Health and wellbeing

right good afternoon welcome to this CIPD coronavirus webinar on health and
well-being at work and my name is Steven Bevan and I'm head of HR research and development at the Institute for
employment studies it's a great pleasure to be hosting this webinar I've been
carrying out research and advising employers on well-being at work for most 30 years and I think we can all agree
that the current Cobie 19 crisis represents an unprecedented challenge
both to public health and to the wider well-being of the workforce the lockdown
now means that many more people are working from home while others are going to work but are concerned about the risk
of infection the situation raises a number of really complex and sometimes urgent questions from employers and
today we hope to discuss some of these and get some practical answers from an excellent panel of experts let me
introduce them first we have Rachel staff who's a policy advisor and well-being specialist at the CIPD
and we have professor Ann Harris who's the president-elect of the Society of Occupational misson and a relate
stand-in so thank you very much antler stepping up and then we have Emma memo
who's the head of workplace well-being at Minds the mental health charity so
thank you all very much for joining us panellists I've got a few introductory remarks to make if we can just see the
next slide please not that one with my face on that's it
excellent just a bit of context really so before the lockdown a third of
white-collar workers could could work from home but only about 15% did so regularly and that number is now
massively increased but home workers may face additional risks to their physical emotional well-being such as depression
anxiety musculoskeletal strain sedentary working poor diet poor sleep increased
alcohol intake financial concerns feelings of isolation go to the next
slide please
and throughout all this it's really important that employers remember that
their duty of care to employee well-being remains in place but of course it's a tricky set of
responsibilities to discharge once people are working remotely and that means only an idea were conducting
physical or ergonomic and psychosocial risk assessments or people's workplaces including home offices looking at things
like insurance and so on very few employers have had time to really do this at a time when many home
workers might be exposed to elevated risks of physical strain and challenges to their mental well-being next slide
and working at home is a particular challenge for parents there are over
seven million working parents who are not ki workers who also like to have children home was working about over
five million working families which have children under 11 and 700,000 people who
are working who alone working parents who'll be working at home and the HSE
management standards point to role conflict as a really significant driver of workplace stress and that is
obviously a risk to many work at home parents so the whole bunch of things are happening in when people are working at
home and as this new normal kicks in that we need to consider and so today we
want to try and talk about some of these things and we're going to have the following form at each of our speakers
is going to speak for ten minutes or so I'm using a set of slides which they prepared for us and those of you are
tuning in are able to submit questions as we go along and I'd ask you to use the Q&A box at the bottom of the screen
not the chat box and that's the way that you can submit questions and that we've got some busy worker bees in the
background you'll be collating those questions and making sure that as we get through as many of those and my job
really is to help - to be the ringmaster and we hope we'll have some good
discussion and debate towards the end of the session after people have done their present and I might even throw in a couple of
dingers myself though my role is host to keep the discussion going along make sure that we address as many of your
questions as possible and of course try and finish on time so first thing I like to do is to
introduce Rachel who's going to give us a few thoughts based on the work that she
and her colleagues at CIPD have been doing and this is a really important area over to you Rachel thanks Steven and thank you everybody
for joining in and as you're well aware that steven has said these are
exceptional times it's a huge test of how well organizations are supporting people's health and well-being next
slide please and you HR professionals hopefully working with your Oh H professionals as
well where you have a H in place you're going to be at the forefront of how you
guide your organization's response to the pandemic that puts you under enormous pressure to keep up-to-date
with the fast-moving and stringent public health requirements how to
translate those in practice what that means for your employees to protect them
from the spread of infection and of course this could be in a very wide range of different workplace settings as
this side shows Stevens already mentioned working from home as one scenario and then more recently as well
we've seen up-to-date government guidance advising those who are at
increased risk of severe illness and to be particularly stringent such as age
seventy plus underlying health conditions and our panellists will be covering some of these areas in more
detail so the CIPD is said right from the beginning of this pandemic that people's
house and well-being has to be at the very heart of our organizations respond at an operational level to it next slide
please so I think it's reassuring as the first
bullet point shows on this slide that over the past months when the CIPD
and people management magazine have been regularly surveying the profession to
see how they respond in concern for people's health and well-being has
consistently been flagged by them as a top priority so last week in our most
recent survey we asked what would you say is your organization's main challenge concern around dealing with
the outbreak the overwhelming majority from a really big list of different options chose people's fear and anxiety
around the situation and supporting people's mental health and well-being so
that's so important because it's becoming more and more obvious that the
risks to people's health from this pandemic this of course they're physical but they're also mental as well in terms
of people's health there is real urgency obviously around protecting people from the immediate
risk of infection but more attention is being drawn now including by the World
