I know first-hand the importance of support, kindness and understanding in the workplace, so I’m delighted to announce our new Disability Affinity Group. A space for people with a disability and those affected by disability to come together and talk openly about the challenges, issues, and stigma that exist in our society. 

In the spirit of openness, I’d like to tell you a bit more about my daughter, Sarah. By sharing our story, I hope others feel empowered to speak openly about their experiences and access the support they need. 

Our story 

Sarah is 23. She is my eldest daughter. She presents with severe learning difficulties, which medical professionals call global development delay. She has low language use and only talks when she’s around adults she knows and trusts. She will never read and write and needs help with everything from preparing food to personal care. Sarah requires 24-hour support. 

It might sound clear-cut, but receiving a diagnosis was an arduous journey. It took until she was 9 for specialists to find any medical indicator of her disability, and even so, it wasn’t conclusive. Before then, I endured hours and hours of medical visits, phone calls and meetings with professionals, each with their own emotional rollercoaster. 

As a positive person, I was always more concerned with what my daughter could do, the little things she was gradually learning. But to ensure she got the support and benefits she needed, I was forced to focus on her limitations, which felt hard. With her younger brother and sister both learning and developing every day, it took time to come to terms with Sarah’s condition as she got older. 

These moments of emotion, realisation and strength define being a parent of a special needs child. Now she’s an adult, we know no different. My other two children are endlessly supportive, and Sarah is an adored member of our family. 

Managing work and caring for my daughter

I was fortunate at Ricoh to be able to work flexibly to support Sarah. It was the only way, as it was very difficult finding suitable childcare. 

At the time, to have someone in the most senior role in a division working part-time was ground-breaking for Ricoh and organisations across the UK. But, my manager, the CEO, wholeheartedly supported my request, and I returned to work three days a week.

Nowadays, I work 4 days a week, helping me balance my role with time I focus on my children, making me a happier, more relaxed mum. With this incredible support, I have continued to thrive and feel a dedication towards Ricoh beyond measure. 

I’m also able to organise the day-to-day complexities of Sarah’s life flexibly alongside work. In essence, being Sarah’s mum is like living two lives and working two jobs. She still needs the same one-to-one love, attention and care as she did at 5 years old, but as an adult, she now has a huge support system of carers, support workers and therapists who my family and I manage on a daily basis.

With our Disability Affinity Group in action and our flexible-first working policy, I hope more people at Ricoh affected by similar issues can seek the understanding they need. It makes sense for us to provide tailored support for people who need it, otherwise, we miss out on the talent, value and expertise they can bring to our organisation. But it’s not always easy to talk openly; I know this from my own experience. 

Disability inclusivity in the workplace 

Sadly, with Sarah’s challenges, she will never be able to work. But she has made our family even more aware of the unique perspective people with disabilities bring to our world. And as an HR leader, my experiences have made me even more passionate about supporting issues surrounding disability in the workplace. 

Disability is a vast spectrum. It can be physical, mental, intellectual or sensory. It can be visible or invisible. Some people choose to hide it out of fear of prejudice. Unfortunately, in many organisations, it is still widely misunderstood. 

There’s a myth in the business world that championing disability is expensive and overly complex. Yet a recent study found that while 90% of global businesses prioritise diversity and inclusivity, only 4% consider disability a key concern. It shouldn’t be this way.

Right now, there are 14.6 million disabled people in the UK. The employment rate of disabled people is 53%, compared to 82% of non-disabled people. Some people will have conditions that make work impossible, but others will be more than ‘fit for work’. They will be individuals with their own passions, strengths and unique capabilities ready to bring value to businesses.

By not providing opportunities to disabled people, organisations are missing out on untapped potential and, in my view, not doing right by society. 

Ricoh is a Disability Confident Employer

Ricoh has been recognised as a Disability Confident Employer, level 2 of the Disability Confident government scheme. As part of this pledge, we’ve committed to an action plan centred around recruiting and developing disabled people. 

