No matter what happens next, we have learned some incredibly valuable lessons. The importance of business resilience. The potential of flexibility. The benefits of having the right technology and working practices in place to ensure future business success.

But most of all, we’ve fortified our understanding that our most important asset is our people. Mental health and wellbeing have turned into topics at the forefront of business leaders’ minds – and it’s crucial it stays that way.

So, let’s take a look at some of the things you can do to look after your people.

Communicate regularly and openly

Nobody likes to be left in the dark, especially if they’re feeling anxious or uncertain. By being transparent and honest with what’s going on across your business – both the successes and the challenges – you maintain a sense of togetherness, making sure your people feel part of the big picture.

It’s also the role of managers to have regular one-to-one conversations with their teams. And not only to talk about work but also to enjoy each other’s company as if they were hanging out at the office coffee machine.

Provide opportunities to get away from work

One of the biggest challenges for people’s mental health and wellbeing in the last 12 months has been finding the right work/life balance. Indeed, many worked long hours in an attempt to maintain the same productivity they had in the office.

Mix this in with constant video calls – “Can you see my screen?” – it’s no wonder there is a lot of fatigue.

You need to continually reassure your people that it’s ok to manage your own time. In fact, you should positively encourage them to disengage from their home desk and get active. Especially in the shorter winter days – make the most of the sunlight!

Set objectives to work towards

Targets and objectives play a major role in motivation. When we’re working towards something that’s challenging yet achievable – perhaps with the potential of a reward at the end – we feel driven to perform at our best and reach truly excellent results.

It’s all about giving yourself focus and a sense of control. But this doesn’t have to be related to your business. Even things as simple as trying out a few new exercises can release those endorphins, reset your mind and improve your work productivity.

Some extra inspiration from Ricoh…

We’d like to tell you about something we’re doing to promote a sense of unity and support among our people.

In February, we’re asking our people to get active and raise money for charity by taking part in The Prince’s Trust ‘Future Steps’ challenge. This involves downloading an app and trying to do 10,000 steps a day for the month of – with a leader board to keep things competitive.

Everyone here is very excited, it’s generated a sense of community and it’s for a good cause. Why not try something similar in your business?

And remember, it’s all about taking the conscious approach.

Taking a conscious approach means constantly monitoring and supporting your people. It’s about being aware of their mental health and wellbeing at work through open communication. And being proactive when you identify problems and solutions.

Reach out to your colleagues before the emotional fatigue of remote working sets in. Put the right support in place before anyone even needs it. And understand that plans are just sketches – things you can adjust and tailor as you make each decision along the way.

Find out more by reading our report on The Conscious Workplace here.

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With the vaccine rollout underway, the road to normality becomes a serious possibility. So we can soon start to make plans for the future but the first thing we need to understand is where precisely are we now? That’s why Ricoh undertook ‘The Conscious Workplace Survey and Report’. By surveying over 1,300 people across the UK, we have established a clear understanding of what workers in the UK have dealt with this year. This includes employees working both remotely and in the office ranging from frontline workers to c-suite managers.

The Conscious Workplace Report

Our Conscious Workplace Report uses survey data captured in September 2020. This was used to evaluate managers and workers’ experience to help identify their most significant challenges and overall employee behavioural experience. This, in turn, enabled us to highlight the opportunities we, as businesses, currently face as we plan our future.

Almost all the participants cited four common concerns:

• Happiness, motivation and productivity are significant challenges
• Existing office spaces are unsuitable for a post-COVID world
• Managers are struggling to introduce new processes and look after their employees
• New technology also caused concerns for managers over security issues and its inefficient use.

So, why does all this make employee behaviour experience such an important factor? Because every challenge facing organisations across the UK, in terms of productivity, process and wellbeing, centre around your people.

What are the challenges facing employees and managers?

We may have come a long way, but there are still many teething issues that affect our day-to-day lives. And managers and employees are on the front line of dealing with them.

Anything that changes in our life causes friction and stress. Relocation, remote working, changing power dynamics – these are all common occurrences across the country, but they’re major events which have occurred all at once. Then there are all the little things we used to take for granted whilst working in an office environment; such as conversations, micro-rewards, and collaboration ease. Now all replaced with digital imitations that sometimes don’t quite hit the mark.

Sudden changes to routines, environments and ways of working can have a big physiologically impact, which can ultimately change the employee behavioural experience, ultimately impacting wellbeing.

Meanwhile, for managers, there is an additional layer; their roles have changed drastically. Once they were focused on organisational objectives. Now they must pay much more significant consideration to their employees’ wellbeing – whilst still ensuring things get done. And this is all happening amidst huge societal change, with distressing news and uncertainty across the country.