Health Organization in to the importance of organizations paying attention to
protecting people's mental health as well because we know that there is an
increased risk to people's mental house and even risk of suicide during and
after a pandemic as well now we know that from our research from city IPG
that even before this pandemic there were significant risks to people's
mental house at work only last week we published our annual survey report on
health and well-being and it shows again mental health is the number one cause of long-term sickness absence and we had 60
percent of organizations HR professionals saying that they'd
witnessed an increase in reported common mental health conditions among their employees that was before the pandemic
of course that we surveyed HR and before the fear and anxiety around
this pandemic and all the other associated issues took place so we can't
emphasize enough how important it is to take that holistic approach now to looking after people's health and
well-being and of course being particularly mindful if you know employees do have in one of those groups
that are higher risk from infection from the virus but also if they do have a
mental health condition next slide please and I just want to touch now briefly on
the role the crucial role of ly managers during the pandemic and how important it
is for HR and employers to provide ongoing support and guidance to them to
make sure that they feel equipped to support people in their teams in terms
of their health and well-being because ly managers more than ever now are the
main link between the organization and what it's doing to protect people during the pandemic and individuals in the
organization they're very likely to be the first protocol if people are experiencing any kind of people issue
coping with new work demands because they're working from home if they need
to self isolate and if they need adjustments to work from home if they've got caring responsibilities if they've
got concerns if they feel stressed or overwhelmed and we know as well from our
research that there's increase in expectation and generally online
managers to support people's health and well-being day to day but there's also a
stubborn and significant gap between that expectation which is high and the
level typically in investment in terms of the guidance and support that they
receive and so we really need to address that gap urgently going forward you can
see from this slide that there is low levels of confidence generally on the
part of HR professionals in the capability of ly managers in looking after people's health and
well-being in terms of mental health in particular so the first stat 58 percent of HR think
line managers are bought into the importance of well-being we need every line manager on board and then 31
percent think managers can have sensitive conversations side post our
expert sources to help around mental health and that's so important now and then only a quarter of managers can spot
the early warning signs of mental health according to HR professionals so doing
this health crisis line managers have got an acute need to have clear guidance
on all the organizational policies that are so important at the moment around
flexible working sickness absence we've had so many changes around sorry sick
pay for example isolation but also how to have conversations with people and
make homework can work for them if they have got large numbers of staff working from home and also just deal with all
the complexity of some of these situations that people are dealing with we're certainly not expecting line
managers to be medical experts or counsellors far from it and part of
skill is with line managers know where that line lies and where they really do
need to assign post people some more expert sources of help and Mike occupation House mental health charities
like mind and so on so that is really important so just onto final sight
please so finally we know how extremely
challenging the situation is for us HR professionals we really are all in
uncharted waters and we're doing everything we can we work in really hard
at the CIPD to provide a whole Bank of up-to-date guidance support tools we
have this hub here you can see the the link to it underneath we're constantly
updating it so really encourage you to go on that we've
taken down a membership walls you can freely access all the resources there and there's also links to all our
community helps where you can go on and share experiences and discuss some of
the more difficult issues that you're dealing with so please to go and have a look thank you thank you Rachel that's
great really really helpful and lots of great resources on the CIPD website okay
so Anne Harris thank you very much for taking part and let's hand over to you and hear your contribution thank you
can you hear me thank you very much oh good and so I'm
standing in for somebody who was not able to attend a very short notice and I'm really grateful to dr. Robin Cordell
for allowing him allowing me to use some of his slides next slide please
okay so I'm going to start by talking about legal obligations on employers and
to some extent this has already been addressed by Rachel
first of all duty of care under Section two of the health and safety at Work Act the employer still has a duty of care
irrespective of where that person is working so working from home they still have that responsibility
that's supplemented by doing risk assessments under regulation through the
management of health and safety at work regs and also the control of substances hazardous to health regulations this
requires risk assessments for two purposes one there is the potential for
some workers certainly those that are working in hospitals to be exposed to
this virus which would come under cosh and there's also the additional cleaning
responsibilities again with kosh next slide please
lots of useful links I'm not going to go through all of them but you've got them live for future reference
there's government got guidance on the coronavirus NHS guidance for those of
you that are and adjust HR professionals NHS England has got lots of advice again
for healthcare professionals NHS employees advice what will be applicable
across all workplaces is the advice from the Royal College of Obstetricians and
Gynaecologists which is available at that link I'm not going to click on the links now you can look at those later
next slide please so what do you need to do well the government are saying a number of things
to stay at home where you can only going outside for food health reasons or work