We have taken steps to ensure our workplaces are accessible and work closely with our people to make the right adjustments when needed. Furthermore, we are putting energy into inclusion and opening up discussions to break down assumptions, barriers and beliefs amongst our wider workforce, who perhaps don’t understand the disability inclusivity issues as clearly. 

When it comes to disability inclusivity, lead with an open mind 

The key to greater awareness is listening and understanding. With Sarah, I’ve been on the receiving end of misplaced assumptions for as long as I can remember, whether it’s about her condition or our lives as a family. It’s rarely malicious, but often it comes from a place of never being touched by disability. Sometimes it’s not that people don’t want to understand; it’s just they haven’t needed to. 

In every context of life, we all have the opportunity to judge those around us. But to improve awareness of disability and privilege, we need to stop and lead with a willingness and an openness to learn.

Further articles from Rebekah Wallis:

How innovation can empower HR leaders to better support their people

Deliver mentoring that drives value for your business

*We have used a pseudonym in this article to protect the family’s privacy

The post Creating a supportive space for disability appeared first on Insights - Empowering Digital Workplaces.

Hello, I’m Rebekah Wallis, Director of People and Corporate Responsibility at Ricoh. In this article, I’ll be discussing why a digitised document management solution is more important now than ever before.

I’ll also be highlighting the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for businesses and their HR leaders. Therefore, introducing our own innovative document management solution – DocuWare.

What challenges are HR leaders facing today?

There has been a significant rise in remote working over the last few years. Businesses have been moving to decentralised ways of working for some time. And while HR teams enjoy the benefits of increased flexibility and agility, they also face unique challenges.

The most evident of these is the requirement to manage onboarding, staff records, payroll and leavers requirements. It is very difficult to carry out these business-critical tasks – even quite risky – if this data is still stored physically. Without a digitised document management solution, your HR staff will struggle to support your people as best they can. Automating HR is essential.

Why are physical documents no longer enough?

It isn’t just about remote workers, though. Indeed today, an effective document management solution is crucial in supporting your entire organisation. Needing quick, easy and secure access to key information.

If you rely on physical document storage or a poorly integrated digital system, there can be huge cost implications for your business. Not just in terms of valuable office space being taken up by cabinets or limitations on productivity, but also in the potential risk of loss or theft of your data.

What are the key benefits of a digital document management solution?

If you do integrate a professional digital document management solution within your organisation, the benefits can be fantastic for everyone – not just your HR teams.

You’ll be supplying your people with efficient, responsive and highly secure access to the data and documentation they need. And by putting it at their fingertips, they can make better decisions, provide a better service, and avoid the human error often associated with tedious paper trails.

How Ricoh helped B&M’s HR leaders keep up with rapid growth

B&M is a fast-growing variety retailer who now boasts over 600 stores across the UK. Their growth has been remarkable: which means a lot of new hires, which in turn has caused a bit of a headache for HR teams. B&M was growing so quickly, their onboarding process couldn’t keep pace with expansion.

They then partnered with Ricoh. We collaborated to work out the best solution for their needs and integrated Ricoh DocuWare. This cloud-enabled document management solution is key to automating HR. Their on-boarding process was cut from weeks to hours, while many paper-based tasks turned to efficient paperless digital workflows.

What is Ricoh DocuWare?

DocuWare is Ricoh’s document management software. It automates business processes and workflows by electronically managing and sharing documents. And it uses the cloud to ensure that documents are secure and readily available to those who have access, whenever they need them.

Request an assessment

Ricoh is a collaborative partner, and we strongly recommend you start the process of digitising your document storage by allowing our experts to carry out an assessment. Together, we can work out the best solution for your business.

Hear what our experts have to say about automating HR.

If you’d like to hear more insight into how a digital document management solution can empower your HR teams to better support your people, you can watch our webinar.

Watch the webinar: ‘Digital HR records made simple, secure and available’

You’ll also find a whole host of other topics up for discussion, and they are absolutely free for you to enjoy.

