In the midst of a pandemic, where the line between home and work life is blurred, it is important now more than ever to talk about our #mentalhealth and #wellbeing. It wasn’t too long ago when there was a stigma to these words. Some progress has been made as our understanding of the issues and ability to talk about it is so much better, but there is still more to do!
In October it was national work life week. It provided an opportunity to discuss our work-life-balance, wellbeing and mental health. We ran a series of activities to mark the week including daily brain teasers, a few games, a one million step challenge and we finished the week with a virtual pub quiz. The most important activity we held was a virtual coffee morning because although the activities were great fun, a huge part of mental health and wellbeing is communication and it asked the question, ‘although we see each other’s faces in meetings, how much do we actually chat and check in with how each other are doing?’
These weren’t one-off events, but something gcp are keen to continue to improve on. Since this week we have signed up to Thrive at Work West of England and have embarked on a two year commitment to improve and evaluate our working procedures in a way that puts keeping our team mentally healthy at the core of what we do.
