The theme for International Human Resources Day in 2023 is ‘HR Shaping the New Future’.
DeltaNet International has revealed that there has been a significant jump in users taking courses in managing stress since the start of the pandemic. Following almost two years of a global pandemic, DeltaNet has analysed its learners to understand how organisations have prioritised stress management in the workplace.
Recent reports by Randstad UK highlighted that 69% of employees feel confident about moving to a new role in the next few months, with staff burnout being one of the predominant factors. According to DeltaNet’s analysis, it found a 33.4% increase in its ‘Managing Your Personal Stress‘ training course in 2021 compared to 2020, and a 40.4% increase in its ‘Managing Stress in Your Team‘ training course in 2021 compared to 2020.
“It’s great to see that organisations are increasingly supporting their employees with stress management training; however, support does not just stop there. Understanding and knowing how to spot the signs of stress is just the first step. Providing additional support with one-on-one discussions, encouraging staff to take a walk every day and teaching employees to take up mindfulness activities such as Yoga is important,” highlights Darren Hockley, Managing Director at DeltaNet International.
“Unhealthy stress leads to employee burnout, which is bad news. Organisations need to understand the reasons why employees feel stressed. Is it due to the workload? Is it due to the team being understaffed? Is it due to time management or deadline issues? Or is it simply due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic and personal worries?
“Business leaders must make it their priority to support their staff through these issues. Employees who don’t receive any support will soon feel that their organisation and line managers don’t care enough about them. Remember to treat employees as people – they are not just another number. Everyone has feelings, and the minute staff feel they are being overlooked or unsupported, especially with stress and mental health, is the quicker they will look for that support elsewhere.”
*Data analysed is for the Stress Management courses between Jan – Dec 2020 and Jan – October 2021.
DeltaNet International, a global eLearning provider of compliance and performance management training solutions, has today announced the availability of its Mental Health and Wellbeing collection of eLearning courses. The collection is designed to help organisations support their workforce with mental health awareness training and is the latest addition to the Performance suite, with a comprehensive collection of 19 courses.
Taking a holistic approach to its wellbeing offering, DeltaNet International tackles the most common issues facing workers’ mental and physical wellbeing. Created with the support of industry experts, the Mental Health and Wellbeing collection is a complete suite featuring all the engaging wellbeing courses in one set, with regular updates and automatic access to new courses as they are released. Organisations that look to get up to speed with just a few courses, will also have the option to ‘pick and mix’ between the courses offered. The new list of courses include:
Healthy Lifestyle
Leading a healthy lifestyle is crucial to maximising an individual’s wellbeing. DeltaNet’s selection of Healthy Lifestyle courses are broken down into four simple categories to help the learner understand how to make healthier choices.
- Sleep
- Food
- Drink
- Exercise
Mental Health
Mental Health issues are common in the workplace, so recognising the signs of mental health is the first step in getting support. DeltaNet’s selection of Mental Health courses highlights the importance of creating a workplace culture that promotes mental health and how to recognise the common signs that an individual or a colleague may need support with.
- Supporting Mental Health at Work
- Recognising Anxiety and Depression
- What is Mental Health?
- Spotting Mental Health Red Flags
- Supporting your Colleagues’ Mental Health
General Wellbeing
The General Wellbeing courses introduce learners to the main concepts of online wellbeing and how they can better manage their online activity to reduce its impact on their wellbeing. The course on Resilience is ideal for learners to understand how to maintain emotional wellbeing and workplace performance. Drug and Alcohol addiction is also a complex issue, the courses on Drug and Alcohol Awareness support individuals in identifying and tackling the behaviour.
- Drug and Alcohol Awareness
- Online Wellbeing
- Resilience
These courses will add onto the following pre-existing courses that have been updated to reflect changes in society:
- Preventing the Spread of Infection
- Managing Your Personal Stress
- Managing Stress in Your Team
- Managing Personal Stress Challenge
- Managing Stress in Your Team Challenge
- Identifying Stress in Your Team
- Remote Working
“Physical and mental health issues are critical in the workplace. If business leaders don’t take these issues seriously, then it will not just impact productivity, but also the workforce in its entirety,” says Darren Hockley, Managing Director at DeltaNet International. “We are excited to launch our Mental Health and Wellbeing collection as part of our Performance eLearning courses to better support organisations to benefit from a happier, more productive workforce. Addressing mental health issues is necessary, and employees recognise and appreciate the organisations that offer them that support.”
For more information on DeltaNet’s Mental Health and Wellbeing collection, please visit: https://www.delta-net.com/performance-management/wellbeing. For more information on DeltaNet’s performance eLearning suite, please visit: https://www.delta-net.com/performance-management.
