The current situation with Covid-19 has caused impeccable detriment to the lives of many in terms of damaging their mental health. Remote working can be extremely isolated and cause a sense of 'loneliness' if you do not have the correct systems in place when undertaking remote working. This blog is a chance to explore how to ensure your employees' well-being is prioritised and what systems we recommend in order for employees to collaborate and interact in a usual manner.
What Is Mental Health And Why Is It Important?
Mental health is taking into account ones emotional, psychological and social well-being. Mental health affects how we think as an individual, how we act as an individual and how we feel as an individual. If we are in a poor state of mental health then this can sometime be portrayed by carrying out actions that would differ from those in a stable state of mental health. Therefore, mental health is extremely important because it can determine how one acts, feels and perceives things and why they carry out certain actions that others may not.
Employees are facing a challenging time at the moment and due to Covid-19 remote working has been the main focus for the majority of companies. This has allowed for business continuity and has helped to save lots of businesses due to the technology available allowing for a ‘continue working as normal’ approach. However, on the flip side of things, many employees are having their mental state challenged and the more time that passes the more they are struggling.
How Can We Help Our Employees?
We can help our employees in various forms when ensuring we protect their mental health. One of the main things to look at for most – if not all- businesses is that you need to have the correct systems in place to allow ‘normal working’ to take place. What do we mean by ‘normal working’? Normal working consists of 3 important things: 1) Interaction, 2) Collaboration and 3) Support. Therefore, we need to ensure our businesses have systems that allow us to carry out these main 3 actions for the sake of looking after our employees. Microsoft Teams is one system that allows us to carry out these actions with ease.
Utilising Microsoft Teams When Considering ‘Mental Health’…
Microsoft Teams can help you to continue to run your business as smoothly as possible during this uncertain time and help keep your working community united. It offers special features that allow you to have that connection with colleagues, managers and clients without actually meeting them in a face-to-face environment. This can be carried our through one-on-one chats, and instant group messages. These chat rooms allow you to fully express your personality through the use of gifs and emojis so you can express your response in less than words. Meetings can also be held through teams allowing documents to be shared, as well as offering a ‘screen share’ service which comes in handy for presenting and demonstrating. This allows for training for colleagues to be carried out successfully, projects to continue as usual and weekly meetings to be carried out as planned- enabling everyone to feel included and involved.
Microsoft teams allows you to…
- Interact with colleagues through its messaging platforms and virtual conference calling abilities. This can help employees to feel like they can always reach out to colleagues, clients and managers even from the comfort of their own home.
- Collaborate with colleagues through the use of team meetings and documentation sharing. This allows colleagues to be able to edit documents that are sent in the group, provide feedback and voice their opinion like the would in a normal ‘in office’ group meeting.
- Support each other through the use of instant messaging and chat portals. Colleagues can check up on each other and ensure they are there if anyone is in need of a helping hand.
The documents below highlight even more benefits from Microsoft Teams for your business…
Teams Benefits PDF
Saving Time With Teams
How To Help Employees And Their Mental Health…
- Regularly check up on them
- Offer support wherever needed
- Ensure they are engaging in team activities
- Ensure they are positively reinforced whenever they do something good
- Make sure you show them they are valued
- Make sure your business has the systems in place required for ‘business as usual’ to take place
Check Out Our PDF Below To Help Your Mental Health
Protect Your Mental Health
For more information contact us on 0330 400 5465