What has work done to support you during the COVID crisis?

[Lexjo]

My colleague is virtually attending a Health and Wellbeing seminar at work so the company can find out how to better support us to be able to work from home happier and keep a positive mental attitude.

The company (big finance firm in the city) has already provided us with vouchers to buy office equipment and office furniture.

Ideas I have so far:

Free headspace or calm app for six months
Meetings limited to 45 minutes
Hard finish at 5pm
Flexible working
A day off for volunteering in the community

Has anyone else got any other ideas or is your firm/a company you know doing anything that you think is useful?

Thanks

I got made redundant............. without any wellbeing support put in place for the whole process, so at the moment feel like a worthless piece of shit.

Its not inevitable that local government will be poor. My local authority employer has been pretty good.

All staff were already using laptops set up for remote connection before this started. So someone in IT made a very good decision a couple of years ago. Connection occasionally flaky but holding up quite well and they are responsive when people have problems. Office chairs and external monitors have been made available to take home. Recognition that people may need to work strange hours around family responsibilities. Online social events and activities and a range of mental health support. Big emphasis on managers having regular 1-1 meetings and all team leaders are trained in mental health first aid.

Generally there's been a good sense of all pulling together and doing what we can to support each other.

Flexi furlough.
I’m just collating requests for my team on this. We didn’t furlough last time and whilst it gave job security it added a lot of stress to those juggling homeschooling. Really hopeful that this eases things this time round.

Flexibility to change hours/days to fit around childcare. Pretty much anything goes with this, whatever we need.

Options to reduce hours too, but pro rata pay.

Also a combination of paid leave, unpaid leave and annual leave if changing hours doesn't work. So a week off might consist of 2 days paid, 2 unpaid and 1 annual leave for example.

Access to headspace (but never time to use).

Access to PPE and trusted to make our own risk assessment with backing of management regarding covid risk. (regarding work we do, not taking time off)

Differebt duties for vunerable or those who live with vunerable people.

My work have been awful which, given my sector, is quite shocking.

I have felt very unsupported, undermined, made to feel unreasonable for expecting more.

We've had very little advice and guidance since the new lockdown. We are supporting each other because no-one else will do it.

I am angry, sad and feel unsafe.

@noodlmcdoodl

Erm a much bigger workload. Complete change to my job making it even tougher and more full on. And that’s about it really. Lots of flowery emails about how hard it is for us, but in practical terms they’ve done nothing to actually make anything easier or support us. I work for in local government so unfortunately I’m used to this after years and years of cuts.

Sounds familiar!

I work in food retail. Last year we were given an extra days holiday, small bonus plus extra money on the store card. Then before xmas more money on the store card, a few freebies and an extra generous staff discount day, so it made up for no Xmas partybin some ways I've never had to be off with covid but I know it's full pay if I do. Generally I get on with management and they are always accomodating if I need time off at short notice if something important came up. We are a good team who look out for each other.

I live my employers official stance on the schools being closed:

“thank you in advance for making other arrangements”

Jesus wept.

Previous employer last time superb. Relaxed do your best, all in this together. Ok to work strange ours of day and night. Kit provided. Regular videos and updates and gifts and treats sent home and online activities for those interested. Children welcome to come and say hello on calls-didn't need to be hidden.

New employer. Message from the top saying make sure you get out for a walk during the daylight hours and working day. But very little acknowledgement otherwise of the struggle. But also no monitoring or checking up or pressure either. So that means i do what i need to do and don't ask permission. Ive had no pushback.

Awful.
No set days to accommodate childcare . Have to pay nursery for 2 days and hope I get rostered in to one of them , also do weekends so just have to give work the option that I can 2 of the 4 days nursery days plus weekend ( I work 2 shifts ). So most weeks am paying for 2 days and using one as il be rostered in one week day and one weekend day.

One 30 minute break for a 12.5 shift

Wrist is hurting working at a laptop for so long

Increased workload , training for said workload delivered via an e learning and script based . If you say you don't feel confident told to follow the scripts which is quite frankly dangerous because you need to understand what you are giving advice about.

They do daily meetings which they say is a chance to catch up with us all. What happens is frankly embarrassing , they go round the entire meeting asking how everyone is putting you on the spot " Brenda how you?" " Clive how are you " but don't actually care feels like a tickbox exercise . Same with the covid risk assessments and wellbeing reviews where they ask if your pregnant and if your bmi is over 40. No neither of them , so cringe every month saying no I don't have diabetes etc . The wellbeing checks are a joke too making small talk then everything you say wrote down in a document for you to sign. So if you happen to mention that your struggling they try and sign post you to counselling number through work to call but it's practical solutions I need ie set days for childcare .

I am trying to leave but am coming across barriers. I have been offered 2 jobs one wouldn't pay me the salary I'm on now and the the other wouldn't give me set days for childcare .

Feeling like I just want to quit work all together tbh but need the money.

Paid leave if needed, up to 10 weeks for caring due to Covid
Focus on mental health - additional employee resources including access to counselling for you and family
Additional bonuses where other planned events have not taken place
Allowance for home working
IT setup is good, albeit their are always pretty hot on this anyway due to travel pre-Covid
Code for time spent during working day on Covid things (eg if you are working and homeschooling and can’t get a full day in)
Generally supportive mindset from top down - we are a people company, we want to you stay and we will get through this together

Helps that overall we are doing well as a firm

Lots of company-wide emails with links to support - I haven't bothered to access these.