Hybrid working: the term ‘hybrid working’ refers to a working arrangement in which an individual, team, or organisation spend part of their time at the workplace and part of the time working remotely.
When the covid-19 pandemic struck early last year, it seemed to change everything – including the way we work. Organisations had to quickly adapt to working from home where possible and many took the initiative to install new technologies and processes to ensure business continuity and communications.
Indeed, working from home has become the norm for so many of us that almost 70% of UK employees want to split their time between working from the office and working from home once social distancing measures ease.
Welcome to a new era of hybrid working.
The hybrid workplace enjoys all the advantages of remote working (increased flexibility, a better work/life balance, reduced commuting time, less environmental impact) and combines them with the strengths of traditional office-based working (face-to-face collaboration, elevated company culture, clear separation of home life and work life, emphasis on teamwork).
On paper it seems like the perfect balance; separating ‘where’ we work from ‘how’ we work means employees can decide for themselves where they will be most productive for particular projects. In this way, physical location becomes fluid and much more intentional.
Additionally, the increase in trust between managers and employees is good for business, it’s proven that introducing hybridity increases satisfaction and enthusiasm across the board – and that’s great news for productivity!
Managing the balance
As lockdown measures begin to lift, then, and a new era of hybrid working dawns, it will be important for business leaders to recognise and manage the new challenges hybridity poses.
For instance, many employees won’t be as ‘visible’ to those in power as they once were, particularly senior managers and those responsible for promotion and upskilling opportunities. It does seem to makes sense to assume that being office-based increases the likelihood of receiving praise and commendation for efforts done on the job.
This means that office-based employees are more likely to be recognised and thought-of when an important new project or promotion is in the pipeline, and there’s the risk that credit for collective efforts will be unevenly distributed to those who are ‘there’ at the time.
To counteract, managers will need to install new ways to track and communicate their team members’ successes and think about fair ways to report these to those who need to know. Things like presenting group projects should – as much as possible – be scheduled to days when everyone who contributed can make it to the office (or else be done digitally for everyone involved) and managers will need to work with their team members to ensure they have enough access to resources that support their work (think technology, information, infrastructure, etc.).
Balancing the benefits of remote working with ‘face-time’ in the office will be key when it comes to implementing successful hybrid working strategies. Communications, out of necessity, will become more intentional, and organisations will want to think about how they are going to share information and collaborate in a way that’s effective and aligns with the employee experience.
What about training?
Of course, as eLearning specialists, we’d be remiss not to mention training and development in the new hybrid workplace, although many UK employees are already comfortable with online learning and even prefer it to traditional classroom learning thanks to its flexibility and accessibility.
A hybrid workplace could take full advantage of these benefits of virtual learning, incorporating them into orientation, mandatory training, as well as professional development. Managers ought to be trained on how to use video techniques in department training sessions and be able to host meetings where all of the team – whether virtually present or there in person – get to share their thoughts equally.
Find out more about our remote working courses!
Adaptive learning (sometimes called adaptive teaching, adaptive instruction, or intelligent tutoring) is an educational method which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to present users with individually customised learning programs.
Adaptive learning works by gathering data before, during, and after the learning process and using this mined information intelligently to create optimised learning paths for each user.
Therefore, as the user continues to complete more training and take more assessments, the platform is able to identify and feed back only the content that is relevant to them, based off their performance and confidence levels. In doing so, it will also address their unique requirements and learning preferences, presenting the type of content (e.g., gamified courses, immersive learning, and so on.) that best appeals to the user and that they have engaged with well in the past.
In other words, adaptive learning platforms can automatically and intelligently determine which learning content, activities, and techniques will benefit the learner most and provide the best learning results.
Business benefits of adaptive learning
Adaptive learning is being increasingly used by businesses for mandatory corporate training – particularly that which, in the past, may have seen lower engagement or retention levels from employees. After all, it can feel frustrating to go over old learning content that you already know when you have a job to do!
It’s easy to see how adaptive learning can save time by allowing learners to bypass information they already have a clear understanding of and by presenting only the information necessary to become more competent or to upskill them.
Ease of use
Adaptive learning happens automatically and with minimum human intervention, so it’s a great tool for Learning and Development Managers to utilise as it affords them more time to focus on their goals and the success of their employees.
What’s more, adaptive learning can be rolled out quickly, with minimum hassle, and in direct response to any key-risk areas identified – so it’s useful for organisations that want to remain agile and responsive.
Improved knowledge retention
High engagement means higher knowledge retention and by utilising and suggesting a variety of learning styles, adaptive learning can be used to increase knowledge retention by presenting learning content in the styles that best suit the individual learner.
