It’s a two-fold impact.
Firstly, there’s the legacy of the past two years. Sixty per cent of employees say their mental health worsened during the pandemic and the Centre for Mental Health expects that 20% of people in England are likely to need continuing mental health support as a direct result of the pandemic.
And secondly, settling into hybrid working is leaving desk-based employees feeling stressed. We’re loving the flexibility of work but not enjoying the ‘always on’ culture that digital technology brings.
This blurring of what used to be clearly defined lines between work and home make it far more difficult for people to switch off. Even with hybrid working, we’re continuing to check and respond to emails at all hours, receiving notifications 24/7, and the habits of ‘presenteeism’ and ‘leaveism’ (using time off to catch up on work), during the pandemic haven’t gone away.
It’s easy to see how all these issues continue to impact our physical and mental wellbeing.
And in our own work we’re seeing a resurgence of wellbeing initiatives and campaigns with internal comms working alongside HR and IT in raising awareness of how organisations are actively supporting better working practices and wellbeing.
Not only is this employee support welcomed, but there are business benefits too. A study by the Global Wellness Institute showed employees are more engaged and productive in organisations with wellbeing programmes, and these organisations were more profitable too.
Sequel’s ninth Employee Engagement Trends Report 2022 asks how communicators can help organisations support better employee wellbeing.
The report includes insights from our client work and across the IC industry with top tips for improving communication impact, and making it stick.