Neurodiversity is the term that refers to the naturally occurring variation in the way our brains work. It is commonly associated with a series of conditions or differences such as dyslexia, ADHD, dyspraxia, autism and others.
With the pandemic continuing and Covid-19 cases still on the rise with the latest variant, it may seem that January blues are underway. However, organisations must avoid letting this get employees down and instead use January as an opportunity to kick start and make way for a year of prioritising good mental health and wellbeing.
Here are five ways organisations can provide support to employees:
1 – Effective Management
Strong leadership skills and good line management is essential in supporting employee wellbeing. Don’t drop short deadlines on colleagues. Instead, work with them to solve problems so employees don’t feel completely stressed out but remain in control. While it’s clear the country is facing a significant skills shortage and employees across industries are making moves due to The Great Resignation, it’s vital organisations keep up with recruitment. Keep internal processes moving quickly, so teams aren’t severely understaffed and overstretched, putting additional pressure on employees. This process will help to mitigate stress and burnout.
2 – Build awareness for self-awareness
One of the prime issues leaders face is not recognising when an employee is struggling with mental health. Educating employees to spot tell-tale signs in their colleagues, but also when they need the help themselves, encourages them to communicate these worries with their manager or a colleague. Make it clear that it’s OK not to be OK. Organisations must build an openculture in the workplace where employees feel comfortable to voice their concerns to management and have an open-door policy. This allows employees to talk to someone not just about their work – but also their wellbeing.
3 – Provide support mechanisms
Creating a solid network of support mechanisms is critical to building a wellbeing culture in the organisation. Employees should have access to the support they need internally or externally to improve their mental health. This not only includes being able to speak to managers, HR or colleagues but also access to mental health apps or possibly private healthcare. This will enable employees to speak to professionals and get the appropriate support or guidance they require when they need it most.
4 – Promote wellbeing training
Training business leaders and employees on how to look after their own and their colleagues’ mental health, spotting the signs of stress, and learning how to manage stress are fundamental to improving overall wellbeing. Line managers can only help improve their employees’ mental health if they recognise the red flags. Having good wellbeing isn’t just confined to mental health – it also involves having an overall healthy lifestyle, including exercise, sleep and diet – and avoiding harmful substances such as alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. Educating employees on the importance of going to sleep at a good time and not staying up until 2 am binging Netflix shows – is also critical to supporting their health and wellbeing ready for their work the next day.
5 – Foster a wellbeing culture
Building an organisational culture around wellbeing is vital to ensuring staff feel supported and recognise that they can reach out to someone in their team if they are struggling. Building a wellbeing charter, where employees understand that they can work flexibly, have support to deal with stress, get professional help, or just a helpful ear can make a world of difference. Whilst it’s not easy for anyone to admit they need extra help, fostering a culture where managers and colleagues regularly check in on each other will make employees feel more comfortable to voice their concerns.
To find out more about improving mental health and wellbeing training in your organisation, try a free demo of our wellbeing collection of courses.
According to the NHS, adults should do one type of physical activity every day. Adults should aim to do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity a week. Adults should also spread exercise evenly over 4-5 days a week or every day, reduce time spent sitting or lying down, and break up long periods of not moving with some activity.
Spending prolonged periods sitting down during the day isn’t good for your health, yet, with many of us having desk-based roles, 7-8 hours a day disappear sitting just at work. Unfortunately, with the average person spending 12 hours a day sitting down, physical inactivity is the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality. So, exercising moderately to vigorously during the week is critical to combat ‘sitting disease’.
Exercise can be a love-hate relationship for many people. Even though it can be hard to motivate yourself to go for a walk or run (especially when it’s cold and raining), regular physical activity does reduce your risk of various health conditions such as obesity, heart disease, depression, and dementia.
Since the start of the pandemic, lots of people have been working remotely, reducing their chances of exercising on the commute to work, e.g., walking, cycling. So, it’s necessary to consider how much exercise you actually do during the day.
A great way to monitor your activity is by using a wearable fitness tracker. Wearable fitness trackers not only count your steps but can measure heart rate and track if you’re doing a vigorous workout such as running.
