It’s mental health awareness week and with the theme of kindness, it’s never been more important to recognise that everyone has their ups and downs and sometimes a small act of kindness can really make a difference. During this period of lockdown, we are all having to find ways of coping, new ways of working and ways to connect with our friends, family and colleagues.
There are some fantastic official resources online to support mental health such as Mind and Mental Health UK.
Following the theme of Kindness and given the impact kindness can have on reducing stress and anxiety, I thought it would also be useful to think about ways in which your intranet can provide extra support as lockdown is slowly eased.
Create a Kindness Page
The page could feature links to mental health charities, videos, therapies colleagues can try at home. You could also enable everyone to say something kind about 3 colleagues, maybe what they miss about them or ways in which they make their day during lockdown.
Start a Kindness Challenge
Bring everyone together with a kindness challenge, this might be a form of bingo as highlighted by Mental Health UK or asking colleagues to contribute to ways in which the company could be kinder. Promote all of this through your intranet.
Support a Charity, Make a Difference
Charities are really struggling now. Why not get your colleagues involved and choose a charity to support over the coming year and think about how you could all fundraise or contribute in other ways and make a difference. Communicate all of this through your intranet with a poll to choose the charity, invite ideas on how you might support the charity via microblogs and videos, microblog updates to show progress towards your goal.
A Small Act of Kindness Each Day
Lead by example and think of ways you can surprise and bring a smile to your colleagues during lockdown. Use your intranet to surprise them by promoting something you’ve organised, such as a virtual bingo night, pub quiz, dinner party.
Publicise How Colleagues Can Access Mental Health Support
From virtual mental health buddies to professional support, make it easy for anyone in your business to gain access to the support they need and make it ok to not be ok. No one has ever had to go through this before, there are no rules as to how you should feel.
Find out what more you can do with your intranet by contacting success@sorce.co.uk or take a look at our free intranet guides, packed full of intranet advice, key tips and best practices.
