Award-winning TV, film and media booking accommodation and travel booking specialists Access Bookings faced serious challenges resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. As so many TV and film productions came to a halt, productivity plummeted, they lost a lot of their projected workload and projects, and they were forced to make many difficult decisions around furloughMind’s example presentation: Staying well during furlough This Powerpoint presentation contains ideas and information that you might like to include when building your own furlough wellbeing guide. By: Mind View resource, restructures, and redundancies. The rapid transition from a fully face-to-face working environment to completely remoteManaging the wellbeing of remote workers Over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, many people started working from home for the first time. This podcast explores the difficulties working remotely can cause, and discusses ways you can ensure you're still taking care of your staff's wellbeing. By: CIPD View resource was another major challenge, and times were really tough for the whole organisation.
Navigating helpful mental health resources with Access Bookings
Working with limited resources
The team at Access Bookings already had in place Wellness Action Plans, a mental health workplace champion, fifty mental health first aid trained staff to ensure presence in all teams, a calendar of events supporting mental health throughout the year e.g. fundraising walks for Mind, but they needed to strip things back to make their mental health support the most effective and efficient it could be, due to limited resources and no face to face contact.Ways to make video calls less stressful Video calls can be more stressful than a face-to-face chat. This quick guide from Leapers offers tips and hints on reducing anxiety before and during these calls. By: Leapers View resource
That’s where Kate Wood, Project and Engagement Manager for MHPP, was able to advise them of their different options. This led to their signing the . They identified it was managersLine manager mental wellbeing training This PDF is part of a mental health and wellbeing programme in Unilever. Its aim is to increase your awareness of employee emotional health and how to prevent stress in the workplace. By: Unilever View resource who needed the most support, so Kate ran training sessions around conflict management and management styles (6 different sessions at 6 different times to ensure everyone who needed the training received it), which, alongside the Wellness Action Plans, has given managers confidence to have open conversations with their teams.
Providing support and resources
Crucially, they have brought in a mental health policy; menopauseThe menopause at work: guidance for people professionals The menopause can affect performance and attendance at work. CIPD have put together a web page to help HR staff and leaders to understand the menopause, their legal responsibilities around it, and advice on creating a menopause policy in your workplace. By: CIPD View resource policy; and a domestic abuse policy. These have provided managers with support and resources to ensure they can look after their team as best as possible. By taking things back to basics and implementing changes with consistency, the impact on HR has been reduced. As a whole, things have really improved across the organisation, leading to an uplift to Gold in their recent Investors In People accreditation, previously Silver, with the focus on wellbeing of staff highlighted as a main area to highlight in gaining this award.
Rhia Oliver, HR & Welfare Advisor, said “consistency has been key”- it’s not just about having a one-off event day to raise awareness around mental health, instead it’s been about “embedding daily change in the culture”.