Benefits of exercising
One of the advantages of exercising is that it boosts our ability to fight infections. Through working out, we encourage blood to circulate our body, which improves oxygen intake.
Being regularly physically active can help your general physical health. It:
- Supports stronger bones, muscles and joints
- Manages weight better
- Lowers blood cholesterol levels
- Lowers blood pressure
- Reduces risk of a heart attack
- Lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes and some cancers
- Feels better, with more energy and healthier sleep
Exercise can help improve mental health:
- It increases hormones linked to happiness, such as endorphins and serotonin.
- Even low-intensity exercise can significantly reduce the symptoms of depression by boosting the production of a hormone called norepinephrine.
Types of exercise
Taking part in daily exercise is vital for a healthy lifestyle and choosing a physical activity that raises your heart rate is ideal. However, it’s important to remember that whichever type of exercise you do is good for you. It doesn’t matter if you can’t run, but if you prefer to do Yoga or Pilates because you enjoy it, then do it. The important thing is you do what works for you. Exercise is not a one size fits all. Small amounts of exercise each day, even if that’s a leisurely walk, can be a great place to start to improve your physical and mental health.
With moderate exercise, most people need between 150 and 300 minutes of it per week. This includes:
- Brisk walking until you can’t talk without being out of breath
- Cycling at a leisurely pace
- Dancing until you sweat
- Hiking
- Swimming at a leisurely pace
With vigorous exercise, you should generally aim for between 75 and 150 minutes of it per week. This includes:
- Running
- Martial arts
- Aerobics
- Skipping with a rope
- Swimming at a fast pace
When it comes to reaching your weekly targets for fitness, remember that the more vigorous the activity you do, the less time you will need to spend doing it each week. If you try fast-paced sports with friends such as football or netball, you will notice your speed slowly start to improve as your fitness gets better. However, doing a mix of both moderate and vigorous activities during the week is an easier way to ensure you hit your exercise targets, meaning you’re less likely to burn out.
Start exercising
Before you start thinking about what exercise routine you’d like to do during the week, ensure you check any health conditions you have with your doctor to ensure you don’t take part in anything you shouldn’t be doing, e.g., further damaging your back.
Make a list of activities you’d like to participate in and figure out if they are moderate or vigorous activities, so you can get a rough understanding of how long you’d need to spend doing each activity each week to hit your weekly target. If you’re considering doing brisk walking, as it’s a moderate activity, you will need to do a minimum of 150 mins a week. So, if you spread this out across five days, that’s simply 30 mins a day. The next step is then to find a time that works for you to fit in your exercise. 30 mins of brisk walking a day could be done before work, during your lunch break, or even after your evening dinner.
Time poor
One of the biggest challenges many people face is finding the time and effort to fit exercise into their daily routine. However, when you know the benefits of exercising, treating it as a priority becomes invaluable. If you’re able to, perhaps try a vigorous activity as you only need to do a minimum of 75 mins to hit your weekly target. Doing two x 40 mins vigorous workout such as running, or aerobics is all you need.
Who says exercising is expensive?
Not everyone can afford to pay for a gym membership, especially when you struggle to find the time during the week to go. Throughout the lockdown, people across the country found innovative ways to exercise at home. You can go for a walk, run, watch a YouTube video or join online classes for aerobics, Zumba or yoga.
Exercise with a friend
When people quit exercising, lacking the motivation to do it or finding the activity boring tend to be the reason. Well, try exercising with a friend or family member, or doing a group sport such as football where your presence is required. Working out with somebody else makes the activity more enjoyable, and you can also encourage each other to do it.
If you’re interested in improving your healthy lifestyle through exercise, then look at our latest course as well as the rest of our wellbeing collection to improve how you and your employees feel.
Work-related stress can lead to many health problems. It is one of the leading causes of absence from work and long-term sick leave for employees. When our stress is allowed to continue unchecked, it can lead to depression and anxiety, which can have devastating effects. According to HSE’s Labour Force Survey, 17.9 million working days were lost due to work-related stress, depression, or anxiety in 2019/2020, this equated to an average of 21.6 days lost per person suffering.