An extra week's annual leave was nice!

But the most important thing is genuine support. My boss emailed me to chase a piece of work that is non urgent and peripheral to my normal role, I replied to say that I was a bit snowed under with work and home schooling but would look into it as soon as I could. He then told me not to worry about it in a supportive and non-judgemental way. I expect he'd been warned by the senior management to give a bit of leeway to staff who are struggling.

Nothing what so ever. Not even full sick pay or furlough

@Arrierttyclock

I work for the NHS and my work/bosses have been so utterly incompetent, rude and unsupportive throughout. Especially atm. I'm dental so it's not like were on COVID wards. They make up rules which are frankly dangerous. They just haven't got a clue

I’ll sit on your bench.

I’m NHS non-clinical in a 100% computer, desk based role. I’ve had to go into a packed office every day throughout. I got a badge though so that was nice. Oh and an extra days annual leave which my manager hasn’t authorised for anyone as far as I know.

I know it’s not been easy for anyone but some of these adjustments sound brilliant. It winds me up when my management bang on about being ‘corporate’. They haven’t got a clue, they never have been and never will be corporate material outside fo empt platitudes.

My DH work has been amazing. They initially gave everyone a $150 bonus to help people deal with the situation. They have a close down recovery day every 3 months. Managers ask how things are going, ad hoc emergency days off for mental health are encouraged if needed, these are not recorded as sickness or holiday. They are planning for ‘COVID-19/20/21 as in they expect working from home until 2022 - (working from home was optional before either mixed or full time) and as part of this they are encouraging people to review their computers and request any more technology they need.

My friend’s work has a wave Wednesday when camera need to be turned on for meeting but no cameras on other days unless you want.

From what I’ve seen covid has increased companies existing attitude to their staff, companies who were good before are now excellent but unfortunately the opposite is also true.

Forgot to also add very very frequent texts received asking us to work extra days ( usually on the day) or swap shifts very last minute .no empathy for childcare and awareness I can't arrange it on the day . It's making me depressed tbh

I hope you’re all following pregnantthenscrewed on Instagram. Following the TUC & motherpukka’s survey which informed the guardian article above. They’re now collating info on which companies are treating their employees like shit and putting pressure on them to do more alongside the pressure being put on the government.

From what I’ve seen covid has increased companies existing attitude to their staff, companies who were good before are now excellent but unfortunately the opposite is also true.

There's a lot of truth in that.

Ours have been pretty good tbh, and for a US based company that is saying a lot! Everyone who doesn't absolutely, utterly need to be in a physical location works from home - you have to get specific permission to go in, then get temp checked in, masks provided. Those who are working on site have FFP3 masks (they did a massive global buy starting last Feb) and full PPE, plus contractual safe working policies with our customers.
Globally, if people couldn't work from home due to no childcare etc, they got paid in full, but totally flexible to what you need to do or can do.
We've had online well being stuff, all the home working equipment you need.

TBH though, I'd hate online socials, don't have time for the well being sessions. But the biggest thing that made a difference? Our CEO being interrupted by his grandkids shouting outside (who were living with them for months) during a huge meeting, and saying 'Hey, this is the world we're in, don't stress about your kids interrupting or being in the background'. It gave such a strong message in what is usually a 'your home life is just that, kids aren't an excuse' company

@ErrolTheDragon

From what I’ve seen covid has increased companies existing attitude to their staff, companies who were good before are now excellent but unfortunately the opposite is also true.

There's a lot of truth in that.

I'd agree with that as well

Flexible working has always been allowed, but even more so now -- which is good. We also had... 5 extra days off?

No equipment budget but we could bring home almost any office equipment to use. Almost 2000 employees so probably not "big". They are in severe financial crisis & trying hard to make a lot of redundancies.

There are regular open meetings with senior management who give us latest updates.

Both secondary teachers here. To be fair to the headteachers and Governors they are trying. Both schools allowed staff to be flexible with days in school to fit around childcare and reduce the need for using keyworker spaces. They are feeding us and providing hot drinks (no facilities September - December but with less of us they can now 'safely' accommodate it. Both schools are also very mindful of keeping the pressure down where they can. Tasks such as phoning home are done by form tutor once a week but it is SLT and admin doing any further chasing (most parents don't answer) and everyone DSL trained are doing home visits rather than just our attendance officer. Staff without their own children have also very kindly offered to be emergency cover for when staff can't come in according to rota. Both of our schools are also paying for an online counselling service for us, in top of the one with have for the kids (we have had a few parent and many grandparent deaths). Counsellor is also on site once a week for kids, with an hour for staff in the afternoon.

I wish we could have equipment from school, as we don't have school devices. Since lockdown 1 we have bought an additional laptop and iPad and both upgraded to unlimited data as the house broadband (despite being fiber) struggles with 4 video calls at once.

I also wish for more hours in a day. A 70 hour week last week nearly killed me.

Made me and four colleagues redundant...

My company has been amazing. Flexible working, reduction in hours without a pay reduction, equipment for wfh, well-being seminars and support.

They have in absolute honesty been amazing and I have never been more grateful.