The post How innovation can empower HR leaders to better support their people appeared first on Insights - Empowering Digital Workplaces.

Across the globe, businesses are responding to the current climate by switching to remote working at scale – but this is a major challenge, not just for business leaders, but for individuals across the network.

Your employees may find it disruptive, unsettling and stressful. You need to do all you can to help them adjust, establish normality and feel confident and happy. 

Reassure and motivate employees who are remote working

You need to ensure that you’re providing the support needed to give the most help to your remote workers. These three key areas a good place to start:

Social interaction

Communication is king. You need to make your presence felt across the network with regular interactions.

Encourage frequent dialogue between line managers and their teams to assess satisfaction and happiness in their working lives. Create forums and community groups to provide a platform for sharing ideas and providing feedback as well as enjoy some fun with work colleagues as they would in a normal office environment. Have your People teams provide guidance and advice on good working behaviours whilst at home. 

Overall, it’s vital to promote a message of support for health and wellbeing as providing this for the whole organisation is your number one priority. This will show to your people that despite the circumstances, they are most certainly not alone.

Setting collaborative goals

You as a business leader need to outline a clear vision for the organisation, share it with your teams and show them what their individual role within it is.

Group objectives and targets have always been a key motivator for employees. If they feel like they’re part of a team working towards something, they’ll be more productive – especially if they can see their own contribution to the collective effort.

And not only will they be more productive, but they’ll also feel less isolated through the additional contact with their colleagues – a vital factor in maintaining health and wellbeing.

Supporting a good work/life balance

One benefit to remote working is the greater flexibility it offers your people. Make sure they don’t think that, just because they’re not in the office, they have to sit at their laptop all day in case they’re needed. 

There are many added pressures created by the current climate. Not only are they working in unfamiliar environments, they may have to look after their children or loved ones. You must assure them that they have absolute freedom and total support to fit their work around these needs. 

And by allowing your employees a degree of autonomy over what they do, when they do it and who they do it with, you’ll motivate and empower them to work with their teams. 

So, encourage them to find a work/life balance that works for them, trust them to meet their responsibilities and try to support and understand their needs and initiatives.

The challenge facing business leaders

As individuals face their own challenges with remote working, so too does the wider organisation.

One difficulty lies in the ability to communicate with your teams. Emails and video conferencing have their limits, one-to-ones won’t feel the same and social interactions are reduced. But it’s crucial that leaders find a way to provide support and motivation.

Technology plays a significant part in this – but it’s a double-edged sword. It provides functions that make remote working more feasible, but also complicate life by making devices more complex.

Ask the right questions, analyse the needs of your employees and business, and find the technological solutions that work for you. Then you’ll maintain productivity and enable future growth. 

The questions you need to ask

These are tough questions to face up to, but doing so with an open mind will lead to long term benefits for your business:

• Are we adhering to the latest government advice and regulations?
• Is our IT infrastructure resilient to this sudden increased demand for remote working?
• Do our employees have everything they need to work remotely effectively?
• Do they have the necessary technical knowledge to use everything easily?
• What business-critical processes do we normally undertake in an office location?
• And does our IT team have the capabilities to provide support remotely?

Give each question due to diligence and work quickly to fill any gaps, or risk business continuity dropping.

Empower remote workers with technology

You might quickly discover that you may not have the right technology solutions in place to support effective remote working. So, what can you do? 

Long-term you can complete a detailed experiential audit of your existing IT infrastructure and make a plan for its review. But in the short term, you may need to make some quick adjustments in order to address the most immediate and challenging issues.

For instance;

•   Can your people access online workspaces and documents?
•   Are they restricted due to a poor VPN experience or connectivity issues?
•   Is their device set up correctly for remote working?
•   Do they still need access to printing for documents such as orders and contracts etc?
•   Do they have the right digital tools to collaborate?