Controlling work-related stress is a shared responsibility between employers and employees themselves. It can help employees cope if they know how to recognise the signs of stress in themselves and the steps they can take to control it.
What is stress?
HSE defines stress as ‘the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them’. Employees feel stress when they can’t cope with pressures and other issues.
Symptoms of stress
Everyone experiences stress differently, but when it starts to affect your health and wellbeing, you must learn how to manage it.
- Feelings of constant worry or anxiety
- Feelings of being overwhelmed
- Difficulty concentrating
- Mood swings or changes in your mood
- Irritability or having a short temper
- Difficulty relaxing
- Depression
- Low self-esteem
- Eating more or less than usual
- Changes in your sleeping habits
- Using alcohol, tobacco or illegal drugs to relax
- Aches and pains, particularly muscle tension
- Diarrhoea and constipation
- Feelings of nausea or dizziness
- Loss of sex drive
Here are some ways you can manage personal stress:
1 – Understand the root cause of stress
Stop and think about the real reason why you feel stressed. Do you have little time to complete a project ahead of a deadline? Was this passed onto you with little to short notice? Then there are two issues here: one is time management – feeling stressed because you know it might be difficult to complete the task within the deadline, and the second is communication – being given a task to complete within an unrealistic timeframe and at short notice with no prior heads-up.
2 – Reduce unnecessary stress
- Learn to say no
We often want to be ‘yes’ people both professionally and personally because it’s human nature to want to be liked or help one another. But you can only bite off as much as you can chew. Understand how much time a task will take and whether the workload is feasible. If not, simply say you won’t be able to do it within that given timeframe and ask for an extension or find out if somebody else on the team has the availability to do it instead.
- Review your to-do list
If you have too much on, work with your line manager to review your to-do list. Analyse your deadlines and how long each task will take and prioritise them in order of urgency.
- Learn to control the situation
Figure out if you can reduce the stress in a particular situation. For example, if you constantly get stuck in traffic and worry about getting to work on time, then work backwards. Wake up earlier to make sure you leave the house earlier, allowing time for any traffic on the journey and still making it to work on time.
3 – Develop your coping strategies
- Exercise
Regularly exercising, even just going for a walk, is a great way to relax your body and take your mind off things. Allowing oxygen to flow into your body will help improve your mood.
- Relax your muscles
When you’re stressed, it’s normal for muscles to tense up, leading to aches and pains. Consider loosening up the muscles by doing yoga (stretching muscles), having a massage, or even relaxing in a hot bath.
- Deep breathing exercises
When you suffer from stress or even anxiety attacks, deep breathing exercises work well to help reduce the tension and improve the mood. Try playing mindfulness music in the background and learn to take slow deep breaths in and out.
- Eat healthier
Eating a well-balanced diet should be a staple requirement in our daily lives. Although we may enjoy indulging in fast food, as long as it’s not a regular occurrence, then it should be fine. Your meals should consist of a good variety of fruit and vegetables since eating better can help reduce stress. Your body will also feel better in itself; more alert and full of energy.
- Take a break
Your body can only go so fast before it crashes. Schedule some regular breaks for your body to rest and be still. This can involve going for a slow walk in nature, reading a book in the park, or even doing yoga.
- Make some time to do an activity
It’s important to schedule some ‘you’ time and take part in activities you enjoy to relieve stress. Try playing a team sport such as football or tennis, or release stress through a martial art such as kickboxing. It could even be a solo activity such as solving puzzles such as sudoku or doing some painting.
- Talk to someone about your worries
One of the most important ways to manage and reduce your stress is by talking to someone. Often, by bottling in problems, they seem worse than they are, but talking to someone allows us to voice those concerns. Speak with someone you feel comfortable with, whether it’s a manager, a colleague, family, friends or seek professional help with a therapist.
While these are some ways to manage your stress, check out our course on Stress Management for Individuals and our Managing Personal Stress Challenge to help guide the way. Remember to remain positive, talk to someone and get professional help from a doctor if stress is causing constant issues and worries. Have a look at the rest of the courses offered in our wellbeing collection for other courses.
