing and ensure that you have a clear record.
This gives the organisation reassurance that their staff are OK and the opportunity to take suitable action if not. Employees know that they are not forgotten just because they are work remotely.
Consistently low scores will also automatically trigger a notification to relevant supervisor to take action.
Conclusion
A person’s wellbeing is an ever moving picture but every organisation needs to prove they are covering their legal duty of care obligations. Answering a simple question on the MyTeamSafe app gives you a much better understanding of how remote staff are coping and to help manage and support them.
MyTeamSafe is a fully featured, cost effective, lone worker safety and wellbeing solution. Find you more on our home page here https://content.myteamsafe.com/ then set up a free trial and experience the value and benefits for yourself.
How can MyTeamSafe help you with Wellbeing?
MyTeamsafe enables you to collect short surveys from your staff.
When regularly using surveys you are finally able to quantitively review the answers over time to unlock insights about your staff
For example if the trend shows a decline in wellbeing then you can proactively review your policies, then monitor for a subsequent improvement in future months.