How to look after staff wellbeing... virtually
Virtual ways to look after the wellbeing of your employees.
An employee’s wellbeing impacts everything from their engagement, productivity and motivation, through to your company culture and recruitment. With the majority of our workforce now working remotely, often alone or whilst dealing with the stress of juggling a home life and work life all under one roof, employee wellbeing is more important than ever. So, we've been doing some research, and have found a variety of ways to look after the wellbeing of you and your colleagues… virtually.
Virtual Team Building
What exactly is ‘Virtual Team Building’? It’s just like regular team building, except you’re not in the same physical space. The same energy and enthusiasm is still needed for a virtual team building activity. Each team member is on their computer and the team interacts using an internet-connected tool: chat, video conference, etc. Whether it be an escape room, a team challenge or even musical bingo virtual team builds are a great way for your teams to work together even when they cannot be together.
Team Yoga & Meditation Sessions
Attending a virtual yoga class is a way of connecting with other work colleagues, but less formally than on a work call. Wouldn’t it be great if you could add this treat to their day or their week? Something special for them as part of their working from home routine. Allowing them to be together to boost morale. Seeing each other, saying ‘Hi’ as a group or team, but in the safety of their own home, learning yoga, meditation, or different tension reduction calming practices. Surrey Virtual Wellbeing offers a number of classes to participate in here, or if you were looking for a bespoke solution we can arrange this for you.
Virtual Wellbeing Worlds
Slowly beginning to appear, these are highly interactive 3D spaces. Ones we have experienced include the following highlights:
- A physical wellbeing island with a restaurant
- A small supermarket
- An encouragement room
- Creative educational tools (a nutritional jeopardy game and a fire pit illustrating how the body uses food as fuel)
- Over 30 movement activities (bikes and bike paths, surfing, exercise balls, lap swim, basketball, weight lifting, yoga, dancing, and rock climbing)
- Numerous healthy habits tools (tracking charts).
All elements are intended to engage participants in social networking, play, and learning. For example, the restaurant area is designed for use as a practice area for nutrition planning, with an interactive menu that displays a full selection of items that a participant might encounter during a restaurant outing. The menu works on a stoplight (red, yellow, green) model, and participants are asked to choose what they believe are the healthiest choices. The menu responds to their selection with the colour appropriate to their selection and an explanation as to why this menu item was ranked at that colour, as well as ways to make the item healthier. Topics discussed are hidden calories, eating out, and portion control.
At the same time, social support is available anytime as participants can reflect on the past week’s activities and social bonds. These social support classes take place in the pool, at the campfire, on the beach at sunset, and while performing yoga poses. It is designed to provide an environment that closely mirrors the physical world. It sets up learning situations that incorporate practicing new behaviours like throwing away 3D food, addressing the “food pushers” and non-supportive people in their lives, and the social influences of work environments. Research supports and provides essential insights into how Virtual Worlds are effective learning environments for behaviour modification, specifically weight loss and weight maintenance. This technology is showing signs that it may not only help with the costliest health epidemic nationally, but could also help relieve the spread of the global obesity epidemic.
Nutrition
In these times, looking after yourself and eating as healthy as you can aids wellbeing. Our sister company Moving Venue offers stunning healthy menu combinations to provide an energised lift to any virtual event from your home, including energising Bento and Brunch boxes. With annual conferences, award ceremonies and dinners now taking place from the comfort of our own homes via virtual comms, the need to be connected with our colleagues is more important than ever, and we want to ensure that our clients are still able to enjoy top-quality event catering. Introducing The Moving Menu… Beautifully designed culinary experiences, enjoyed from the comfort of your home.
Download the brochure here.
Wellbeing Apps
Wellness apps can help make a real improvement to your employees’ mental health and wellbeing. However you communicate with your employees, whether it’s through an internal newsletter, via an employee intranet, or simply by email, why not dedicate a section of your communication to wellbeing, including some recommended apps for your employees? Here are a selection of our favourites:
- Headspace is great for mindfulness beginners. It gives individuals with no experience of visualisation techniques, mindfulness and meditation a source of information and guidance. Plus it works even when followed for just a few minutes a day, so is great for those with busy schedules.
- Calm are on a mission to make the world happier and healthier, and are the number 1 app for sleep, meditation and relaxation. They approach coping with stress as a 360 degree concept, so whether you want to try meditation to help reset a troubled mind, need help sleeping, or require the tools to try mindfulness, the app can help.
- Happify is an app for effective, evidence-based solutions for better mental health. Their proven techniques are developed by leading scientists and experts who’ve been studying evidence-based interventions in the fields of positive psychology, mindfulness, and cognitive behavioral therapy for decades.
