Everyday life in a company used to be predictable for HR departments. They knew the main factors that caused stress among employees, and how these people should be supported. However, reality changed in March, bringing completely new challenges for HR.
Providing support to employees in coping with stress or difficult situations has always been part of the work of HR departments. Aware of the nature of the work and recurring problems of employees, HR professionals were able to suggest solutions that were effective, and could provide support to employees. With the coronavirus outbreak, existing action plans often turned out to be insufficient.
HR had no time to prepare employees for the change. Adding to isolation from close relatives, work from home with no possibility of personal contacts with other people at work proved to be a problem for many people. Difficulties also occurred in companies that were unable to introduce the home-office system due to the way tasks used to be performed. All this turned out to be quite a challenge for HR departments.
A NEW REALITY AT WORK
Today, some companies are still working in the new home-office reality, while others are slowly returning to their offices. This poses further difficulties that have to be tackled. There are no plans or solutions for this situation. Companies are often unable to identify the right form of actions. The situation can be difficult and complex, as it is impacted not only by the working conditions, but also by personalities of individuals and how they respond to difficult and new circumstances. There are a few companies where psychological support is available, and it certainly is provided to a lesser extent than necessary in order to be really effective. Besides, employees are not always willing to talk about their problems with a person from their organisation.
While HR is increasingly better with selecting benefits for employees in companies, psychological support for employees is still a relatively new topic.
In many companies, work-life balance is only about the right working hours, so HR often believes that this topic is treated too narrowly and superficially. It is worth remembering that this means supporting employees in dealing with all areas of their lives. Employees often face severe stress, adjustment disorders (the frequency of which has certainly increased during the current pandemic), anxiety and depression. These often occur as a result of both work and private life circumstances. Certainly, it can be assumed that employees will see a specialist, but this usually does not happen. If psychological support is offered as part of benefits, employees are more likely to use it at an earlier stage than if they were to see a specialist themselves. Here, time also plays an important role.
Offering psychological care to employees as a benefit increases the chance that they will try to get help. As the first step, it is often easier to just learn about possibilities and solutions. Here, webinars are helpful as they will be an easy introduction to the idea of seeing a psychologist, and sometimes will suffice.
When employees watch webinars offered by their employer, this will often be sufficient and they will not search for other help on random Internet websites. This online support is important especially now when there are still limited opportunities to return to the office and when we, as a society, are getting used to more and more services or advice being available and used on a remote basis.
The pandemic that has changed our corporate worlds has uncovered problems that were already present in the past: burnout, stress, bad moods or depression. Today, HR is more aware of them, but new problems have emerged that they did not have to face before.
The solutions that companies will now implement will serve them for longer, even after everything returns to normal. The lessons learnt from what companies are now experiencing are important as they let us work out solutions that will prove effective regardless of the situations we find ourselves in. Extensive psychological support available as visits, advice and webinars will undoubtedly be the future of looking after the well-being of employees, consequently ensuring a more productive business.
Author:
Joanna Kamińska, HR Manager, psychologist, author of the blog HRzPasja.pl