A few years ago, I wrote a post on random acts of kindness you can do in the office. Fast forward to 2020 and life has turned on its head with us all now working from home.  Who knows whether this will be a purely short-term measure or a permanent transformation of office life. The steep trajectory of this transition can have negative consequences for our mental health.  As part of Mental Health Awareness Week, we’re all being asked to commit to one act of kindness this week and what better time to support your colleagues working from home by showing them a little kindness.  

Check in on your colleagues working from home

The office can be a place of refuge for people in many different situations.  Some may be stuck in an unhappy relationship while others will be experiencing fractious relationships with their children and others will be coping home alone.   Whatever category you belong to, lockdown is a test of strength and some of us may be missing the respite and companionship of office life far more than we’d like to admit. To combat the stress of this new normal – it’s vital that we continue to connect with colleagues on a personal level.  Make a note this week to have a phone / teams chat with one colleague.  Don’t talk about work – chat instead about they’re coping with working from home and the feelings this provokes.  Talking through problems on a personal level

Arrange a virtual coffee with a random stranger

Now that the frantic pace of working life has slowed down a bit, there’s never been a better time to make new connections.  Having the courage to connect with someone new in your office can give you a great confidence boost but can also make someone’s day.  Approaching someone out of the blue makes the other person realise that they matter. Connecting with a stranger can also make it easier to talk more openly about struggles and problems which would otherwise be difficult to broach with colleagues or a boss.   Meeting for a virtual coffee also allows vital respite from the working day and can provide an energising boost for both parties.  Who will you reach out to today?

Offer to mentor a more junior member of staff

Mentoring is a great way to not only give support but to also put your own problems into perspective.  I’ve recently started mentoring. My own mentee joined the organisation in the last two weeks only to be plunged head-first into the parallel universe of working from home.  Providing support at such a tricky time has enabled me to experience someone else’s reality and offered a welcome distraction from dwelling on my own concerns. Supporting others through mentoring has also been proven to increase wellbeing and can also improve important soft skills in the workplace such as communication and active listening.

Arrange virtual staff sessions to aid problem solving

Lockdown has transformed our working world and while most of us have managed to grapple with video conferencing, our remote situation is causing other headaches – not least for relationship building and internal collaboration.  Having such a captive audience of remote workers has provided a golden opportunity to develop virtual staff sessions to help break down silos and bring teams together. 

In virtual staff sessions, individual teams are able to talk about the role they play within the organisation and also discuss any lockdown issues they are currently experiencing – allowing other teams to interact with possible solutions.  A problem shared is a problem halved so they say and this act of kindness helps to get teams to bond while also finding innovative solutions to common problems. 

The pandemic has created new challenges for all of us.  While we’ve never been more physically remote we’ve also never been closer in terms of our shared struggles and worries for the future.  Now is the time to embrace kindness and create stronger bonds with those we work with – not only get us through lockdown but to create a more compassionate working environment in the future.