Remote working the biggest wellbeing challenge facing Irish organisations – new study
The main wellbeing challenge facing senior leaders, HR professionals and workplace wellbeing service providers in Ireland over the coming months, unsurprisingly, relates to remote working according to a Workplace Wellbeing Ireland survey.
From an individual perspective, balancing work and home life as they work remotely was the number one challenge for employees. For the employer, managing people as they work remotely and keeping them engaged with their colleagues and engaged with the company culture was cited as the number one wellbeing challenge facing Irish organisations over the next 6 months.
The survey was carried out by Workplace Wellbeing Ireland with the aim not only to understand the wellbeing challenges Irish employees and employers are expecting over the coming months, but to identify what resources could support them and to get a feel for the topics and content they were most interested in hearing about from Workplace Wellbeing Ireland over that period.
The Top 3 wellbeing challenges called out in the survey were:
Work life balance while working remotely
Engagement with colleagues while working remotely (keeping company culture alive)
Supporting employees that are reluctant to return to the workplace
In terms of content, managing wellbeing programmes remotely and understanding mental health strategies that have worked within organisations are the topics that respondents want to see most from Workplace Wellbeing Ireland between now and the end of the year. Maintaining a routine, being physically active, burnout and engagement also featured high on the priority list for Workplace Wellbeing Ireland members.
What topics would you like to see featured by Workplace Wellbeing Ireland?
Managing wellbeing remotely (wellbeing programmes for remote working)
Examples of mental health supports and strategies that have been implemented
Physical activity and routine while working remotely
Burnout
Engagement and communication
Zoom Fatigue?
There’s been a lot of talk about Zoom fatigue of late but it doesn’t appear to be impacting the demand from Workplace Wellbeing Ireland subscribers. It was the most popular medium chosen in the survey for future content, helped I’m sure by the quality webinars that have been delivered by Workplace Wellbeing Ireland to date in partnership with Irish Life Health and AJ Products. There is growing demand too for podcasts (which is timely as Season 2 of The Work Well Podcast is launching very soon) and training (more details on training below).
In-Person vs Online?
Workplace Wellbeing Ireland started out by bringing people with a shared passion for wellbeing together at in-person events and also delivers a number of training courses. With that in mind I was interested to understand if a return to in-person events and training was a realistic objective within the next 6 months. The responses were mixed; there’s clearly still a huge amount of uncertainty out there and realistically a return to in-person gatherings for Workplace Wellbeing Ireland won’t be a consideration until 2021 at the earliest.
The positive news is that 58% of those surveyed are either likely or very likely to invest in training between now and the end of the year. There’s a further 22% on the fence so could perhaps be persuaded if the right training was on offer.
There’s also a very high percentage that are comfortable with online training with a whopping 83% preferring live or self-paced online training over the coming months.
This is great news for my own recently launched training course – Developing a Workplace Wellness Programme that Lasts!
Conclusion
The results of the survey have shown just some of the wellbeing challenges that people and businesses face amidst the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The blur between work and home life has been a talking point for a while and that has only been exacerbated by the sheer number of people that are now working remotely. Whether you enjoy working from home or not, it remains a challenge to separate your work life from your home life. This challenge and the others highlighted by the survey, place an onus on all employers to put in place systems and resources that genuinely support the wellbeing of their people.
About the Survey
The survey was conducted in August 2020 and is based on a total of 100 responses from the Workplace Wellbeing Ireland community. Workplace Wellbeing Ireland is a community of senior leaders, HR professionals and workplace wellbeing service providers with a shared goal of improving workplace wellbeing standards and practices across all Irish workplaces.
About the Author
Brian Crooke is a wellbeing educator, speaker and adviser supporting Irish organisations to promote and sustain wellbeing within their workplaces.
He is the founder of the Workplace Wellbeing Ireland community and is responsible for the design and delivery of the Postgraduate Certificate in Workplace Wellness at Tangent, Trinity College Dublin.
Brian is the host of The Work Well Podcast.
In his spare time Brian is bringing free resistance training to every county and community in Ireland through his parkHIIT project.
If you'd like to chat more about the above then please reach out: brian@workwellireland.ie