Eighty six percent of London-based banking and finance professionals say that the COVID-19 lockdown has affected their mental health according to a new survey (July 2020) of employees by Helix Resilience. According to the survey, over half (fifty two percent) of respondents claim to be less productive, and nearly four-in-ten (thirty nine percent) say they find it difficult to concentrate outside the office.
Clearly, these are big issues to address at a time when the profitability of banks is being significantly challenged, and a global recession is looming. But this is perhaps the most readily addressable challenge and, in doing so, one that can have a very positive impact on a bank’s performance too. Here we examine how to best support your teams.
Remote working has been slowly creeping into the lives of the UK’s workers for some years. Advances in technology and security have given people the tools and capability to work from home, whilst employee perception around work/life balance - combined with new legislation around workers' rights to flexible working – has led to increased demand.
And millions are reaping the rewards. According to research released by This is Money by Lloyds Bank, more than a quarter of Britain’s workforce works flexibly – that equates to around 8 million people. Much of this has been about the benefit of flexibility – to be able to attend different offices, hold meetings off-site. Remote working has meant variety of location, atmosphere and faces.
But COVID-19 has brought into sharp relief a very different set of circumstances, where workers are not so much remote as isolated – away from office colleagues, either alone or with family members also struggling to adjust. There can be no doubt that this situation – which looks to be part of a prolonged period of change - brings a real risk to workers’ sense of wellbeing and overall mental health.
This risk extends to the health of the business. Research has backed up what many already instinctively knew: that wellness is not only directly linked to productivity but also to the bottom line.
In Autumn 2019, before the current pandemic took hold, Capita released a new piece of research, ‘Human to Hybrid’, which examined the impact of our changing world on the employee workforce. Within it, nearly 59% of HR leaders identified increased productivity as one of a host of benefits of prioritising wellbeing.
It is essential that businesses – led and empowered by their HR teams – address wellness as a priority not just for the benefit of their workforce, but for the long term good of the business too.
What factors impact wellbeing?
When it comes to causing stress it can be of no surprise that factors such as workload pressure (identified by 86% of HR leads) and job insecurity ( identified by 84% of HR leads) come top of the list. And without question both of these will be exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19.
But a number of other factors – including lack of social contact (77%) – were also identified, and combined, these have the ability to cause unprecedented levels of anxiety amongst our workforce.
Specifically, for banking and finance professionals, according to the Helix Resilience survey, whilst 53% feel their employer is doing enough to support their wellbeing during lockdown, 33% do not feel supported. In addition, more than a third say they are working longer hours, 36% feel anxious or poorly motivated and 38% say they are less productive because they feel depressed.
So how can financial services organisations guard the health of their workforce during this period of change?
We’ve identified 3 opportunities for organisations to act – small changes that will make a big difference.
Fig. 1
Please rank the following reasons why employee wellbeing may be important to your organisation. The chart shows areas ranked first by respondents.
Fig 2.
What factors within your organisation do you see compromising employee wellbeing today?