If you need help addressing any of these challenges, employ the expertise of a third-party company such as Ricoh – who offer a wide range of digital solutions, as well as insight into connecting with people and promoting collaboration. Also, working with leading technology vendors such as Microsoft means we can quickly deploy pre-configured devices such as Surface Pro 7’s and Surface Laptop 3’s ‘as-a-Service’ and on a monthly per-user plan with online support and assistance if needed.

Click to read Communication Services

The 3 R’s of remote working

When planning for mass remote working, focusing on these three principles will allow you to adapt, and leverage your teams individual and collective strengths.

Role Clarification 

Prioritise the development of clear boundaries and guidelines for what you expect from people in your organisation.

Clarifying roles and expectations will give your people a firm foundation from which to meet expectations and aspirations, manage their time, and understand their requirements.

Not only will this help keep people on track, but it will also prevent the more ambitious or hard-working individuals from becoming burned out.

Regular communication

The best leaders are those who listen, communicate with trust and respect, inquire about workload and progress without micromanaging and regularly reach out to their teams.

Ask these quick questions each week: How are you? What have you done? What are you working on? And where do you need help?

This allows individuals to take ownership of their habits and behaviours and make major leaps in productivity of their own accord.

Don’t forget, there are differences between individuals in how they’ll view the challenge – some will relish it; some will find it daunting.

Promote a message of accomplishment over activity and make sure that every individual is given the same opportunity and attention.

Retaining connections

Remote working makes maintaining personal connections more important than ever. 

Amidst today’s challenges, It’s easy to become overly focused on how you are going to deliver on various metrics for business success and delivery of work. But this would be a major mistake.

Think of innovative ways to provide ‘virtual water coolers’ – digital environments where your employees can talk about what they’re up to and express themselves. Collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams are ideal for this.

How Ricoh can help provide a smooth transition to remote working

Ricoh has a long history of empowering digital workplaces and optimising your people’s ability to perform both in the office and remotely. Our guide to Creating an Optimal Office provides practical guidance and advice to leaders and their key operational teams.

If you have any questions about the content of this article, or about how Ricoh can help you make the switch to remote working, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

The post How industry leaders can support remote working appeared first on Insights - Empowering Digital Workplaces.

An effective mentoring scheme won’t just build better working relationships between colleagues – it will produce more effective and engaged people for your business.

No doubt you have discussed workplace mentoring – you may very well have a programme in place. But is it adding value to your business? 

With 92% of Fortune 500 companies offering formal workplace mentoring to their employees, it’s certainly very topical.

However, simply offering a mentoring scheme is not the full picture. Let’s take a look at the steps you can take to create and nurture a mentoring programme that makes a real difference.

What is mentoring?

“Mentoring programmes are not only important for building knowledge and skills within the workplace, they also offer employee socialisation, wider engagement and fuse relationships across the business.”

Rebekah Wallis
Director – People & CR, Ricoh UK Ltd

Mentoring is a long-term relationship between a mentor and mentee.

An accessible, human way for an individual to gain professional insight from someone with different experiences or perspectives– while also acting as a learning opportunity for the mentor themselves.

This goes well beyond just improving particular role-related skills.

 It’s a personal platform to support development across a wide range of topics, from life and social skills to things as simple and significant as friendship in the workplace.

And most importantly, it’s a two-way street. Both participants learn from each other to encourage rapid growth and exposure to a plethora of new experiences.

How does mentoring add value to your business?

There are many reasons why mentoring could help to achieve particular goals. But one factor that makes good mentoring beneficial to any business is its effect on your talent pool.

It’s a case of sharing knowledge, unlocking potential and retaining the best people.

An improved workforce, the development of skills across teams and the growth of individual talent is a fantastic return on investment.

What are the common pitfalls?

Ricoh, as part of their mentoring support, continually look for ways in which they can further improve their service.

This means analysis of the common challenges a mentoring scheme might face. Here are a few examples:

•   Time constraints – it is important that those who join the scheme have the time to give to their mentee or mentor

•   Poor matching – the mentor must be able to provide what the mentee is looking for. If the matching does not work, quickly identify it and find a new pairing

•   Chemistry – the relationship between mentor and mentee must be a positive one. Trust, honesty and friendship are requirements for success

As your programme continues to evolve, your business must keep in touch with the individuals involved to monitor and quickly resolve any issues.