Managing employee behavioural experience needs behavioural insight.

One of the most difficult things to replicate from our office days is social interaction – a critical human happiness requirement. It plays a huge part in peoples’ mental wellbeing. We’ve all come to understand the challenges with video conferencing, collaborating while working remotely and getting quick answers to questions you could once ask in person.

Your people can no longer easily enjoy ‘water cooler’ moments, share stories or discuss projects. And it’s much harder to receive constructive criticism, praise or positive feedback from managers. A key aspect of how we get happiness in the workplace.

Behavioural science can help bridge the gaps between your peoples’ difficulties with motivation, happiness and self-worth – both as individuals and within our teams – and a manager’s organisational challenges of the economy, productivity and process. Leading to a more positive employee behavioural experience.

How can a strategy centred around The Conscious Workplace help alleviate these issues?

Organisations have to look at how they can evolve agile working practices that cater to a blend of remote and physical workplace environments. And people are central to that. So put in place an employee behavioural experience strategy to fit a hybrid work style.

Technology
Technology is a great example of this. There are many fantastic options out there that can help your business transform to meet new challenges and opportunities. But you need to pick the ones that are right for your people, or your business will never see the full benefit. It would be best to consider how any new technology will affect your managers and your employees, and how you can help them integrate the new technology into their working lives and use it effectively.

Wellbeing
When it comes to wellbeing, it’s important to understand that the position we are in now isn’t sustainable, whether we’re comfortable working from home or not. You need to be conscious of your people’s health, productivity and happiness, and ensure you’re making critical business decisions with their future in minds.

Coming into the office will become a choice enabling aspects of flexible working to be maintained. Therefore organisations have a positive choice to cater to their needs. Making them feel valued, enabling those shared social interactions, and keeping them safe.

Get this balance right to create a positive employee behavioural experience across the organisation.

What steps do organisations need to take moving forwards?

One of the key issues to address is the disparity between IT experiences at home and in the office. Many people have found working at home to be easy; they can rely on their own setup to connect with others. But when they return to the office, they have to rely on the IT support and infrastructure there, which may well be lacking.

It’s vital that organisations look to technology that enables a seamless transition between the office and home working. And the same is true for existing processes. Scanning, printing and documentation also have to be as easily available to a remote worker as it is in the office.

And when it comes to your people, your greatest resource for identifying what you need to do moving forwards is the people themselves. The cornerstone of The Conscious Workplace is continual interaction to seek a positive employee behavioural experience. Asking them how they are feeling, what difficulties they are having, and then finding and testing the solutions to those problems to find the right fit for your organisation. 

Where can I go for more information?

To learn more about creating a conscious workplace, read our report – The Conscious Workplace.

Ricoh empowers digital workplaces by using innovative technologies and services, enabling individuals to work smarter. Our Work Together Anywhere webinar series is a great research destination for insights and to gain further understanding from experts.

 Watch past webinars and register for upcoming events here.

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The past 18 months have been challenging.

At a time when only 30% of UK employees had ever experienced working remotely, you were plunged into a state of isolation and uncertainty.

• More than 50% of managers are struggling with employee mental health
• Nearly 1/3 of remote managers and employees find health and well-being a challenge
• Staff motivation, happiness, and productivity remains the greatest challenge for managers (45%), while 15% of employees struggle with habits they formed at home and 13% feel less productive

Then, through the ensuing months, you have had to adapt and adopt new processes, practices, and technologies.

You did so brilliantly. In a collective effort from business leaders, managers, and employees alike, you rose to each challenge and turned them into opportunities. But this long battle has created a new priority. One which is now crucial to address: our mental wellbeing at work. It’s time for business leaders to bring unity and calm to the workplace. To learn from the past and proactively build for a better future.

And it all starts with being consciously aware of how your people are feeling.

There are four key things that are affecting our wellbeing at work.

First, we must understand what’s affecting the mental health and wellbeing of your people. Research by Ricoh and in collaboration with leading clinical psychologist Emma Kenny has identified these four:

Confidence of control

Communicating our actions, thoughts and feelings is a way of controlling a situation. At work, we used daily signals, language, and actions to demonstrate our purpose and value.

But now our environment has changed. So too have our signals and language. And this has led to misunderstanding and frustration, undermining our wellbeing at work.

Misplaced validation

People need validation. Historically this has been given through pay raises and promotions. Today we know that a person’s sense of achievement extends well beyond financial gain.