Additionally, it doesn’t devalue employee time by forcing them to complete unnecessary training, so adaptive learning has the added benefit of increased morale and commitment when it comes to training activities.
Increased ROI
Training is designed to add value to your business, not detract from it. Adaptive learning means you can reduce the time spent on unnecessary training and training administration, resulting in increased productivity and better informed, more motivated employees. It can also help to minimise the cost of external recruitment since members of staff progress organically, at their own pace.
To learn more about our adaptive learning product offering, please visit our Collections pages.
We’re many months into the coronavirus pandemic and a return to office life as we knew it still seems a long way off, if it comes at all. When settling in for the long-term “new normal”, there’s a question every employer needs to be asking their staff: “are you sitting comfortably?” Employees can begin by asking themselves the same question and taking a look at their home working set-up.
Incorrect equipment and bad posture can lead to musculoskeletal issues and, in the short-term, aches and pains. As working from home looks less like a short-term adjustment and more like a reality of working life, employees need to take this into account and let their employer know if they need support. We can show you how.
DSE, Equipment and Posture
Not everyone will have access to a separate home office. But it can help to have a dedicated “working space” – even if it’s a corner of a room that is not used for anything else. This makes it easier to set up display screen equipment in the right way.
Correctly set up DSE will have a huge effect on a worker’s physical health and wellbeing. Crouching over a laptop might not do too much damage immediately (aside from some neck ache, perhaps!) but over weeks, it can add up to a serious issue. It can also make existing conditions worse.
You need to make sure you’re sitting in the right position. Make sure your back is straight, your arms are supported and your feet are touching the ground. Regularly check this so you’re not falling into a slouching position or sitting in exactly the same position for hours at a time.
Stretch and Move
It can be easy to get engrossed in work and suddenly realise several hours have passed without getting up and moving! Set up a timer if needed and make sure you get up and about at least every hour – even if it’s just to pop downstairs and get a drink.
Our Spinal Awareness short course explores some of the stretching exercises that you can do at your desk or in your workspace. They can help to prevent many health problems and, apart from the physical effects, it’s psychologically beneficial.
Here are some other ideas for keeping active:
- Take a lunch time walk. It’s a great way to keep active at a regular time and breaks up the day. When working from home, it can be easy to go entire days without leaving the house; lunch time brisk walks help to counter this.
- Have a pre-work workout. One for the morning people, perhaps! Why not use some of the time you used to use commuting on an exercise regime? You’ll certainly feel awake after that…
- Mix up your workspace. If you’re sick of sitting in the same place, why not move to another room and work in the kitchen for a bit? This has to be balanced with the need to have properly set-up DSE – but for a brief respite, if you can, it can help to mix it up a bit.
You don’t need to do a full-blown fitness regime to keep active throughout the day. Just a couple of minor breaks and a lunch-time walk can make a world of difference to your physical and mental wellbeing.
The recent HSE update to their guidance on protecting homeworkers has become even more pertinent following the new Government directive to work from home where possible.
Just as many workers were returning to their offices, albeit in a very different capacity to which they left them, the trend is now set to reverse with numbers working from home likely to rise again.
The updated guidance reiterates the need for employers to demonstrate the same duty of care towards employees who work from home as they do for on-site staff.
HSE guidance and how training can help
The importance of adhering to the guidelines is twofold:
- To look after your employees and ensure their wellbeing, both physical and mental
- To ensure that your business is compliant and operating within the guidelines, negating the possibility of any future accusations of not following the correct procedures which could leave the company open to financial penalties.
In order to help keep your employees safe and your business compliant, eLearning can help employers ensure that they are providing the best possible level of care to the health and safety needs of their employees.
Employees can take the training at home and as they are likely to be in their current working environment they can make any changes necessary to improve their safety quickly and easily.
eLearning can cover the key areas contained within the HSE guidelines and is ideally suited to ensuring that you and your employees are working in a safe environment.
The guidelines refer specifically to DSE (Display Screen Equipment), Mental Health and Stress and state that:
As an employer when someone is working from home, permanently or temporarily, you should consider:
- How will you keep in touch with them?
- What work activity will they be doing (and for how long)?
- Can it be done safely?
- Do you need to put control measures in place to protect them?
This is as important now as it was when employees first started to work from home on a widespread scale, following restrictions imposed in March.
It could be argued that it is actually even more important as time has progressed, with feelings of isolation likely to have grown the longer home working has gone on.
To say that everybody who has switched to working from home has suffered mentally isn’t true; studies have shown that a high number of people have flourished, citing increased flexibility, lack of commute and reduced distractions as just some of the reasons for a reduction in stress and improvement in overall mental health.