but only if you cannot work from home so there are a number of people who cannot
work from home such as health care staff post people food delivery people so they
are outside of that if you do go out what's very important is to keep
distance from other people at least two metres away from other people at all times
wash your hands I can't say that more strong wash your hands when you have done
anything when you leave the home if you go shopping just thinking about shopping
baskets and they the trolleys wash your hands afterwards don't meet for other
other people even friends or family and you can spread the virus even if you don't have symptoms next slide please
this came through my letterbox on Saturday I don't know if everybody's got
it yet but you will be getting it it's the information about staying at home and the diagram on the right explains
what you should do if you get the infection or if you live in a house with somebody that's got the infection so
over to the next slide please so protecting those people who need to attend workplaces these are the key
workers I'm a nurse myself and I'm very aware of what's happening in hospitals
so health health care staff are deathly key workers but we shouldn't forget all
as the post workers food suppliers waste management people that come in empty our
bins people who are providing news so it's not just about health care staff although they are very important and
close to my my heart next slide please so health and safety for remote working
for those that can work from home it's a totally new way of working they're
working with computers many of them and yet they're not working on a normal DSC
workstation they might be working on the kitchen table dining room table on their laps which that raises all sorts of
ergonomic issues another thing is workload work-related stress and that's
all already been mentioned by Rachel there's a link there to look at these
stress standards being aware that there might be more than one person in the whole in the household who's home
working so it could be husband wife children who are doing school work or
people who are working who are teenagers childcare responsibilities normal
arrangements of totin totally gone out of the window we're endeavouring to continue to work and be productive and
for men people this is with char child or children being around and managers must
be aware and appreciate those difficulties next slide please
okay so protecting health remaining planning productivity we are all trying
to do this to the best of our abilities lots of guidance here government
guidance for employers and businesses are available at that first link guidance for specific sectors the second
link and finally the Health and Safety Executive is a good place to to look for
guidance and information that that final link next slide please
so from an employer or HR perspective what's really important is to risk
assess because that will be the way of reducing the likelihood of infection hazards and risk so just to remind
people water hazard on a risk is a hazard is anything that might cause harm so those could be physical or
psychological mental health and has it may be physical chemical biological psychological or environmental so let's
just run through a few of those chemical so those people in health care settings
shops they have to be aware of things like exposure to an additional exposure
to chemicals for cleaning leads to all sorts of problems with skin dermatitis I
gathered from my friends who are nurses they're getting real problems with
painful cracked skin and dermatitis obviously a virus is a biological hazard
and there are psychological hazards associated with the potential of being
exposed to a very dangerous virus the
risk is the chance the likelihood and that might be high meet him although that somebody could be harmed by these
and other hazards and together with an indication of how serious that harm could be so thinking about doing the
risk assessment whether that is for home workers or people who are actually working in the in a physical workplace
and the link at the bottom is an HSE link which is all about controlling risks next slide please
so risk assessment is part of a risk management strategy we're looking at reducing the likelihood of infection so
the process for any risk approach is identify what can harm people in your
workplace identify who might be harmed and how then evaluate those risks and
decide on the appropriate controls taking into account the controls that
are already in place then recording the risk assessment reviewing it and
updating it as appropriate so if we go to the third point evaluating the risks
and deciding on the appropriate controls one place that is certainly high risk is
when we go shopping so when you go shopping the shop owner whether that's a
major supermarket chain or a corner shop selling provisions they should be
thinking about how they can keep people away from each other in the queue when
they're shopping and also be mindful of the effect that they could be having on
the employee in other words the person at checkout next slide so risk
assessment is all about reducing the likelihood of infection and the UK government approach is available at
these two links so the first one is all about social distancing and the second
one is about self isolation so for people in household with symptoms so the social distancing we've already
talked about keeping at least two meters even further if you can next slide
government guidance on social distancing and venerable people is on the first link and the second one is about
shielding for those of you that are not familiar with shielding that is the
approach to be taken for people who have got serious health conditions which put them at an additional degree of risk so
people who are recovering from cancer people with respiratory problems such as cystic fibrosis are at
significant risk because if they develop the condition of if they pick up the
virus then it puts them at risk of a more life-threatening condition ensuing
next slide please so to think about who the various people
who are at risk certainly those of under seventy are a reduced risk but they are
still at risk so what's important there is to think about social distancing
those that are more vulnerable so in the increased risk zone are people over
seventy and people who have got certain underlying health conditions so that
would be issues such as diabetes or if they're pregnant and again they should
be even more stringently following the social distance guidelines high risk are
those who are considered to be highly vulnerable those are people over seventeen with underlying conditions all
