Effective Workplace Strategies to Support Employee Wellbeing During a Pandemic

Abstract

While the long-term impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic are yet to be realised, there is no doubt that the wellbeing of many are and will be affected. Workplaces have a major influence on people’s quality of life, and have the ability to impact employee wellbeing. Understanding how organisations can support employees’ wellbeing in a disaster context is essential for organisational and community recovery. In this paper, we make recommendations for organisational leaders based on past research on employee wellbeing in post-disaster context and on preliminary evidence from an ongoing study in the Covid-19 context. In the present study, we investigated what job resources employees found supportive during Aotearoa | New Zealand’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and how these resources related to their hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing at that time. Employees (n = 75) took part in an online survey, which included both open-ended and quantitative measures on job resources and wellbeing. Qualitative findings suggest that providing a sense of job security, effective communications, flexibility and job control, recognition of extra efforts to accommodate changes, individualised support to continue working, and expressing concern for employees’ health and wellbeing were salient job resources. The quantitative results largely supported these findings, although the strength of the relationships varied between the type of resources and the different conceptualisations of wellbeing. We conclude this paper by providing recommendations for how organisations can support their employees during this period of change and uncertainty.

Effect of a Multi-Strain Probiotic Supplementation to Manage Stress during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Cross-Over Clinical Trial

“…The same trend was observed for the tension category: in the active group, there was improvement of this negative feeling with respect to both T0 and placebo. In this context, it is difficult to make a comparison with other clinical studies since there are only few using POMS with probiotics, and they show conflicting results [ 59 , 60 ]. The current circumstances caused by the pandemic mean that people returned to their workplaces after months of lockdown.…”

Employees’ support strategies for mental wellbeing during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic: Recommendations for employers in the UK workforce

“…This is in contrast with our findings; one possibility is that people may be more likely to seek help for a mental health problem now since moving past the initial crisis stage of the pandemic. Furthermore, over the past year recommendations about how to develop effective support strategies during a time of crisis (16) and beyond (17) have been published. As such, organisations and managers may have only more recently made appropriate changes to better support their employees' mental wellbeing.…”

“…Furthermore, front line workers who did not have the option to work remotely, such as those in healthcare settings, faced heightened psychological pressures and worsened mental illness (15). However, many employers have since adapted to the challenges that were faced at the beginning of the pandemic, and recommendations have been published regarding how to develop effective strategies when working from home both during a time of crisis (16) and beyond (17). Moreover, further research has provided suggestions for how organisations can support employee wellbeing whilst working from home (18), and those working on the front line (19).…”

“…However, since the pandemic has changed the typical working environment for many employees, help seeking strategies when struggling with mental health may have also changed. During the pandemic, a range of resources were offered to support employees, such as mental wellbeing training programmes and workshops, one-to-one counselling, staff mentoring, financial security programmes, providing a sense of job security, providing individualised support, and electronic communications (16,(24)(25)(26)(27). However, we currently do not know which methods employees prefer to seek help from, and whether their preferences have changed since the pandemic occurred.…”

The effects of social and organizational connectedness on employee well‐being and remote working experiences during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…A. Haslam, Jetten & Postmes, 2009;Jetten et al, 2017). While workplaces offer a stabilizing retreat in times of crisis (Malinen et al, 2020), pandemic-driven changes such as the increased adoption of remote working practices have also disrupted how individuals work and interact (Forbes et al, 2020)compounding the psychological outcomes of distancing protocols.…”