COVID-19 — working under lockdown and Mental Health

As we are now in the 6th week of working under lockdown, one of the key challenges for employers is supporting the mental health of those working at home and those who have been furloughed.

Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, although organisations in the leasing industry may have had individuals working remotely at home periodically, an almost overnight shift to complete home working was unprecedented.

Before the shift to home working, each organisation will have prepared differently; by testing their technology could cope, by introducing new collaboration software or by ensuring everyone had the equipment necessary to perform their role. This extends far beyond home working itself, we are not just working at home but in our homes (alongside children, spouses and dogs) and what none of us in the industry could prepare for was the personal impact on our teams during these difficult times;

• Staff having to juggle homeschooling and looking after younger children while working
• The impact on mental health of being unable to spend time with friends and loved ones
• Unable to visit elderly relatives who may need further support

Even things we have always taken for granted, grocery shopping for instance now requires extra thought to visit the supermarkets to ensure there is plenty of food, to minimise queuing time and to avoid the times that are reserved for key workers and vulnerable customers.

All of the above takes its toll and that is before considering the anxiety of contracting the virus and the long term financial implications of the lockdown.

As responsible employers in the leasing industry, we will all have our own ways of supporting our employees and colleagues. At the Leasing Foundation, we believe that communication between leasing organisations is key. With that in mind, the following are some examples of what our organisations have been doing:

• Daily management briefings by email or other means
• Daily team stand-up meetings via video conference
• WhatsApp/Slack/Zoom/Teams group chats for regular formal and informal communication
• Virtual coffee breaks with those outside of your team
• Encouraging participation in CSR activities such as Run for Hero’s challenge and sharing our stories in newsletters and other regular ‘feel good’ communications
• Fitness apps like Strava can be used for virtual running clubs
• Encouraging our children to draw and paint Rainbow masterpieces for the NHS support and post them in our internal communications channels
• Sharing recipes and baking tips with pictures of successes (and failures!)
• Virtual socialising eg pub quizzes or karaoke

It’s worth noting that while our furloughed staff cannot work, they are still part of our teams and we can include them in all of our internal messaging and communications.

We tend to associate diversity and inclusion together, almost as if they are the same thing. I often use the following phrase to help define the distinction:

In diversity and inclusion, mental health is usually treated as a protected characteristic, but I have long expressed the opinion that a lack of diversity paired with a lack of inclusion contributes to poor mental health.

In today’s times, inclusion is not reserved solely for the diversity agenda — a feeling of belonging both inside and outside of the workplace is key to remaining positive and motivated.

Never before has inclusion and its impact on mental health become more important for everyone

The following slide is reproduced by kind permission of Susannah Brade-Waring of Aspirin Business Solutions. For those familiar with Abraham Maslow, you will recognise the motivational theory of the Hierarchy of Needs. The lockdown has challenged some basic needs which may previously have been taken for granted — Biological (availability of some foods), Safety Needs (threat of infection and financial stability) and Belonging (separation from family and friends).

This updated hierarchy taken from a tool called Motivational Maps provides a good framework for understanding anxiety in our teams and some great advice we can give and support our teams to help promote good health and emotional wellbeing.

For those looking to avoid unhealthy behaviours during the lockdown period, Mental Health First Aid England has developed a great online tool called the Stress Container to help demonstrate good and bad coping mechanisms.

Finally, some other ideas for maintaining an inclusive culture during the COVID-19 period lockdown can be found from Inclusive Employers.

If anyone has any other ideas that are working for you and your organisation, please get in touch or add your comments below.