Ricoh provides guidance on starting conversations and holding regular check-ins to understand how each pair is progressing.

Don’t forget, feeling uncomfortable is expected. This is a process that’s designed to take people out of their comfort zone.  

How do you create an effective mentoring programme?

These are the key steps taken by Ricoh whenever they engage with the development of a mentoring programme in a business:

• Confirm the aim of the programme and the measures for success
• Create a timeline with key dates in place, including check-in’
• Ask employees if they wish to participate and nominate themselves – use application forms to help find good matches
• Match up your applicants
•  Host a launch event/chemistry session to introduce your mentors to their mentees
• Provide information to mentors and mentees about their role
• Keep the momentum going by checking in regularly, sending updates and sharing stories

Get people involved.

The true power of mentoring comes from its one-to-one personalised experience.

And there’s no better way to deliver that message than by sharing success stories of previous mentoring relationships, using them to communicate the benefits to participants.

It’s important, however, to not just turn to those who you know are a good candidate for the programme. This process is about challenging bias and allowing your workforce to answer the call themselves. Reach out to a diverse range of employees and encourage everyone to learn.

Set your time frames.

Establish at the beginning how long your programme is going to last. Ricoh typically plans in a period of nine months when they help a business to benefit from mentoring.

Begin the programme with one or two meetings that allow individuals to get to know each other, then allow the meetings to get more challenging as time goes on – both mentor and mentee need to be tested. 

A clear endpoint must also be set in order to judge success, though individuals may decide to continue seeing each other once the programme ends.

Develop skills.

“As well as helping others you learn to develop key skills such as listening, perspective, self-knowledge, compassion, courage, integrity and trust. These skills enable you to become a better leader.”

Rebekah Wallis
Director – People & CR, Ricoh UK Ltd

An effective mentoring programme doesn’t just develop job-related skills, but soft (or essential) skills that transcend any particular role in your business.

Ensure that you encourage participants to engage in discussions about equality, diversity, compassionate leadership and new ways of working.

A major part of the programme is to take people out of their comfort zones and provide new experiences. Therefore, participants should also see an improvement in their self-confidence, assertiveness and communication skills.

How do you determine success?

One of the main intentions of a mentoring programme is to develop your talent pool. So, an easy way to measure success is through the progression of that talent.

Another measure is engagement. How many of your employees participated in the programme, and how many dropped out?

Ricoh implements regular check-ins when they provide mentoring to external businesses, organisations or individuals, and these provide an ideal opportunity to get feedback on how the programme is going – a key indicator of progress. A closing survey and feedback session as a full group is integral to this process.

Create a positive work environment with stronger connections between your colleagues.

Supporting your mentoring programme.

A mentoring programme is not a standalone tool. Your business needs to support the growth of those involved by combining in it with coaching, networking opportunities, discussions about self-development and sponsorship. 

The future of mentoring.

As mentoring becomes more commonplace in business, and companies across the world gain a greater understanding of the benefits involved, there is no doubt that common practice will evolve. 

Indeed, trends suggest they are already becoming less organised, more fluid affairs. Mentees now begin to seek multiple mentors for different challenges as they progress through their career. 

It is likely that there will be much more peer-to-peer mentoring as the UK workforce becomes increasingly inclusive and diverse.

Techniques such as reverse mentoring are also becoming more popular, with senior leaders learning from their junior employees. 

Mentoring with Ricoh.

Ricoh have used their expertise to deliver successful mentoring programmes to a range of charities, business and independents, including the 30 Percent Club, Prince’s Trust and Sport to Business.

The stats behind our service.

As part of our 30 Percent Club programme, we gave participants a quick survey to allow them to offer their feedback and get some statistics to further improve our service.

We’re proud to state that we’ve had some excellent results and have left a positive impression on many of those involved – but we’re always looking to do more!