So, how do you learn how your people want to be validated on an emotional level? In an office environment, it’s easier to identify and deliver. But remotely, it can be a clunky, misplaced, and often even patronising affair.

Unanchored authority

We’re creatures of habit; in the office, we could rely on routine. Start and finish times, lunch hours, health, and safety guidelines. These anchors helped us plan our day and reach our goals.

Now we’re remote working, this solid structure has become fluid. And while this has benefits for our work/life balance, it can also lead to working longer hours, difficulties switching off and fatigue.

Apathetic employee experience

Employee experience is as important as the customer experience. It isn’t just a ‘nice to have’ bonus offered by any given company, but a necessity if you want to keep wellbeing at work and your people productive.

Business leaders have to find a way to remain empathetic – despite today’s challenges – if they want their organisation to be successful.

But we can’t make fixed plans for our people.

If we’ve learned anything in 2020, it’s the importance of being agile and flexible in how we work. Without this, we cannot quickly and effectively meet new challenges and opportunities.

Nobody could have planned for the pandemic, and you can’t plan for whatever happens next. We’re on an unknown journey with a destination that’s yet to be discovered. But you can develop stronger business resilience by adopting a more conscious approach – one which puts your people first and keeps your finger on the pulse of change.

The solution? Take the conscious approach.

Taking a conscious approach means constantly monitoring and supporting your people. It’s about being aware of their mental health and wellbeing at work through open communication. And being proactive when you identify problems and solutions.

Reach out to your colleagues before the emotional fatigue of remote working sets in. Put the right support in place before anyone even needs it. And understand that plans are just sketches – things you can adjust and tailor as you make each decision along the way.

Find out more by reading our report on The Conscious Workplace here.

If you’d like to hear more insight on how to protect and enhance the wellbeing of your people working at home, you can watch our webinar here

Watch on-demand: How to protect and enhance the wellbeing of your people working at home

The post Business leaders must look to mental health and wellbeing at work to ensure future success appeared first on Insights - Empowering Digital Workplaces.

Crack of dawn commutes and late nights in the office were an unavoidable fact of life for most City law firms. Right up until March 2020, when all of that changed.

Three months on, a staff survey by Eversheds Sutherland found that 84% of its UK staff said they had “the same or better ability to develop skills and knowledge while working at home.” In another survey, 70% of staff said that they had concerns about going back into the office.

There are financial, personal and medical reasons why people aren’t in a hurry to return to the office. Workers and firms can save a small fortune in travel expenses, people get to spend more time with their family and people have got used to new routines and flexibility. 

But while other professions have become more flexible over the years, the legal profession hasn’t moved as fast. Some partners said their clients expect law firms to have an impressive office full of busy people. Others said that the industry’s reliance on hardcopies made remote working impractical. Some said that offices better-suited the fast-paced and hyper-competitive work culture.

Whatever their reasons for people not working from home, the majority of the UK’s legal profession now disagree. Although others have said that there are still a lot of benefits to office working, including team and culture-building and a sense of unity and purpose.

While it’s too early to say for sure what will happen after we move fully out of lockdown, it is possible to look back on what we’ve learned so far this year.

Lawyers can be productive working from home

Having to work from home hasn’t stopped the legal profession in its tracks. That much is clear.

Some firms were more prepared than others and those that did have a remote working policy in place already were able to move faster, but almost all firms are now up and running.

Although it is also worth pointing out that some parts of the legal industry, like most industries, have slowed down. So it would be hasty to say that a remote workforce would be able to sustain the amount of work they’d have to in a fully-functioning economy.

Some trainees are struggling 

Something that working from home has always struggled with is training and mentorship. No one has come up with a good way to replicate the kind of on-the-job learning that happens in the office environment.

Sitting in on calls, joining meetings, impromptu conversations, in-person catch ups. All of these are vital parts of the trainee experience. Being in the office also gives them the opportunity to build relationships and improve their standing and reputation. You can’t happen to get chatting to a partner in the lift if neither of you are in the office.

Legal Cheek also spoke to one trainee who found that achieving any kind of work-life balance had become impossible due to the pressure piled on them by associates during lockdown:

“The lack of any working structure means that different associates choose different working schedules at home, and then dump the work on trainees whenever they need it, meaning trainees have little to no control over any sense of balance. No ability to divide the day up, or take any meaningful breaks, and this is extending through the weekend.”

Law firms will be expected to offer flexible working going forward

RollOnFriday published a recent survey that found that 40% of respondents didn’t want to work in the office at all. It also highlighted the massive shift that has taken place over the last few months.

Before March 2020, 50% of respondents said they preferred working in the office everyday. Just a few months later, that figure has dropped to just 7%. 

