With the advice to work from home in England removed following the Omicron outbreak, many people are anxious, or at least conflicted, about returning to in-person work, whether for health reasons or the flexibility they feel they’ll lose.
Companies are facing a complicated decision. Should workers continue to stay at home, should they bring everyone back, or find somewhere in between?
Like all changes in the workplace, it should be handled with care and compassion. Rushing into decisions or making blanket pronouncements could lead to more uncertainty, more anxiety, and poorer mental health.
Determining when to return to the office is no simple matter, especially since employers and employees have different opinions on the subject. Calling employees back to a physical workspace prematurely could result in a subsequent closure if there is an outbreak—and degrade employee trust in the process. On the other side of the spectrum, many businesses want people to return to in-person work, and many employees are eager to do so as well.
Mental Health: Returning to the Office is designed to give users an understanding of some of the causes of stress when thinking about going back, what can happen when it’s not dealt with and how employees and employers can help reduce unnecessary stress and improve wellbeing during the transition.
The course can be fully customised to enable employers to add relevant policies, procedures, links and information they want to communicate to their staff around mental health and wellbeing. Further, the course begins with a course builder to allow users to take a course specific to those still working from home or already returned to the office. The course was shortlisted for the InsideOut mental health award in the Best Use of Technology category.
“Stress at work” risk assessment
The course includes an interactive “stress at work” risk assessment. The assessment asks users a series of questions and then instantly generates a full view of the results, with areas that may need to be improved upon. The assessment can be integrated with our reporting and tracking software, Omnitrack, allowing managers to gain an overall understanding of how staff are affected by stress and helping them find ways to support staff who are struggling with work-related stress or anxiety.
For more information about this upcoming course, please complete the short form below.