Related Courses
According to Perkbox‘s UK workplace stress survey, in 2020, 79% of British adults commonly experience work-related stress, which is 20% higher than the findings in 2018. The most common causes of work-related stress included ‘work-related office politics’ (at 37%), then a ‘lack of interdepartmental communications’ (at 34%) and ‘the work and performance of others (at 33%). The research also revealed that 55% of respondents experience anxiety because of work stress, more than two-fifths (43%) lose sleep, and a third of respondents turn to comfort eating.
With stress having such a negative impact on employee’s physical and mental wellbeing, business leaders and team leaders must understand how to manage stress in their teams and find ways to alleviate that stress.
1 – Create a healthy wellness culture
When employees feel stressed it can cloud their judgement and affect their decision-making skills, as well as their creative ability. Organisations should create a culture that encourages good mental health and wellbeing. Managers should encourage staff to leave their desks during lunchtime and go for a walk to get some fresh air, as it helps to clear the mind. Organisations can also encourage healthy wellbeing by subsiding gym memberships, hosting (in-person or virtual) yoga or Zumba sessions or even team walking activities, aiming to hit 10,000 steps a day.
2 – Build a better working environment
Organisations should try to improve the atmosphere of the workspace because it’s no surprise that the working environment can impact a staff member’s stress or mental health. Business leaders can make small changes, e.g. if the office environment is genuinely dull, add some colour to the walls to brighten them up. Different and bright colours are known to lift moods, so add a splash of paint to the walls to improve the atmosphere. According to Erika Woelfel, a yellow hue is sure to brighten up your workspace because it infuses energy and optimism into a room to infuse creativity.
If painting walls might be a bit difficult, add some life into the office by getting your team some plants. Indoor plants are a great addition to creating a harmonious work environment as they emit oxygen, so why not try adding an Aloe Vera plant or a Snake plant to help reduce anxiety and stress? Although if you don’t have green fingers, fake plants can give the space a boost too. Make improvements to the work environment, such as organised desks and communal areas – all of which can add up to make an employee’s day less stressful.
3 – Have a flexible or hybrid working culture
Employees feel more responsible when they’re trusted to get on with their work when and where possible. This independence can help reduce stress levels in teams as employees can be more productive and happier working in a work environment that suits them. Research from Gartner revealed that 48% of employees are likely work remotely, at least part of the time after Covid-19.
Remember that employees have personal lives too so, sometimes this means allowing employees to work around their commitments such as school runs or family doctor appointments. Allow employees to work earlier or make up the time later in the day. This flexible approach can help them to become more productive and reduces stress about working around other commitments. Allowing people to work remotely can also help by removing the commute, as this can be a stressful activity trying to beat the traffic to get to work on time.
4 – Encourage company social activities
Employees can feel stressed when they’re trying to juggle their personal and work lives, trying to keep them separate. However, not talking about employees’ personal lives and understanding what’s going on creates barriers. To improve communications on the team, encourage company social activities such as going for a meal or a coffee together, or doing a team sport such as football.
Everyone has different personalities and commitments outside of work. So, getting to know each other in an informal setting can help cultivate these relationships. This way, managers can work with their employees to find any solutions to alleviate stress.
5 – Allow for quiet time
Employees can become disengaged or stressed if they have back-to-back meetings. Not only is this unproductive, but some meetings are not needed. Consider doing them over email or communication platforms such as Slack or MS Teams. Also, create dedicated slots where meetings aren’t allowed to take place, e.g. Wednesday afternoons. This quiet time can help employees to get in some focused time to get work done. Managers should work with their teams to understand where time is wasted and help them manage their workload to improve efficiency – overall, reducing their stress.
If budget allows, some large companies offer company benefits to help relieve stress, such as offer staff a head and neck massage or even days off due to staff burnout.
6 – Provide access to mental health and wellbeing services
Many organisations now provide access to external services such as healthcare or mental health apps to support employees. This allows employees to access virtual appointments with GPs, mental health services or wellbeing support such as nutrition.
Various factors can add up to stress for employees and having this on-demand access where employees can speak to a third-party confidentially over the phone and in personal time means more people are likely to make the most of this offer to reduce their stress.
