Workplace wellness: coping during COVID-19

COVID-19 has disrupted people’s lives in ways we have never seen before. Many employees are struggling during the pandemic and workplaces have had to adapt to a new normal while finding ways to keep people motivated.

Here are three ways we’ve adjusted our culture, policies and practices to better support employees during an unprecedented time.

1. Prioritize mental health and well-being. Employees are feeling like they’re “always on” since the boundaries between work and home have blurred. Burnout is a real issue. In response, we’ve invested in building a more flexible and empathetic workplace. We’ve expanded our health and wellness benefits, implemented well-being and enrichment programs such as employee meditation sessions and increased our flexible work hours in efforts to prioritize mental health and well-being.

2 . Make work more sustainable. We’ve found that a sustainable pace of work is essential to helping employees (especially parents) facing burnout get through this crisis. In addition to reassessing productivity and performance expectations, we’re offering creative ways to give employees extra time off in the form of balance days, personal days and iMPact (volunteer for a cause) days to give employees the time they need to recharge. We’ve also extended our summer Fridays early close policy into the year so that everyone can get a head start on their weekend.  

3. Communication is key. We know that open and frequent communication is critical, especially in a crisis. Research has shown that when employees are surprised by decisions that impact their work, they are three times more likely to be unhappy in their job. To address this, we’ve been hosting biweekly town halls to share regular updates on the state of the business and key decision that affect employees’ work and lives. This kind of openness helps reduce anxiety and fosters a stronger sense of connection and community.

The pandemic has created many challenges, it has also been a catalyst for rethinking workplace practices to better support employees, creating a better workplace long after COVID-19 is behind us.