those who have an underlying health condition as listed by the government that places them in the more vulnerable
group that's at the more severe end who may have more than one condition that
makes them particularly vulnerable all those that are in the last trimester over twenty eight weeks of pregnancy so
the mitigation advised there is social distancing stringently applied and
further measures as far as is reasonably practicable so they are certainly the people if they wish to be home if they
come home work should be home working if they're in a high-risk job then the way
around that is to think about redeploying them into a different role
for a limited period until we get over this crisis the very high risk are those
that are extremely vulnerable and I've already mentioned that so being treated for cancer with chemotherapy or
radiotherapy people with severe asthma so that's people who need hospital
admission on courses of steroid treatments and also people with cystic
fibrosis and they're expected to shield for 12 weeks which means that they don't
even go out of the house so they stay at home and they can work from home if that
isn't a part of their job that they can do alternatively you may well consider
them for furthering next slide please
fit notes for those that are self isolating well obviously one place that
would be a bit of a viral soup is anywhere where people who are ill are congregating such as a GP surgery so the
last thing you want to do is send somebody who is self isolating into that arena so people who are unable to work
for more than seven days because of the virus can obtain an isolation note through a new online service and the
links below next slide so what should we
expect both now and in the future well as has already been mentioned and
I'm sure to be mentioned again by Emma this crisis is having a huge impact on
the current and future mental health of the population in general and your workers in particular so the best thing
to do is think about making plans both now and also when the crisis has reduced
and people are able to go back to work think about what your occupational
health provision is if you don't already have an occupational health provider there are many organizations that can
actually do that for you if you don't have an in-house one next slide
sorry that's the end of mine and mmm Oh we'll be taking over for the next
section Thank You Ann that's great so over to Emma he's going to talk about
supporting the mental health of staff you know all thanks for inviting me to be part of this and thanks to Rachel and
and what they've covered so far so I'm head of workplace ball being at mines and I been focusing in this area of work
since 2010 but I think what we've seen in the last couple of months and couple of weeks and and so on is is as we said
are unprecedented and equally I've had to respond that as a leader of a team I've had 40 people go remote and what
I've had to do to kind of support them and myself during that transition so I'm going to be covering general guidance
but also hopefully through the questions and discussion I could bring in my personal experiences so next slide please
so remind mr. charity we're here to make sure that anyone experiencing a mental health problem has somewhere to turn for
advice and support and this time you know it's as we said it's hitting everybody in terms of them mental health
we're all in a spectrum but thinking about the needs of people with mental problems and the additional challenges
this will be creating but then equally as we said the impact this will have more broadly on everybody next slide
please yeah so I just wanted to talk a bit more about that current picture so next slide
again thank you so we talked about this outbreak in how it's cutting across you
know physical and mental health but also linked this as other areas of well-being so financial well-being social
well-being I think that it'll be impacting people's mental health in different ways and at different times
but I think in in multiple ways I think we're worried about the financial implications of all of this it's also
making it harder for us to do the things that we know keep us well so that added challenge in terms of exercise social
connection and so on and let's say we can't still do these things it just needs to be done in a different way but
I think as we already mentioned by other speakers today just their anxiety of this kind of pandemic what people will
be experiencing potentially around bereavement but equally for the people working frontline service
is what they will be experiencing in terms of trauma so yes this is very much a significant worry in in all of those
areas and then thinking about work places specifically so next slide please
so it touched on these groups already in in different ways but for me it's
absolutely thinking about who he's working from home now and equally if they've worked from home before okay
that's that's a good thing but then thinking about how this is now your new normal for the foreseeable future and
how someone's mental health is supported during that but for people who are new to working from home obviously this is a
real step change and and a real disruption and something that we've all needed to adapt to quite quickly and
then equally the additional emotional challenges for people who might be in the high-risk or vulnerable kind of
groups and who might be having their life just disrupted and restricted even more so also thinking about that we've
talked about key workers and yes it is very much about NHS and social care and emergency emergency services on the
frontline but also it is people who are delivering goods supermarkets corner
shops BT engineers and so on so I think trying to think through how you support
people doing those roles and having to come out of their home and thinking about the increased risk for them but
also what they might then be taking home and I'll talk about that in a bit in a bit more and then obviously employees
who have been furloughed and the psychological impact of people going through that and supporting people but
equally thinking about a staff who may be still in the workplace if you're not furloughing all of your staff and
thinking about how you manage the different needs within that and then equally we know a lot of industries
which have had to shut down for the foreseeable and people are being made redundant so again thinking about how
you manage and support people through that process sensitively and I think for