7 – Provide training on stress management
Support staff with training that can help them pinpoint the reasons for their stress. This way, they can act on addressing it and feel much better about it. Organise activities to relieve stress, such as nature walks or playing with puppies to take their mind off things.
Stress can also be caused by poor time management and organisational skills, so if staff learn how to manage their time effectively and learn how to say no, or push back on deadlines, they are less likely to feel stressed. Managers must help staff manage their workload.
8 – Maintain transparency and encourage communication
Managers should keep team members updated about what’s going on in the business because leaving people out of the loop can create a disconnect and major “FOMO” (fear of missing out). Employees feel stressed about the future of their job security if senior management doesn’t communicate to the rest of the company what’s happening.
Maintain frequent communications with the team and share goals and values from the top-down – this will help them understand why their work is vital. But equally as important is to encourage communication both ways. Find out if an employee needs to care for an elderly member at home or drop their children off at school. It’s crucial to be respectful of one another and ensure everyone feels welcomed and recognised for their work. Communication is key to helping reducing stress in teams.
9 – Encourage plenty of sleep
While it’s tempting to stay up late to have a “Netflix binge”, it’s not healthy. Sleep deprivation is linked to lower productivity at work. In the UK alone, it costs the economy £40.2 billion in loss of productivity and a loss of 200,000 working days a year. Employees must get enough sleep since inadequate rest can adversely affect employee physical and mental health. This is also where stress and a lack of sleep feed into each other. Employees may be unable to sleep due to feeling stressed at work or inability to concentrate and likewise, they may be unable to feel productive at work due to sleep deprivation. It’s a never-ending cycle.
10 – Encourage staff to take breaks
It’s vital to take breaks away from work and mentally shut down your brain from work activity. According to a study by Spana, British employees feel the need to take a break every 43 days to avoid total burnout. The top tell-take signs of a holiday being due, include feeling stressed (56%) and finding mental wellbeing is starting to suffer (53%). Therefore, encourage staff to take a holiday – even if they don’t go away to another city, planned rest and recuperation time is necessary.
Hopefully, these tips can help you manage stress in your team. But, why not take our ‘Managing Stress in Your Team‘ course to further help understand how you can improve the wellbeing of your staff? Enquire with us today to book a free demo.
Related Courses
Employees suffering from stress will find it has significant detrimental impacts on their mental and physical wellbeing. According to the Health Safety Executive (HSE), 1.6 million workers in the UK suffered from work-related ill health in 2019/20 – more than half (51%) of these cases were due to stress, depression, or anxiety. 55% of all working days were also lost due to work-related ill-health. The predominant cause of work-related stress, depression or anxiety was tight deadlines, lack of managerial support, organisational changes at work and workplace harassment.
Stress can be an unbearable burden, and all too often, employees continue suffering without recognising it or treating it. If employees are feeling stressed, it can significantly impact the whole team, affecting productivity, and it can also cause conflict and tension between colleagues. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires employers to assess the risks to the health and safety of employees from the hazards of work. This act includes the risk of employees developing stress-related illnesses because of their work.
Organisations and their line managers must do all they can to promote high levels of wellbeing in their teams. Providing managers with training gives them the confidence to engage with mental health and wellbeing and the opportunity to support those employees who need some extra help. According to HSE, here are some ways to spot if your colleagues or employees feel stressed at work. Usually, it involves a change in behaviour or the way they think or feel, resulting in them:
- Taking more time off
- Arriving for work later or working longer hours
- Becoming more twitchy or nervous
- Mood swings and becoming increasingly irritable
- Being withdrawn – shying away or socially isolating themselves
- Loss of motivation, commitment, and confidence
- Increased emotional reactions – becoming overly sensitive
If some employees do feel stressed, they might not be the only ones and it is worth finding out if stress is affecting the whole team. If the reason for the stress is not found and addressed, then not only does the team suffer, but so does the company. Here are some signs if the team is feeling stressed (HSE):
- Arguments within the team
- Higher staff turnover
- More reports of stress
- More sickness absence
- Decreased performance
- More complaints and grievances
It takes time to find the right members of staff who are a good cultural fit with the rest of the team and have the right level of knowledge to fulfil the role. Not addressing the reasons for stress and nipping them in the bud will cause employees to feel irritable or overworked, especially if it’s due to too much workload. These effects can have a detrimental impact on the organisation. Resulting in not just a loss of valuable staff, but also time and financial loss.