Here’s just some of the great feedback we received:

•   65% of mentors and mentees felt they were appropriately matched
•   95% of mentors and mentees agreed that commitment to be programme was the biggest factor impacting the success
•   100% of those on the mentoring programme would recommend it to others
•   100% of mentors and mentees felt they had gained learning from the experienced

 “I would thoroughly recommend the 30% Club programme to anyone who wants to seek career focus, who has a development area they want to work on, or who needs support following internal mentoring.”

Glenn Griggs
Direct Sales Director

If you’d like to learn how Ricoh can help you develop your talent pool and gain value from mentoring, get in touch.

Rebekah Wallis
Director – People & CR

The post Deliver mentoring that drives value for your business appeared first on Insights - Empowering Digital Workplaces.

A previously Gallup report from 2018 found that 23% of employees reported feeling burned out ‘often or always’. Another 44% reported feeling it ‘sometimes’. In certain industries, such as tech, this figure rises to 60%. And that was post COVID. The resulting rates of burnout are so steep that the World Health Organisation has added it to their International Classification of Diseases.

Workplace changes are moving fast. Faster than any other time in human history. New roles are created and old roles become obsolete with each passing week. Employees are expected to keep pace with new technology in order to stay hireable. The lines between work and life are increasingly blurred as mobile phones make it harder for us to ‘switch off’. And the world outside of work feels less stable and predictable than it used to.

The World Health Organisation describes the effects of employee burnout on individuals as:

• Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
• Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job
• Reduced professional efficacy

On an individual level, employee burnout can lead to mental ill-health. But those negative effects are amplified at an organisational level, where burnout can have serious business consequences. Signs that businesses are struggling with burnout include:

• Increased rate of employee turnover
• Decreased productivity and an increase in errors such as missed deadlines
• Increase in both presenteeism and absenteeism
• Breakdown of personal and managerial relationships
• Lack of participation in social activities
• Low employee engagement

How can decision-makers help avoid employee burnout?

Managers have a responsibility to look after the wellbeing of their employees. High-performing employees want to be challenged and thrive under pressure but not at the expense of their health and wellbeing.

If managers want to help their employees to thrive in these fast-moving times, they need to put processes in place that both challenge and nurture. Here are six ways you can reduce the risk of burnout in your business.

Invite employee feedback

Managers who maintain an open channel of communication between employees and themselves will be more able to spot and resolve issues than managers who close themselves off.

On a personal level, scheduling regular one-to-ones with employees to see how they are will help you get a feel for how they’re coping and what support they need. It will also help build an open and honest relationship. Employees with managers who take the time to check-in with them may also feel more valued and appreciated.

On an organisational level, quarterly or bi-monthly engagement surveys are a great way for HR teams to get a feel for the level of pressure that employees are experiencing. If employees are reporting increased levels of stress or struggling to handle the tasks they’ve been assigned, this feedback can be passed onto managers who can then act on it.

Discourage an ‘always-on’ culture

The majority of employees will have a work phone or will sync their work emails to their personal phone. This can make it hard to ‘switch off’. It’s easy to get sucked into answering emails in the morning before work, in the evenings or on weekends.

But employees need time and space away from work to destress, unwind and regain their focus. Overwork has been proven to have a disastrous impact on productivity. The majority of managers would rather have employees who are focused and motivated during work hours than available 24/7 but rarely at their best.

For this reason, some managers discourage employees from answering non-essential emails outside of work hours. Or make it clear that answering emails outside of work isn’t required or even encouraged. Both of which help employees recharge when outside of work, so they can deliver their best work when they’re in work.

Help employees to manage their time

The average UK worker spends around 39 hours a week working. That may sound like plenty of time, but most workers spend 2.5 hours answering emails each day (if not more). And the average worker spends 35% of their working life in meetings, increasing to 50% for managers. Which leaves us relatively little time to actually do our job.