DSE and working from home
One of the key things to consider about the home office space is DSE. We all know that incorrectly set up screens can cause musculoskeletal issues and other health problems and that this has to be a core area of concern for employers moving towards homeworking; but how do employers and employees alike mitigate this risk?
The answer is with targeted training that can be delivered at home, namely eLearning. Getting your employees to undergo training specifically focused on DSE will help to achieve the goals of ensuring their safety and demonstrating you taking responsibility as an employer.
Training should include points such as:
- How to set up DSE correctly to maximise safety
- Exercises to minimise the risks of injury
- Importance of regular breaks
- Relevant legislation
To discover more about successfully training your employees to set up their DSE safely, we have a number of options available.
Stress
The HSE guidance explicitly mentions the greater need for employers to ensure the mental health of their homeworking staff is protected.
Studies have shown that a number of people have seen improvements to their mental health since working from home, citing increased flexibility, lack of commute and reduced distractions as just some of the reasons for a reduction in stress.
However, for a great many others, feelings of isolation, loneliness and detachment from the workplace has led to a rise in stress and a deterioration in mental health.
This is where managers have had to step up and will continue to need to do so. Increased communication from managers is vital to help with feelings of isolation, as is the need to be able to recognise early warning signs and symptoms of stress in employees.
We have a set of resources specifically designed to help employees recognise their own signs of stress and to help manage it, along with resources for managers to learn how to manage stress in their team.
Home Working Risk Assessments
Many of the risks inherent to homeworking are the same as working in the office: setting up display screen equipment correctly, minimising slips and trips and taking extra precautions if lone working for example.
Home working environments should have had a thorough risk assessment carried out at the outset. Even if this was the case, now is a good time to be re-visiting it to ensure that the working environment remains safe.
We created a Home Working Risk Assessment for precisely this purpose and provides a comprehensive tool for ensuring the safety if your employees.
It focuses on three core areas: your home workspace, working design and taking care of yourself. From looking after your mental health all the way to electrical safety, no homeworking topic is neglected. There is also an extra section for people with line management responsibilities.
Summary
The recent updates to the HSE guidelines about protecting home workers are a timely reminder that we cannot be complacent about the health and safety of homeworkers.
Coupled with the new advice from the government regarding working from home where possible, now is the perfect opportunity to refresh your employees training to maximise their safety.
Our solutions provide a high quality, cost effective solution to your training needs in order to mitigate risk and keep your employees safe.
Our physical wellbeing at work is in the spotlight like never before. We are still in the midst of one of the biggest shifts in working culture in living memory, with the coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath set to change everything from the amount we work from home to the layouts of our offices.
With workplace health and safety in the headlines, in July the HSE released its annual report into workplace fatality figures. (They don’t include deaths directly resulting from COVID-19.) The good news is that they are lower than before – 111 in 2019/20, a drop from 147 the previous year. This might be due to the break in many physical jobs the pandemic caused and the rise of homeworking for many, but though every workplace death is a tragedy, a fall is a good sign no matter what the cause. The long-term trend shows a steady decline in deaths.
Delving deeper into the figures, they tell an interesting story about the risks across industries – and how workplace health and safety still has a way to go before we get the fatality figures down to zero.
Construction and Other High-Risk Industries
The HSE website includes a breakdown by industry of the workplace fatalities. This shows construction had twice the amount of workplace deaths as the next highest industry, agriculture.
In many ways, the industries most likely to suffer tragedies like workplace deaths are no surprise: they are often more physical in their day to day work and involve work in difficult conditions, such as on buildings in need of repair or using machinery. There are more opportunities in these lines of work to fall victim to the most common causes of workplace deaths: falls from height, being struck by a moving vehicle and being struck by a moving object. This underlines the need for robust risk assessments and safety measures in place to protect all workers and members of the public.
New Challenges
Recently it’s been almost impossible to avoid the phrase “the new normal”. Used to describe everything from new workplace layouts to socialising over Zoom, the phrase covers both the challenges and opportunities ahead. Unfortunately, nobody can agree exactly what “the new normal” will mean at this point.
Health and safety will need to stay front-and-centre of companies’ minds for the foreseeable future. Training will be even more important for all employees, including those working from home, and engaging employees in this learning will be vital.
The challenge facing employers in the future, especially in high-risk industries, is how to protect people from COVID-19 whilst not neglecting their traditional health and safety arrangements. All previous protections and control measures must be in place, even if they have to be adapted to meet the new guidelines.
It remains to be seen how COVID-19 and the associated changes to workplaces will affect the workplace fatality figures in the years to come. With appropriate training and keeping the focus on all aspects of workers’ health and safety, employers can play their part in bringing that figure lower and lower.