If do you spot these signs of stress in your employees or your team, then business leaders must make it a priority to speak to them individually and as well as a team, to find out the reason for the way they are feeling. Transparency is key to understanding your employees and your team. Having a heart-to-heart with employees allows trust to build, so employees don’t feel worried or scared to confide in their business leader.
If the cause for stress is a work issue such as dealing with short deadlines or client demands, then support your team by helping them to prioritise their work. Speak to the client directly to ask for extensions and highlight the time taken for particular projects, so employees don’t feel like they are constantly chasing the clock. If employees feel stressed because of increased workload, then it’s crucial to ramp up recruitment efforts as quickly as possible to reduce the likelihood of losing valuable members of staff.
If employees feel stressed due to a personal issue, speak to them on a one-to-one basis and offer advice on what to do, or be supportive or empathetic, if you’re unable to provide support. Alternatively, if you think the employee may benefit from professional expertise, it’s recommendable to share a list of resources the employee can access inside or outside of work. For example, this could mean employees attending a mental health discussion group, support from a mental health and wellbeing charity, using an app, or perhaps taking up an activity such as yoga to relieve mental stress.
If you are worried about your colleagues or employees feeling stressed, why not take our course on ‘Identifying stress in your team‘? Don’t forget to check out the rest of our eLearning solutions in the Stress Management collection and speak to our team to book a demo.
Our upgraded Performance suite is continuing to grow. Following the four releases we announced in January, we’re pleased to announce the arrival of six new Performance courses.
There are several more currently in the pipeline, so expect regular updates about the new content coming across employee relations, performance management and recruitment.
The New Performance Courses
Flexible Working – COVID-19 prompted a rethink of working practices in many industries. Flexible working arrangements are now a bigger part of life than ever and are likely to remain so. In our Flexible Working course, managers learn how to implement new working agreements to benefit their teams, themselves and their organisation.
Managing Change – All organisations go through times of change. Navigating these challenging times well requires good management. Our Managing Change course shows managers how to handle change effectively in their organisations.
Managing Grievances – When employees raise a grievance, it is vital for managers to ensure everyone is treated fairly and the processes are followed. Our Managing Grievances eLearning course shows you how to achieve this.
The Performance Management Lifecycle – Successful performance management focuses on three key areas: planning, monitoring and supporting, and reviewing. In our Performance Management Lifecycle course, managers learn the theory of this and how to put it into practice in their own teams.
Managing Disciplinaries – The disciplinary process is never the easiest part of a manager’s job, but with our Managing Disciplinaries course, managers can understand how best to approach the process and what to take into account.
Managing Sickness Absence – When sickness strikes, it’s important for the employee off sick, their manager, their colleagues and the business that it is managed appropriately. Our Managing Sickness Absence helps managers through the relevant processes and considerations.
The Upgraded Performance Suite
We’re excited about our new, upgraded Performance suite. Brought completely up-to-date, our Performance online learning equips all users with the skills they need to thrive in the ever-changing working world.
So, what are we doing with our new suite?
- Redesigning the suite into a larger number of shorter bite sized courses
- Focusing on transferable skills, such as Active Listening, Effective Questioning and Giving Useful Feedback
- Expanding the focus beyond Managers Training into Personal Effectiveness
- Introducing new content areas such as Wellbeing and Coaching/Mentoring
- Using gamified and immersive learning treatments to increase learner engagement
- Applying a modern redesign to the content
- Making all new modules compatible with the MyAstute App
Look out for more newly redeveloped Performance courses within the coming weeks. If you are not currently a customer and would like to know more about our all-new Performance suite, please email [email protected]
Following the launch of two of our upgraded Customer Service courses before Christmas, we’re now delighted to introduce four new Performance courses. We’re working flat out to get as much new content in customer service, employee relations, performance management and recruitment to you as possible.