some employers you actually might have employees in all of those groups and thinking about how you manage the needs
within there is quite challenging next slide please so in terms of how to respond with
something as new as this as challenging and kind of wide reaching and and fast-paced and I think you have to go
back to thinking through you know more of a principles-based approach to help
inform you know decisions taken actions that are being taken and so for me first and foremost it's about supporting
people's well-being and it's great to hear from Rachel that HR professionals are absolutely recognizing that the
well-being and equally the safety of people within that needs to come first and an acknowledgement that people's
ability to engage with work will be impacted at certain times because of this because of personal reasons stress
and anxiety distractions and and real worries and concerns about friends and
family and themselves so I think managers and people managers and supervisors will absolutely pay play a
key role in that and you'll need to understand people's individual circumstances and understand the ebb and flow of how people will be responding
for me the next key principle and I've definitely been trying to model this with my team is just clarity about
priorities in terms of responding to growing a virus but then equally what you know might need to be doing in terms
of business as usual but just being really clear about priorities and I guess a very agile appraisal of that because if it's anything good you know
what we're experiencing things are changing and you have to be very agile to manage that but in order to be agile
you then need to have policies and processes that are clear for staff that have been updated in light of all the
changes that we've seen and for me it's about a real focus on simplification so anything you can do where it's a
one-stop shop everything's together you're managing communications and updates to to your workforce and so on
it is really important which brings me on to the next principle around community so we know a you know a
protective factor for people is around social capital which is jargon for friends and family colleagues you know a
support system to draw upon so thinking about how you can create that community
and manage that community in your own workplace is really important we're obviously very concerned about the
mental health impacts of the pandemic and what we've seen so far if people are
doing okay but I think it's because it's been a real sense of together
in community that's coming in how everybody's responding and I think that's been a good protective factor so thinking about how you can support and
and and create that within your own workplace will be important and then the final point in terms of a key principle
is just about being reflective obviously this is you know something that needs an initial response and emergency kind of
response to but and thinking about how yes you need to spring into action but how can you also think and build in
pause so you can reflect on what's working your staff can share what's working this is very much a test and
learn type of situations I think how you can build in those feedback loops will be very helpful so moving on to the next
site I just wanted to focus a little bit around employees who are working from home and then equally around key workers
in terms of the key issues that we see that need managing and responding to so
this idea we've always been concerned about remote working agile working and how this can lead to an always-on
culture so supporting people to manage their working day and come up with a working day that works for them and this
is especially key for working parents so thinking through how people can have a routine and clear boundaries for their
working day I guess the challenges that we know a lot of people are working in different ways now so the working day is
not a uniform nine-to-five and people will be working many different kind of working styles and patterns so I guess
it's HR professionals and line managers it's being clear and supporting everybody to work in a way as a team or across an organization so I think it's
about contracting and just everybody sharing what they're working pattern is and I've seen people paint things on their email signatures explaining what
their work you know how they're working so thinking and being mindful about that I think the other thing is around system
overload mind we're using teams some people are using Outlook people are using both so being clear of your staff
about what systems and platforms are being used and for what purpose and just having you know information about log on
details easier to be accessible and just trying to think through and stay one step ahead and support people working in
it in a very different way and needing to be a bit more fluid the next point is obviously around access to support you
know in a workplace you can grab colleagues for a conversation you can speak to your manager there's a lot of things that are
now available to support that in a digital format but I think we do need to make sure regular check-ins are
scheduled and and kept you in a format that works for each staff member the next point around burnout so I think
again being clear and supporting people with their priorities and offering
flexibility as an already mentioned and has Steve you know that staggering figure of 7.2 million working parents
and thinking through if someone's a single parent and having turn to homework so I think supporting people around that is important and then
isolation absolutely having channels for doing work but I think you should also
set up channels and discussion routes so people can have that more social side of the workplace and and contact with each
other is important moving to the next slide please so think about key workers as we said
this this includes quite a wide range of people and workplaces but obviously if people are out and about they will be
have higher exposure to the coronavirus and so on so ensuring adequate safety
measures are in place and clearly communicated to people if people are working on the frontline or we've heard
you know about the impacts of trauma we've done work previously with the
emergency services for our blue light program so just making sure they're adequate and appropriate support is
available to people so they can talk about what they've experienced and process it and then get more specialist
support when it's appropriate to them but making sure people are aware of what is available and then think about more
broadly as we said people in supermarkets they might be having to manage potentially challenging
