International Stress Awareness Week: Organisations increasing support for stress and burnout

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 Launches new Mental Health and Wellbeing eLearning Collection

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.

Britain’s Favourite Office Snacks – The ULTIMATE Ranking

It’s a conversation that sparks disagreement in the office time and time again, but the debate can finally be put to rest.

Here at DeltaNet International, we’ve pulled data from more than 60 ‘top UK snack’ rankings to devise the list to end all lists. The ULTIMATE snack ranking, if you will.

The Results

The full list of top 10 crisps, biscuits, and chocolate bars can be seen below, although the results may prove divisive.

Walkers Sensations Thai Sweet Chilli bagged first place for crisps – and Brits are also loving Quavers and Pickled Onion flavour Monster Munch.

When it comes to the age-old debate of Dairy Milk versus Galaxy, we can report that Cadbury bagged the honour of first place, closely followed by its Wispa bar in third place.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Mcvitie’s famous chocolate digestive finished in first place for biscuit rankings, although coming in at number two, the Jaffa Cake is bound to reignite the ‘cake or biscuit?’ debate.

Promoting Wellness

Snacking at work is a hot topic for organisations interested in prioritising employee wellness, particularly since junk food consumption has links to stress (both as a symptom of and a catalyst for).

With this in mind, it’s important we indulge in our favourite treats as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle – rather than a reaction to stressful working environments or means of comfort.

Indeed, alongside more traditional health and safety training, many organisations are promoting stress management initiatives that help empower the workforce by getting them involved in their own physical and mental wellbeing.

Some Practical Tips for Businesses:

Encourage physical activity – Given that we spend about one third of our waking hours working, initiatives like walk-to-work and cycle schemes have helped UK workers fit physical activity around their employment. It’s encouraging to report that many UK workers now have access to onsite shower facilities and/or lockers to make it easier to be active whilst still getting the job done and maintaining professionalism. From boardroom workouts to lunchtime yoga and discounted fitness apps, encouraging physical activity can help promote productivity and maintain the good health of your workforce.

Offer healthy snacks – As our rankings prove, Britain loves sweet and salty treats! However, these aren’t the only delicious snacks health-conscious organisations have to offer. Initiatives like fresh-fruit deliveries can help employees make beneficial choices, as can recipe swapping clubs and team lunches aimed at raising awareness about nutrition.

Keep employees moving – Office workers often sit for hours in front of their computer – sometimes spending as much as seven or eight hours a day completely sedentary, which puts both physical and mental health at risk. Simply encouraging employees to take short but regular breaks can help, as can raising awareness about display screen equipment (DSE) use and what office-based exercises they can do to help reduce fatigue, pain, and discomfort.

Final Word

Whilst our snack rankings were a bit of fun for the DeltaNet International office, we can’t ignore the fact that workplace health and wellbeing is a very serious issue as we move into 2020. It’s important that employees are empowered to make good choices and that awareness training and information about healthy workplace initiatives are available and suitable for everyone.

See below for the UK’s ULTIMATE snack rankings in full: