Wellbeing in the Workplace

Make your employees your number one priority. If you don’t, you’re putting your whole business at risk. Happy employees work harder, are more productive and are more successful. Workplace wellness is about ensuring your staff are constantly motivated in their job roles. Their wellbeing impacts the success of the business.

The People Development Network recently published an article on this very subject. It explains that your employees are what makes your business flourish. You should create a work environment where they can thrive. The suggested ways of maintaining wellness in the workplace are:

Allow experimentation.

Let creativity flow and problem solving skills develop. After all, it’s not the route of getting there but the end result that matters. Giving your staff the responsibility of their own workload and letting them manage their tasks themselves makes their day more satisfying. Satisfied employees are more productive. Without this responsibility, new ideas may never be shared. This could be costing you big-time.

Create Flexibility.

Some staff will become demotivated if they are sat at the same desk day-in day-out. Allow your employees the freedom of working from home, working in different environments or working flexible hours. Giving your staff the control over their time and place of work will make them want to stay working for you for longer.

Keep culture at your core.

Embedding culture in to your business will motivate your employees. Time spent away from desks relaxing and socialising will keep your current staff happy. Not just that, it will make your company desirable when recruiting. Just look at some of the most successful business in the world and you will see that they really do make culture a priority.

Health is a priority.

Encourage your staff to improve their general health and wellbeing. Little things like getting out of the office at lunchtime or providing fresh fruits and snacks are all helping towards improving and maintaining health of your employees.

Continual development.

Keep your staff motivated and engaged with personal development plans. Let them use their creativity in working towards their goals and their passion for their role will show.

If the health and wellbeing of your employees isn’t already on the agenda, it really needs to be. Looking out for staff health means less time taken off work for sicknesses like stress, anxiety and depression. When your employees feel better in themselves they are more motivated, therefore more productive. A win-win situation, surely?

At Embrace-learning, we are passionate about helping to build and develop resilience, health and wellbeing. We want to do this in the workforce and the local community. Our new suite of e-learning courses aims to do just that.

Our commitment doesn’t stop there. Our resilience and wellbeing initiative allows organisations of any size to get involved and help to promote and supply resilience building e-learning to the community. To read more about this or to get involved visit our website here.

If you are interested in resilience, health and well-being training for your workforce, please get in touch on 0161 928 9987.

 Embrace-learning is a UK leading provider of quality e-learning resources to the Health and Social Care sector. Find out more about us on our website www.embrace-learning.com

You can read more of our blog posts here.

Community Resilience and Wellbeing

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change” (Charles Darwin)

A community that is connected can better adapt to change and recover from adversity. This is what makes a community resilient.

As it happens, this is what makes an individual or an organisation resilient. It is intuitively understood that a disconnected community, an alienated individual or an isolated organization will not flourish and indeed may cease to exist when the winds of change blow in. It's not only understood but it's backed up by stacks of academic evidence from the fields of psychology, sociology and other disciplines. It seems the more we learn about resilience, the same principles hold true for people as they do for organisations and communities.

Unforeseen events like natural disasters and climate change can devastate lives and communities. Often the most significant events that happen to us are unforeseen, unplanned

for and unexpected. Even the 'good' events can turn out to be real challenges. You only have to look at the lives of some lottery winners and celebrities to see that resilience isn't just about failure', it's about coping with 'success'. The use of quote marks here is deliberately intended to question what counts as success and failure. That's a discussion for another day, but it's the dynamics of resilience that play out in the lives of individuals, organisations and communities that is fascinating. It is the idea that resilience can be learned and nurtured that is of interest to me. The question is, 'how is that achieved?'

There are some things we know about resilience that applies to people, organisations and communities. Being connected in a positive way. That is, having win/win relationships with others. It's not enough just 'being connected'. Poor connections that result in win/lose relationships is more likely to undermine resilience than bolster it. It almost goes without saying that resilient individuals will go a long way to establishing resilient communities. Individuals that have learned to feel helpless and ineffective will more often than not find others with the same characteristics and outlooks to create the least resilient and most vulnerable communities.

So what do you say to individuals to help build resilience? Well here's a 'starter for 10'.

Look at your own wellbeing and try to be specific about any behaviours that undermine your sense of happiness and wellbeing. Take a look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself a few questions.

You might want to ask yourself:

·         How well connected or how plugged in do I feel to what is going on around me in my neighbourhood, town or city?

·         What is it that I can offer to my community that won't necessarily give me any reward other than feeling good about the fact that I have contributed?

·         What behaviours do I need to change to better look after my mental and physical health?

There is a clear role here for employers to build a more resilient workforce. A disaster recovery plan is now mandatory for any organisation serious about planning for the future. But it is equally important that steps are taken to help support workers to make sure that they have their own personal disaster recovery plan, or something like it.

Bad things will happen and that's a fact. Those that can adapt will survive and flourish. That too is a fact. If you would like to know more about the work we do then please get in touch. Click here to find out more.

Embrace-learning is a UK leading provider of quality e-learning resources to the Health

and Social Care sector. Find out more about us on our website www.embracelearning.

com.

You can read more of our blog posts here.

Resilience in the Workforce

What is resilience?

Resilience is the ability to ‘change ones behaviour to adapt to disadvantage or adversity’. Resilient people are able to cope with stress and crisis, and can bounce back quickly from adverse events.

In the workforce

Resilience is needed in the workplace now more than ever before. The rapidly changing marketplaces, intense competition, the need to ‘do more with less’, and the uncertainty of jobs all contribute to the pressures placed on employees.

The total number of cases of work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2013-14 for all work-related illnesses was 39%. This figure could be significantly reduced if workers were to adopt a resilient attitude. By changing behaviours, workers can take more control over their health and well-being, and live a happier, healthier life.

Surveys say that only half of employees currently have the resilience that is necessary to perform in today’s business climate. But, the good news is, resilience can be learned.

A resilient workforce is a more productive one

Resilient workers are able to cope with change. They work well under pressure and learn from their bad experiences.

Employees can develop their resilience by viewing change as a challenge or an opportunity, rather than as a stress. Building on self confidence and optimism can also help to develop a more resilient attitude to work. Staying fit and healthy is another major contributor.

The overall happiness of a person has an impact on the way in which they work.

When employees build on resilience, they become happier and healthier, and therefore more productive in the workplace.

Employers can provide their staff with access to training and development to help them to develop a resilient attitude.

Embrace Resilience

At Embrace-learning, we have over 11 years experience in providing e-learning resources to the health and social care sector. We want to use our expertise to help to train staff in resilience, health and well-being, as we know that there is an increasing demand for resilient individuals in the workplace.

If you are interested in resilience, health and well-being training for your workforce, please get in touch on 0161 928 9987.

Embrace-learning is a UK leading provider of quality e-learning resources to the Health and Social Care sector. Find out more about us on our website www.embrace-learning.com

You can read more of our blog posts here.

E-learning: your questions answered

There are many benefits of e-learning. It can be completed at a time, place and pace that suits each individual learner, and is cost effective when compared with traditional face-to-face training. 

All managers want the assurance that their staff are receiving the highest standard of training. The rest of this post will aim to answer the key questions you should be asking, and how we at Embrace-learning aim to fulfill them.

1. What is the quality of the learning within the package?

Poor quality courses will not meet the needs of the learner, or of the organisation. Embrace-learning’s courses are developed by a collaborative team of educationalists, designers and software developers to ensure that the content is of the highest accuracy and quality.

Many organisations are determined to save on costs and find the lowest price available to ‘tick the box’ on their staff training but the real risk here is that the quality will suffer greatly, and staff won’t be fully competent.

Our course content engages the learner with constant questions and examples throughout. You cannot proceed to the next page before answering questions and not only do they teach learners what they need to know, but how to implement the key learning concepts in real life.

2. How do they keep their courses up-to-date with legislation and current ways of working in the subject area?

With the ever-changing legislation and government guidelines, you want to make sure the courses you purchase aren’t going to become obsolete over the year that you are using them.

Both CQC guidance and Skills for Care advice highlight the responsibility of the service provider and registered manager to continue to improve care standards through a well-trained workforce.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the health and social care regulator for England. Their aim is to ensure better care for everyone in hospital, in a care home and at home. Training is a key component in ensuring standards of service are met and increasingly providers are required to provide evidence that health and social care training is not only being provided but that learners are achieving specific outcomes. Legislative requirements must be adhered to.

Embrace-learning guarantee that by using our courses your staff training will:

• Meet CQC standards of compliance for continuing professional development
• Be available on demand 24/7 365 days a year
• Provide certificates of achievement on successful completion
• Provide reports demonstrating CQC compliance

Regardless of industry or sector, most employees are now required to undertake some form of CPD. As we work predominantly in knowledge and service economies, the updating of skills and knowledge is critical in keeping abreast of industry changes, maintaining professional competence and ensuring that qualifications do not become obsolete.

3. What is their process of development?

Embrace-learning add, change and develop courses to keep in line with current legislation. The quality of our courses remains consistent throughout these changes and all updates are made quickly, ensuring that your staff don’t have to wait for updates before they can complete a course.

Any developments take effect immediately, learners can log in as usual and the course will have been updated accordingly.

4. What platform are they using, how simple is it, how secure is it and what is the downtime?

Since staff have a range of levels of computer literacy, a complicated platform will confuse learners before they even get to the training course, discouraging them from using the provider in the future.

Embrace-learning’s platform is simple to navigate. Learners simply log in with their unique username and password, and can instantly see the list of courses they need to complete, and how far along in each course they are already.

We always plan to have downtime during weekends or late nights to ensure minimal disruption, unless there is essential action to be taken at another time. We can assure you that all the proper security measures are in place to protect both your staff details and their learning records.

5. How do they communicate with you?

You should always be aware of what your provider is developing and planning over the year.

At Embrace-learning we send out e-newsletters containing relevant information to keep our clients updated. In addition to this, we have 2 networking groups on LinkedIn and are active on all of our social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), as well as regular blogs which are shared across our social media channels.

6. What reporting mechanisms do you have? Is it real-time?

Managers need access to information and reports on their staff, to know what courses have been completed, how long it took and whether or not they have passed. This information can then be used to check staff queries, support learners in appraisals, and contribute to compliance reports, and gives managers the confidence that the staff are well trained and able to perform their job competently.

Embrace-learning offer a Learner Management System (LMS). This is completely free of charge when you license a training course from us. Some features of the LMS:

• Fully hosted by us or secured on your own intranet / extranet
• Fully managed 24/7
• Automated correspondence, evaluation and notifications
• In-built management reporting and data exports
• Administrator training and technical support
• Secure data back-up
• Scalable from 10 to 100,000 learners
• Flash content delivery

As an organisation, you can:

• Track large numbers of learners
• Monitor uptake and completion of training courses
• Get results from online assessments
• Batch upload an unlimited number of learner details
• Batch enrol your learners onto their courses
• Add your own bespoke content to our courses

7. What implementation and helpdesk support can you provide?

 If you are new to e-learning or are switching to a different provider, you may need support and guidance in getting to know the new system.

 Embrace-learning offer helpdesk support Monday-Friday 9am-5pm on the phone. If you have a query outside of office hours you can send an email and it will be answered the next working day. We also offer a live chat service Monday-Friday 9am-5pm on our website for anyone with questions whilst browsing the site.

 Administrators can benefit from training in how to navigate the LMS and direct their learners when asked simple questions like forgotten passwords.

If learners have a query, in the first instance they should contact their administrator. If the issue cannot be resolved the team at Embrace are on hand to give support during office hours.

8. How do they keep up with learning and technology trends?

 Technology is constantly changing and improving and organisations need to keep up with learning and technology trends if they want an edge over the competition.

Embrace-learning has recently launched a new website which has been thoroughly tested for any bugs and has excellent security measures in place. Our training courses are compatible with any web browser and are currently accessible on desktop PCs and laptops as well as some android tablets.

No course is updated without first conducting thorough research in to the trend and understanding how it impacts on the learning experience, and whether or not it benefits the learner.

9. Have they worked with organisations with the same needs as yours?

A good training provider needs to be able to support your needs. The best way of showing they can do this is with examples of similar organisations who have used their e-learning.

Embrace-learning’s current clients include Local Authorities, CCGs, NHS Trusts, GP Practices, Care Homes and Mental Health Trusts across the UK. With our particular focus on Health and Social Care, we have a depth of experience in providing these organisations with tailored e-learning packages to suit their individual needs. Ourwebsite contains a list of just some of our clients should you wish to compare your company’s needs.

10. Can you speak to other customers?

The best way to find out how good a provider really is, is to know about the experience other customers have had with them.

Embrace-learning welcomes feedback from all of our clients and you can find a page containing ‘success stories’ from a number of them on our website.

If you wish to speak directly to an existing client to discuss the training offered by Embrace-learning, we can arrange this for you.

Embrace-learning is a UK leading provider of quality e-learning resources to the Health and Social Care sector. Find out more about us on our website www.embrace-learning.com

You can read more of our blog posts here.

It's Carers Week 2016

What is Carers Week?

Carers Week is a yearly campaign that highlights their challenges and the contribution that they make to families and communities across the UK.

Caring will affect all of us at some stage in life. Statistics show three out of five of us will become carers at some point in life.

The UK currently has 6.5 million people caring unpaid for an ill, frail or disabled family member or friend.

Carers help with everything a person needs, from getting them washed and dressed in the morning and giving them medication, to cooking, shopping and cleaning.

Each year organisations large and small come together and organise activities and events over Carers Week to create as much awareness of caring as possible.

Theme

This year, the focus is on building carer friendly communities. This is communities that support carers to look after their family or friends, whilst recognising that they also have their own needs.

Caring for someone is a part of life, but it can be very stressful, upsetting and tiring. As a community, we need to recognise that carers themselves sometimes also need a helping hand or a shoulder to lean on.

Get involved

You can pledge your support here and help build carer friendly communities.

You can also plan your own activities and spread the awareness of carers week to your friends and family.

Resilience in caring

Caring is so satisfying. It can strengthen and deepen relationships and teach new skills which can help you in life. But, caring can cause you to become ill yourself and feel isolated from the rest of the community alongside financial issues that may arise.

If you are caring for someone, building resilience is key. Not only does it improve your general health and wellbeing, but being happier in yourself means leading a more productive lifestyle.

The Embrace Initiative

At Embrace-learning, we want to help support and train carers in resilience. Our mission is to apply evidence-based principles and techniques to the building of resilient individuals, organisations and communities.

We want people to learn about the importance of resilience, health and wellbeing and help them to build on this for themselves.

If you are caring for someone, you can take our online learning course “About me: Building Resilience for Caring”. The course aims to help learners to identify and find resources, technologies and sources of support in order to prevent their caring responsibilities from becoming overwhelming. It includes tips on staying healthy, managing time and acknowledging and accepting your feelings as a carer.

Embrace-learning is a UK leading provider of quality e-learning resources to the Health and Social Care sector. Find out more about us on our website www.embrace-learning.com

You can read more of our blog posts here.

Mental Health Awareness

We are pleased to announce our support for Mental Health Awareness Week (16^th May – 22^nd May).

The Theme This Year – Relationships

Relationships are essential to maintaining good mental health. Good relationships help us live a longer and happier life.

Five Year Forward View

The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health report highlights the fact: “Mental health problems represent the largest single cause of disability in the UK. The cost to the economy is an estimated £105billion per year- roughly the cost of the entire NHS.”

People with mental health issues are constantly overlooked and not treated the same as those with a physical health need. On the 15^th February, NHS England pledged to invest more than a billion pounds a year into mental health care up until 2020/2021. The pledge is intended to help more than a million people.

Get Involved

There are many different ways you can raise awareness for mental health this week.

The Mental Health Foundation website offers tons of ideas, we have picked out 5:

Host a wellbeing walk with friends, colleagues or people in your community.

Set up a stand in your local hospital, community centre, library or supermarket.

Hold a series of lectures or talks on mental health – make it interactive and get the audience involved.

Wellbeing Breakfast– catch up with your colleagues and discuss plans. Bring in cereals, croissants, fresh fruit, sandwiches etc. and allow people to make a small donation for each item.

Tea & Talk – Talking is good for your mental health. Hold a Tea & Talk at home or work and get to know your colleagues or neighbours better, or just spend more time with your friends.

Look After Your Mental Health

Taking care of yourself and getting the most from life is largely impacted by your mental health. Making simple changes to how you live doesn’t need to cost a fortune or take up lots of your time.

Thanks to The Mental Health Foundation, here are 10 key ways to look after your mental health:

1. Talk about your feelings

2. Keep active

3. Eat well

4. Drink sensibly

5. Keep in touch

6. Ask for help

7. Take a break

8. Care for others

9. Do something you’re good at

10. Accept who you are

Read more on each of these points here.

How Embrace-Learning Can Help With Mental Health

We are a UK leading provider of quality e-learning resources, with a specific focus on Health and Social Care.

Our course titles include The Mental Capacity Act and a range of Disability Awareness courses like Supporting People with Learning Disabilities & Mental Health Needs.

You can view our full range of 50+ courses here.

View our other recent blogs here.

What's next for the Work Programme?

Anyone familiar with the delivery of the Work Programme in its current phase, is acutely aware of the many and varied challenges presented by customers who in an era of ever increasing employment, still find themselves unable to access paid work.

JCP managers and staff are all too well aware that customers being referred to the programme at this stage, have health or behavioural issues which need increasingly resourceful management. Meanwhile, Work Programme providers are desperate to identify new, cost effective and ever more innovative ways to engage customers and move them steadily closer to the workplace.

It’s no secret that some Work Programme providers are rising more readily than others to the referral to sustainment challenge.

I bet you’ve often wondered how that works, right?

Some of the smartest providers are already developing tools and partnerships which confidently support front line activity, by raising awareness of the signs and symptoms of common issues such as addiction, anxiety, stress and the management of chronic pain. The goal is to improve signposting and of course, to better identify the most effective route to a job-ready level of recovery.

This specialised approach helps to generate advisor led conversations, opening with well-informed questions, raised in a manner designed to promote customer engagement.

Obviously, the ultimate goal is to match customers with agencies and employers who are prepared to work closely with providers to ensure the continuance of support for in work customers and, critically, maintain an open line of communication with their line managers until the end of the Work Programme journey.

So how would it be if Work Programme providers also chose to empower their customers by offering them access to the same learning as their advisor?

Not only would the initiative help customers to develop key work skills, it might also encourage a better understanding and acceptance of their own barriers, potentially supporting a genuinely meaningful advisor/customer dialogue, with the single, clear aim of developing a unique and meaningful return to work route. This can be done by identifying improved coping techniques, promoting ownership of the journey and developing the kind of confidence that really, only ever comes from education.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Embrace-learning is a UK leading provider of quality e-learning resources to the Health and Social Care sector.

Find out more about us on our website

www.embrace-learning.com.

You can read more of our blog posts here.