As we approach the end of a turbulent year, our resilience to life’s curveballs has been crucial to survival. At VoxSmart we work very hard to ensure our employees health and happiness is protected. Here are just a couple things we are doing help our team protect their wellbeing and resilience in the workplace.
Taking stock of 2020
“If someone had told me I’d join a new company in April to manage a global team and wouldn’t be leaving London for the rest of the year, I would have said they were mad, yet here we are.” Alan Giles, VoxSmart’s CCO has been looking back at his remote onboarding at the company during arguably the most demanding year for businesses and individuals.
While VoxSmart has experienced incredible growth in 2020, Adrienne Muir, VoxSmart’s COO, knows that with every growth spurt comes certain changes to workload and team dynamic. Adrienne has always advocated wellbeing and resilience, some of her tips for pandemic parenting got us through lockdown! This year she has had the opportunity to formalise some key initiatives to protect these core values.
Looking after our wellbeing
Merriam-Webster describes it as “the state of being happy, healthy, prosperous”. However, it is very difficult (almost impossible) to be happy and feel well all of the time, life simply gets in the way. So to ensure our team makes time for some feel-good practises VoxSmart started the Wellbeing Allowance.
The idea behind this was to remind everyone to be kind to themselves and do something that makes them happy. Whether this was a coffee in the mornings, a new book or a therapeutic appointment, the VoxSmart team was encouraged to think of something to spend their allowance on each month.
Resilience, part of the art of living
Resilience is a core value at VoxSmart and runs through how we manage teams as well as how we design our technology. In comparison to wellbeing, resilience is all about the ability of bouncing back and the capacity for toughness. So while life is busy getting in our way, as it does when we are trying to practise healthy habits…, we need to remember that it’s ok to take some time out to build that strength up again.
This is how the VoxSmart Resilience Day was born. Originally started during the first global lockdown, everyone across our global network was encouraged to take one day off work to re-charge, re-set and revive themselves. We were finding that due to the lockdown, our team were forgetting to take time off.
An extra holiday day was our way to encourage the team to NOT work so hard for a change!
A breath of fresh air does wonders!
Since our first Resilience day was such a success, we decided to launch a second one. This time with a outdoorsy twist by taking a leaf out of a popular Nordic concept called ‘friluftsliv’.
The term, which translates roughly to ‘open-air living,’ is widely popular across the Nordic countries where, despite freezing temperatures and very few hours of sunlight throughout the winter months, getting outside and embracing the outdoors is part of life all year around.
Not only does embracing friluftsliv mean more time spent getting active and therefore staying healthy, but it also means spending more time surrounded by nature – a habit which has been proven to benefit our mental health. During a second lockdown, when the weather is grey and our motivation to get outside is at an all-time low, it seems that embracing the concept of friluftsliv could be the perfect antidote to the challenges of staying home.
There are so many ways to help promote resilience and wellbeing in a workforce. We hope these ideas could help spark some imagination for you during the challenging working conditions we are all facing.
We’d love to hear how you are staying resilient, let us know what’s worked for you and your firm by getting in touch on LinkedIn.
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