With this in mind, some managers are encouraging employees to opt-out of meetings if they don’t feel that they’re required or can add value. Managers are also encouraging employees to block out ‘offline’ time in their own calendars. During this time, employees aren’t expected to respond to emails or instant messenger.

These policies allow employees to focus on key tasks and prevents them from getting distracted by meetings, emails and IMs. Distraction and overwork have both been proven to have a negative effect on productivity and morale. By empowering employees to make decisions about how they use their time, you help them to focus their time on their most important tasks.

Encourage employees to take time off if they need to

Some employees will be more comfortable asking for time off than others. High-performers are often the least likely to ask for time off for mental health reasons. Unfortunately, they’re also one of the most likely to suffer from burnout.

Managers who want to protect their employees from burnout should take steps to de-stigmatise asking for time off for mental health reasons. HR teams may want to create and share an internal policy for dealing with burnout that details who to ask for help, how to do so and the steps that the company will take to help them recover.

Managers should also consider how employees return to work. It’s no good giving someone time off and then putting them back in the exact same situation. Some companies phase an employees’ return to ease them into it. It can also be helpful to give employees who take time off for stress tips on how to manage questions from colleagues about where they’ve been.

Every employee will deal with burnout differently, and so it is important employees are encouraged to be aware of their own coping mechanisms and the support that is available to them. Managers should be able to signpost employees to services such as an Employee Assistance programme, occupational health or the employees GP.

Implement flexible working

Flexible working policies are increasingly commonplace. They help employees combat burnout in a number of ways. Firstly, as we’ve talked about before, they help employees to focus. Working in the office can be distracting. It’s easier to get sidetracked by impromptu discussions or dragged into meetings than it is when you’re working remotely. In fact, according to one survey, when asked to rate their productivity out of ten, home workers gave themselves 7.7, while office workers gave themselves 6.5.

Remote working also cuts down on travel time. The average UK commute is 54 minutes, which adds up to nearly two hours a day travelling to and from work. Working from home cuts out this time, giving employees more time to focus on core tasks and less time stuck in traffic. Travelling to work can in itself be quite stressful, as anyone who has to catch a busy commuter train or drive in rush hour traffic each morning will know.

Finally, a quiet home is typically a more calm environment than an office. The hustle and bustle of the modern workplace can be invigorating but it can also be overwhelming.

Help employees focus on their strengths

A common source of burnout is feeling like you’re under-performing or out of your depth. While it’s encouraged managers to challenge employees in order to help them grow and develop, you should also play to their strengths. Finding tasks that suit an employees skillset will increase the chance of them doing well. And everyone likes feeling good at their job.

Employees whose roles and responsibilities are constantly changing are more likely to feel overstretched. Learning new things is tough and takes time. Employees who are always having to adapt to new things may feel like they’re falling behind, even when they’re making good progress. Managers who are guiding employees through a period of change should try to balance familiar tasks with unfamiliar ones. And tasks which are likely to be challenging with tasks that are likely to be easier.

Sign the Time to Change Employer Pledge

Time to Change is a UK mental health charity that’s trying to end mental health discrimination and create a more open dialogue around mental health issues. Employers can sign up to their Employer Pledge, which is a commitment to changing how we think about and act toward mental health in the workplace. At the time of writing, over 900 UK businesses have signed up, including Ricoh UK.

One of the best parts of the Time to Change Pledge is their idea of having Wellbeing Champions in the workplace. These are people who are passionate about mental health and want to help the people around them. Champions are given training and materials that will help your business deal with mental health issues, reducing burnout, providing support and destigmatizing mental health conversations.

We can do more to prevent employee burnout

Work isn’t the only source of stress in our lives. In fact, work can be a source of fulfilment and pride. But overwork can leave us feeling drained, unhappy and unmotivated. Managers have a duty of care for employees and it’s more important than ever for managers to be able to spot the signs of employee burnout and have a plan for how to deal with it.

By listening to employees, empowering them and introducing clear policies that help them focus on tasks that they enjoy, managers can get the best out of their employees without risking their health and wellbeing. Click here to find more advice on Empowering your People.

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