situations if everybody is feeling the stress and concern of the emotions can run high and that may mean they're
dealing with some very challenging situations are on a more frequent basis so supporting people through that
offering peer supports and opportunities for people to debrief is it is so in key and the next point if people are having
to work quite intensely and I suppose this is true for for people working from home as well just making sure you
encouraging people around self before they come on to a chef during shift and after so during check-ins
before a shift so people are mentally ready for it and the challenges they might be presented with making sure people are
taking care of their you know their hydration and eating well during the chef to help manage that as well and
then also helping people switch off as they come to the end of the shift they all seem more difficult considering how
tough shifts are for people the present time but just hoping helping
people to think through how they can switch from the working conditions and then going into home mode if you will
just so they can have that time to recharge it will be so important during this time and again looking at burnout
in terms of staffing levels if people are more exposed to the virus and then maybe more people are having to take
time off so just making sure you're aware of staffing levels and having regular check-ins
next slide please I think that might conclude me yeah thankee brilliant Thank You Emma that's
really comprehensive and cover lots of territory so thank you all three panellists for your contributions which
were all really interesting and certainly a prompted a large number of questions and we've been trying to sort
of cluster them together probably the one that's come up most frequently is around display screen equipment so I
might ask and if you could have think about this there are several dimensions to this it
seems from the question so obviously a lot of people particularly in working at home for only a short time relatively
hurriedly have had to work at home with laptops and and so not all of whom have
got office equipment they're using their own equipment and so on there still is this requirement to do economic
assessments and I think people are concerned in their questions about how they should do this particular they're
not trained what sort of guidelines should they follow and what what practical things
can people do to make sure that people aren't being exposed to risk one thing I just would add is that my organization
IES is about this week to publish some new data which we've been collecting on musculoskeletal risk and somewhere
between 40 and 50 percents of people who we've been surveying just over the last few weeks have said that they've got
more pain in their neck shoulder wrists and back than previously prior to
starting home working so we're seeing quite significant increase in exposure to this so it's probably not a trivial
question to ask about how employers should think about doing a risk assessment along lines of the HSE
guidance okay should I answer that yes
please right and go to the Health and Safety Executive website there's lots of
information on there there's a very good little pamphlet I don't have the a copy
of it in front of me to give you the title but it's got pictures of people
sitting into work station and you then answer a question next to it and it gives you a picture of somebody with
poor setup same relation to using their their wrists and their fingers and their
hands the the seat the height of the seat the type of the chair they can use that it's very straightforward they can
just go through it and tick the answers and then it will give them information about what's wrong with this setup and
what's right with that setup so that's the first thing maybe it would be a good
idea for the organization to produce a sheet that they can send by email
identifying the kinds of things they should be looking at so things like have you got the right height of chair in
relation to your keyboard now that is a difficult one because people are working
at home very very quickly and they've not been able to necessarily get the right equipment at home so it's a case
of doing the best job but if they're aware of what the best job is the best
positions to adopt that will certainly help breaking up the tasks is quite an
important part of that more difficult when you're working from home if you're in the workplace you would have natural
breaks you'll be talking to colleagues you be going to meetings now all our work is being done for many using their
computer and doing webinars or doing zoom calls so perhaps some guidance from
the employer to their staff about how they can break up their work and how
they can best position themselves when they are using their keyboards and screens thank you and that's really
helpful I might also ask a related question of Emma about doing risk
assessments so the psychosocial work environment that work because obviously there is a requirement although not many
employers do this there are they're sort of good tools available does mind have
any I think the HSE obviously has some as well but a couple of people have asked questions about doing risk
assessments of people's exposure to risk of developing mental health problems absolutely and the Health and
Safety Executive obviously have their risk assessment and I would refer people to that in terms of how to conduct one
in terms of tools that can help people with managing their mental health and
then thinking about how you take account of the coronavirus and the additional
impact of that I mean we've always promoted the use of wellness action plans and I think they're good as a
proactive tool in a reactive tool and I think they could be hugely helpful today people to think through what are the
things that keep them when at work and equally you know how does that change now what is what are the things they
made traditionally done which may be more difficult now but how can we come up with a different way of doing that so
to get people to think through what the things that will keep them well and then getting people to understand what might cause them to struggle and
again this might be different to how it would be in the workplace and doing their job normally so getting people to
think through what they might find specifically challenging and then again to come up with ideas and solutions
about how to manage that and then to think through what's the port will be helpful from their manager what support