One respondent summed the mood of the moment up quite nicely by saying: “Offices seem so 20th century now”.

Having experienced the benefits of flexible working, firms may struggle to convince workers to come back to the office full-time. And those that try to, may find themselves losing staff. As one recruiter specialising in the legal recruitment market said to Law Gazette:

“The yearning for flexibility has been there for some time, and the profession has generally resisted it. Going forward it is going to become a prerequisite.”

There are many benefits to working from home, as we’ve all discovered over the last few months. However, we believe the office still has value to add. The general consensus within the legal industry and beyond is that the future will be a hybrid and flexible approach, not one or the other.

The office is a great place to meet clients, to gather people together and create culture and team-building moments. It’s hard to build a sense of community and solve creative or complex problems on a video call. But that’s not to say that you need to be in the office doing that every day of the week.

Please visit our Work Together, Anywhere Webinar Series page to book your place on upcoming events and access previous webinars on demand.

The post Are law firms finally embracing remote working? appeared first on Insights - Empowering Digital Workplaces.

Why does the humble letter cause so much difficulty for organisations? Yes, the simple effect of numerous letters and parcels delivered and collected daily from offices up and down the country can cause real challenges for business.

Why is physical inbound and outbound mail such an issue?

With a remote workforce, physical inbound mail arriving in offices is still a significant issue for many. For a short, intermittent period, most organisations can create a temporary workaround. Either forwarding important mail or manually scanning and emailing documents to their intended recipients. But that’s not sustainable long term. And for outbound mail leaving the organisation there’s a similar challenge. How are you able to remotely print and send important documents such as new contracts or agreements?

Which businesses are most affected?

Organisations who still rely heavily on physical mail for the management and delivery of their services. Such as processing important customer documents, signing contracts, and fulfilling orders. As well as providing correspondence to non-digital audiences and managing business finances for invoicing and payment.

Typically, these organisations operate in industries such as financial services, legal, insurance, business services, healthcare, charities, government, and the public sector. Specifically, where digital processes have been more slowly introduced.

At the moment they need to open all inbound mail and distribute it digitally or physically to the correct remote recipients. Something that can be very time-intensive to do quickly or securely.

Why is digitising inbound mail so important?

Inbound mail still carries the most important business communications. Our experience shows that at least 60% of postal mail is still in the form of business-critical documents. This correspondence often impacts litigation, finance, security, and confidentiality for many departments. Indeed, according to Billentis, 550bn invoices were sent globally in 2019!

With increased digitisation elsewhere, the physical inbound correspondence becomes even more of an issue.

Despite the advantages of digital workflows, many organisations still need to capture, route, and extract information from these paper documents. Our experience shows that early capture and standardisation in a digital format enables companies to manage their workflows in a more efficient way. And it doesn’t have to impact your IT team.  In fact, the entire digital process sits within the cloud and can be implemented remotely.

The risks and what you need to do

Physical post not opened and acted upon within a specific timeframe affects efficiency and can expose a business or organisation. Resulting in unwarranted risks. Therefore, business leaders and senior managers need to focus on business-critical areas of the business. Therefore linking to information that typically arrives via physical mail. Operational areas such as finance, legal, contractual, or HR are often affected if the information isn’t acted on quickly.

So, what should you do?

Read our eBook for more information and advice.

Click to read a quick guide to mail capture

How can I justify implementing a digital inbound and outbound mail solution?

Whilst many large enterprise businesses will have implemented a digital process already, it is not a solution only accessible to businesses with bigger budgets. The technology is available to every business and the highest impact is seen with small-mid size organisations.

Our experience shows that you will begin to see the financial return within the first 6 months. The return will be in the form of a reduction in 90+ day debtors, reduced manual interventions from your accounts team and payments made quicker. Adding to this is the increased employee satisfaction. Resulting in improved operational workflow, fewer manual checks, less repetitive queries, and fewer steps to complete tasks.

Want to read more?

Ricoh, a leading business transformation partner, has helped many businesses address this challenge. We will help you understand, assess, and implement a solution to this issue. Check out some useful resources, including;

• Webinar – our panel of experts discuss how to digitally capture all hard copy mail coming into your business.  (Available on-demand)
• eBook – an informative guide to digital inbound and outbound mail solutions

With Ricoh’s unique digital document solutions and remote handling and print capabilities, we can implement an inbound and outbound mail solution immediately, with minimal delay and no need to visit your business premises. That means we can implement an effective solution for your business right now.

The post How to get posted inbound mail to remote workers faster 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.

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