In Times Of Working From Home – Kindness is Key! Does Kindness Begin With Your Company Culture?
For those of you who follow FLOCK on social media, you may have noticed by name, Sophia Rimmer creeping up this week on posts regarding remote working. That is because I have recently joined the FLOCK team! So, this is just a brief hello to introduce myself.
The Importance of Kindness When Working From Home
This week The Mental Health Foundation is hosting mental health awareness week, the theme is kindness. Mark Rowland, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation, said:
“Now more than ever, we need to re-discover kindness in our daily lives.”
Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, many teams have been forced to adapt to new ways of working. Work related pressure and stress massively contribute to our mental wellbeing, hence why simple acts of kindness are vital to integrate into your remote working life.
Buffer’s 2019 State of Remote Work report found “99% of respondents said they would like to work remotely at least some of the time for the rest of their careers”. Whilst remote working appears to be favoured, the sudden enforced government restrictions have involuntary changed companies work environment. Consequently, leaving little time to consider the effects it would have on employee’s mental health.
Acts of kindness have been proven to offer employee engagement and health benefits because when you’re kind your brain releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Naturally, this makes you feel more positive. Research by Shawn Achor exposes by performing acts of kindness
Kindness and Company Culture
Kindness begins with company culture. Therefore, communication in the form of recognition and manors are key routine acts of kindness that can encourage a cheerful working environment. Employees who feel appreciated are more likely to feel comfortable and open to share what could be valuable ideas. FLOCK can help you analyse and improve your company culture with science.
6 Tips On How To Share Kindness When Working From Home
Kindness can come in all shapes and forms. Here are some examples that you can start to integrate into your remote workplace…
- Send an employee an unexpected treat or letter in the post, recognising good work or to simply let them know they are valued.
- Schedule weekly or daily video calls to check-in on fellow employees. Try to talk about work unrelated subjects, it is important to keep a work- life balance. Zoom, Skype and Microsoft Teams are great communication tools that can be utilised during remote work.
- Within home based jobs, you could even organise team-building activities via video call to keep your team motivated. Engaging with the FLOCK platform will offer a range of team building activities based on individual employee assessment results.
- If you don’t have time to video call, you can keep in touch via email and send a lighthearted meme to keep everyone entertained.
- If you have some free time, offer your help to your team.
- Or, you could write a glowing LinkedIn recommendation.
Remember, the simplest of gestures can have the biggest impact on our daily life and there are many work from home opportunities to serve kindness. If you have recently shared kindness throughout your workplace, get in touch with us! We’d love to hear your stories.
For help and advice on how to manage mental health, please click here.
About FLOCK
FLOCK helps businesses understand, investigate and manage their #remoteworkers. To help create more productive teams.
FLOCK is an online tool that helps businesses investigate and understand their #remoteworkers. To help people, business owners and HR managers support individuals to create more productive teams whilst #workingfromhome. Find out more at www.yourflock.co.uk.