they need to put in place for themselves and then what to do if their manager is worried about them so I think in terms
of people if they had these in place already you absolutely need to review them in light of how we're working now but if you've never had my own place I
think this is a really helpful framework to get people to start thinking this through and as ever it should be a living document as as we go into this
you know I'm reflecting on it myself in terms of how I've been working I'm very strict now in terms of making sure I
have a two-hour lunch break in a bit today but I've got a light afternoon but I think this is very much an evolution
and understanding how we work in this way and what's working what isn't and having a kind of document that you've
agreed with your manager that you both can discuss and review as this time goes on I think would be hugely helpful
that's great thank you I think your point earlier about self care so really really important
yeah a question perhaps for Rachel we've had a few sort of questions about
working arrangements and so on perhaps if I put two together you might want to see which one you fancy what about
furloughed staff and obviously an employer still has a duty of care over a
fair leg staff because they remember those Dockers their continuity of employment so on but any thoughts about
how employers should think about the well-being of people or even if my
managers are being furloughed I think it's another question and then a second question about annual leave about people
concerned it seems that people are going to be saving up lots of annual leave
once everyone comes back to work looking it up with lots of people carrying leave over and obviously you what's the
boundary between being a home worker and being on annual levies rather blurred any reflections on furloughing annually
yeah thanks Steven really important areas both of them so I think in terms
of furlough it's taking a while to get a real clarification on some of the detail
around the government's new job retention scheme and I think on the face
of it it might seem really attractive if I were offering 80 percent of pain so on
and I mean it's a vice or financial support for people but also as you say
it's really important to remember that employment rights continue through that
period of furlough and as those employers duty of care and so on and for
health and safety and well-being so and whilst that furloughed employee isn't
able to carry out any work for that same employer you can carry out training and
actually employers are encouraged to encourage their furloughed employees to
carry out some training because I think it can be really unsettling and for
people to be furloughed because it's a really new situation you don't know what the future holds necessarily
you might be worried that you'll be at risk of redundancy and also once there are all these different difficult
challenges to people who are now shifting their work to work from home
and all the sort of issues and new demands that throws on people at the same time it's suddenly people are
furloughed I know quite a lot of people who are there suddenly and have nothing
to do they've had their you know work for fines purpose for people as we know so they're in a limbo so it's really
important that employers are mindful of their health and well-being at this time
and the question about line managers if Lima is a good question if Ally manager has been furloughed who then is looking
after and managing and supervising and that employee because I mentioned
earlier how lie managers have a such an important link between the organization
and the people everybody needs to have a manager that they can turn to at this time so without overburden in other
managers the employee needs to think about realign in those line management
responsibilities in terms of annual leave just quickly we could have all sorts of different scenarios around
annual leave because on the one hand the working town regulations have been changed so that people can carry over
their annual leave entitlement to subsequent year but that won't apply if
actually people who use an apple all their holidays so we could have some employees stacking up quite a lot of
annual leave entitlement whilst others are left with hardly any so I think
there needs to be those individual conversations with employees to think about how they manage their annual IVA
is a good solution and take paid paid annual leave for instance if you're
looking after children and so on but we don't want the neck the rest of the whole year to go by with people not
having anywhere any annual leave to take so really think about the impact of that
in the round on people okay thank you
there's a couple of other questions I think combination of you perhaps could
begin to address so one is about people
who are living with people who may be especially vulnerable I think and covered a bit of this in
what you were saying but there have been a couple of questions about what sort of provision should there be for you know
how do we support people are working at home but also living with people and on the extremely vulnerable list
who's that directed to have you read the question yes there was
a question sorry and this is directed at you guidance for people who are working
at home but also living with people who are vulnerable to infection that is a
really interesting question because the
very vulnerable person is going to be at risk if they partner or the other person
that's living in the same house is leaving the house to collect materials or to get shopping and as far as
protecting them in the in the home working scenario from their manager they
should the manager should be aware of the of the stress that puts them under
could you just hold the line a second did that help hello thank you and I
think I'm saying people just check out the links that you've had on your slides as well I think there's quite a lot of
other guidance for might cover some of that question as well okay um I've got a
question about sleep one of the challenges I think a lot of people are
facing is about interrupted sleep poor quality sleep and so on affecting
people's ability to concentrate people's there was a fatigue if they're working
parents are looking after elderly relatives and so on I'll open it to anyone really wants to ask answer the
question but it does seem to me that there is some evidence emerging that people in this situation because of all
sorts of concerns not just work concerns I'm having trouble with sleep any thoughts or any resources that you know
that you could direct people to about that respond to that there's such huge links