The New Performance Courses
Providing Great Customer Service – The centrepiece of our Customer Service offering, this engagingcourse explores what great customer service is and how to provide it consistently. Learners take on the role of a customer service representative for the charity Activities for All. With guidance from their manager, they work to obtain a great customer service rating and collect all the badges to pass the course.
Who is your Customer? – If you want to attract and retain customers, you need to be sure you can identify them and meet their needs first. In our Who is your Customer? short course, learners meet the fictional company Whey Presto. They have developed a new app and need to make sure they are targeting the right customers. The challenge is to help the company recognise who their customers really are. For each correct choice made, they earn a customer service star.
Having Difficult Conversations –All managers face difficult conversations during their careers. They require careful and skilful handling. This course follows a scenario of a manager having a challenging discussion with an employee about performance levels.
Monitoring Performance Effectively – Monitoring performance is a vital part of performance management. It allows managers to recognise good performances, spot issues early and support their staff to get the best out of them. Our Monitoring Performance Effectively Take 5 course helps managers understand the importance of performance monitoring and how to put this into practice in their own teams. It explores formal and informal monitoring and gives practical ways for managers to monitor their team’s performance in the best ways.
The Upgraded Performance Suite
We’re excited about our new, upgraded Performance suite. Brought completely up-to-date, our Performance online learning equips all users with the skills they need to thrive in the ever-changing working world.
So, what are we doing with our new suite?
- Redesigning the suite into a larger number of shorter bite sized courses
- Focusing on transferable skills, such as Active Listening, Effective Questioning and Giving Useful Feedback.
- Expanding the focus beyond Managers Training into Personal Effectiveness
- Introducing new content areas such as Wellbeing and Coaching/Mentoring
- Using gamified and immersive learning treatments to increase learner engagement
- Applying a modern redesign to the content
- Making all new modules compatible with the MyAstute App
Look out for more newly redeveloped Performance courses throughout the first quarter of 2021. If you are not currently a customer and would like to know more about our all-new Performance suite, please email [email protected]
Customer service levels leave a lasting impression on all customers. It’s in every organisation’s best interests to invest in the customer service skills of their employees.
Our two new Take 5 Customer Service courses help you maximise this skillset and understand its crucial importance.
The New Customer Service Courses
The Three Cs of Customer Service – Organisations that put the needs of their customers at the heart of their ethos tend to have an edge over their competitors and provide a better overall service.
The Three Cs of Customer Service course explores Caring, Co-operating and Communication, and how they can help deliver excellent customer service. It provides practical advice regarding these values and how to use them during customer interactions.
The Importance of Great Customer Service – The key to providing great customer service is understanding the needs and expectations of the customer and communicating effectively with them. The reputation of your organisation is in the hands of every employee when they interact with both external and internal customers.
The Importance of Great Customer Service course explores the difference excellent customer service can make and the huge effect it has on client relations. By considering a scenario, learners see these principles in action.
The New Performance Suite
We’re excited about our new, upgraded Performance suite. Brought completely up-to-date, our Performance online learning equips all users with the skills they need to thrive in the ever-changing working world.
So, what are we doing with our new suite?
- Redesigning the suite into a larger number of shorter bite sized courses
- Focusing on transferable skills, such as Active Listening, Effective Questioning and Giving Useful Feedback.
- Expanding the focus beyond Managers Training into Personal Effectiveness
- Introducing new content areas such as Wellbeing and Coaching/Mentoring
- Using gamified and immersive learning treatments to increase learner engagement
- Applying a modern redesign to the content
- Making all new modules compatible with the MyAstute App
Please note that Adobe Flash will no longer be supported by leading browsers from the end of 2020.
The old Customer Service courses, such as Customer Focus, Internal Customer Management and Customer Service Soft Skills, will be retired in December and replaced by the upgraded offering.
Look out for a steady stream of newly redeveloped Performance courses before the end of 2020 and in the early part of 2021. If you are not currently a customer and would like to know more about our all-new Performance suite, please email [email protected]