Achieving a work-life balance is tough. The pressure of an increasingly demanding work culture in the UK is perhaps the biggest and most pressing challenge to the mental health of the general population.
In a recent survey, the Mental Health Foundation found that more than 40% of employees are neglecting other aspects of their life because of work, which may increase their vulnerability to mental health problems.
At Communicorp UK, we understand that managing your time and workload can be a challenge. In all our people engagement surveys, we’ve had feedback about the pressure work can create and we know that the juggle of this and home life can become overwhelming. For some, it is harder than others so we created Me Space. A wellbeing platform designed to help our people cope with everyday life and work pressures so that they do not stand in the way of their success, health or happiness.
We’ve recently been talking about getting the most from the time we have at work and feeling confident and in control in our approach. Within Me Space, we’ve introduced tools and techniques we can apply to change how we manage our workload and increase our focus to boost performance and wellbeing.
Mindfulness at work
Sharon Salzberg, a leading meditation teacher and the author of Real Happiness at Work, shares strategies and exercises on how to use mindfulness to become more satisfied and productive at work.
Future Learn: Mindfulness for Wellbeing and Peak Performance
Mindfulness techniques can help reduce stress and improve your well-being and work performance. Future Learn offer a practical four week online course that will explain what mindfulness is and allow you to experiment with a variety of mindfulness techniques.
This is the kind of content we’ve been sharing in our #WellnessWednesday Me Space email to inspire positive change. These are just some of the techniques we have made available to all of our people within our Learning Hub. We offer a whole learning program with a menu to choose from such as mindfulness at work. Mindfulness in the workplace is becoming increasingly important and it can have a number of positive effects such as a decrease in perceived stress and an increase in better concentration levels, including memory tasks and multi-tasking.
By investing in Me Space, we're starting to create a culture of looking after ourselves and our well being, inspiring others to do the same.
The Pomodoro Technique - proudly developed by Francesco Cirillo
Our very own Group Creative Director, John-Paul Hughes, recently shared his tips on being productive on Yammer, our internal social network. If you're staring at a daunting to-do list and wondering why it never seems to get any shorter, try the proven and highly effective 'Pomodoro Technique':
1. Choose the task you would like to complete.
2. Set a timer for 25 minutes.
3. Immerse yourself in the task without interruption or deviation until the timer goes off.
4. Take a five minute break and do nothing. Not another task or job, just sit there and do nothing. You could stare out of the window, take a walk outside or just relax for five minutes.
5. Start your next Pomodoro of 25 minutes - every four Pomodoros, take a longer break of 20 minutes.
Hannah Cook, Digital Campaign Manager and student on our Next Generation Leaders programme, said: "I've used this throughout my uni studies so far and I don't know how I would have got into a rhythm of writing essays without it!"
Each week we feature a different life topic where our people have access to in the form of confidential counselling, guidance and learning. The five life topics covered are:
Delivering the best ideas, relationships and results takes a healthy mind, attitude and body. Make time for Me Space and live your best life every day.