between people's sleep and mental health is someone who's struggling with them and one of the first things they'll be affected will be someone's sleep but
equally someone struggling with their sleep this can then obviously impact on their mental health so it's interesting
Mental Health Awareness Week in May this year is focused on sleep actually and I've been experiencing it myself a
little bit just in terms of being able to shut off of the night time so I've just taken two just journaling anything
that I'm worrying about just so I can get it out of my mind and then trying to do some kind of relaxation techniques to
try and help me get to sleep a bit easier I think also thinking about a
routine and trying to go to bed at the same time and just as I said more broadly just trying to think through what your daily routine needs to look
like any clean what you're kind of going to bed routine and we always know switching off your devices and not using
your phone as an alarm clock and all of these things can help with your sleep there's a lot of information out there and I'm happy to share stuff after the
webinar if that's helpful but there's a lot that you can try and think free to help you in terms of switching off a
busy mind as you go to bed and then the kind of conditions that you need around you to help you sleep well thanks them
and perhaps another one for you emma is around domestic abuse risk and we're
hearing a lot about that and obviously you know that's a big concern and as people people work at home that's again
an elevated risk of people being exposed to that yes I mean that is a really difficult one and I think it's also in
terms of many children who are maybe still attending school because there are concerns that they're in unsafe
households and situations and I think that is potentially a heavy burden for
for workers you know in educators and and so on to bear so I think having an
organizational conversation about that and very clear processes around signposting is one thing in terms of
adults and if they're at risk of domestic abuse again I think this is a challenge and for HR professionals to be
aware and sponsor to this and having clear information signposting but I think this is again another challenge
that we we're starting to think about and Anita respond to thank you
we're nearly up to our time but time for a couple more questions I think and I
think some of the questions are suggesting that we're focusing quite a bit on home workers which I think we
have been but I wanted to give you the chance to talk about non remote workers
key workers and so on you've talked about the NHS and so on any particular things that you want to talk about with
them in relation to how we can provide support and make sure that waiting for
for risk assessments for them well certainly from the perspective of health
care workers because they are at the frontline what's really important for them is that their managers are aware of
the psychological issues that that poses to them and the need to have the
appropriate personal protective equipment which is certainly being looked at at the moment as far as people
working as post people or waste
management people then they should be aware of the infection control issues the distancing rules the importance of
washing their hands if they could be given some alcohol Rob to use with their
on their hands when they've done any high-risk activities so if they've
touched a door or touched a being went they must be aware at the end of that
working process that they can wash that they should wash their hands if they can and if not to use some hand rub
excellent thank you very quickly last comment for Rachel perhaps on financial
well-being some people are asking questions about pay cuts and furloughing and general anxiety around financial
well-being you want to say a few things about that and perhaps some of the things that CIPD have done yes and
before I answer the question do go to our website because we have got some
really good resources around financial well-being because it's it's really important at
the moment I mean people have got so many different worries at the moment depending on what their own situation is
but financial worries we know is already a source of mental distress a mental
ill-health amongst a lot of people now at the moment I mean literally not overnight but very quickly a lot of
people have had their incomes or the prospect of their incomes just just
disappearing overnight I'm sure we all know people who are in that situation and even if you're on furlough you'd
probably be worried in the future and we've done research at the CIPD showing that a lot of people would struggle and
even after a week to meet their bills and so on if they were put on to statutory sick pay so very real concern
and it's important to do things like signpost if you've got an Employee
Assistance Program that has debt counseling and financial advice so all
that practical help is really important at the moment as well and make sure you give people in that situation as much
signposting information as you can I mean the schemes are that access that
government's made available and but we know as well that some people are going to fall through and that the cracks as
well if you don't become eligible for example your earnings are too low for statutory sick pay so there is the
universe of credit options so know what the options are for the schemes and how people can support access for an actual
help and because journalists as you can as an employer and in terms of your support as well we know it's it's it's
tough for a lot of businesses now brilliant thank you and well we've come
to the end of our time I'm really sorry if you've asked a question then we haven't managed to get to but thank you
so much for sending them in we're trying to cluster them together the hope we've managed to represent the range of
questions you had I like to think thank our three panellists Rachel staff and Harris and mmm oh and
actually the four organizations represented here are good source of information about health and
well-being at work so please do access all the websites Society of occupational medicine CIPD
mind and the Institute for employment studies thank you all so much for tuning in this is going to be a continuing area
of interest and I know that the CI PD is going to be continued to do work in this area so that you can keep the HR
community and other people very who are very interested in this as informed as
possible so thank you very much for tuning in and enjoy the rest of your day thank you