The last nine weeks have been a challenging time of uncertainty, isolation and anxiety. We have all had to adjust to new ways of living and working without knowing when this will all end and what life post-coronavirus will look like. 

For a lot of people, this means now working from home. This brings a different set of challenges, and we were curious about how people have experienced this situation and keen to understand how to best shape our coaching and support to help. A couple of weeks ago we asked people to tell us about their experience of working at home during the pandemic. 

What we found most interesting in the responses was that people were not overly challenged by technology or the logistics of working from home. What they did find particularly challenging were the more emotional aspects. We asked what respondents found to be the top 3 biggest challenges in working from home. Just 9% included poor internet connectivity as a problem. The top challenges were:
            1: general anxiety about the impact of coronavirus on my life (54% mentioned this)
            2: difficulties communicating with co-workers (45%)
          =3: social isolation (36%)
          =3: being motivated to keep a regular schedule (36%)

Others included:

• too many distractions at home
• childcare
• fear of the return to work

Interestingly, despite these being listed as common challenges, 91% of people considered that they could continue comfortably working from home with their current arrangements for three months or more. Given that the most commonly given concerns were job security, redundancy and the return to work, this is a curious finding. One possible interpretation is that the current lockdown situation has created a sense of psychological safety for people which might, for some, postpone having to confront the reality of the post-coronavirus world.  This is an area we'll be looking at further.

These have been fascinating insights for us to consider as we continue to develop our programmes to support people in the workplace. Specifically, we have shaped a new resilience programme to incorporate these findings, which we are particularly excited about.  The new programme will help people find strategies to bolster social connection, develop their realistic optimism responses and manage effective transitions to the world, post-coronavirus.
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You can see the results of our survey here.

​Managing Change provide specialist coaching and development programmes in resilience and well-being throughout the UK. For more information about how we can help you support your people, do get in touch - e: enquiries@managingchange.org.uk or call us.

​If you would like to take part in the ongoing survey series or wish to share it, the link is here.  And we're always interested in your experiences, so please do leave your comments below.

A couple of weeks ago we sent out a survey asking for experiences of working under lockdown. This was to help us to ensure that our coaching and support efforts are directed to the right areas.

We've had a good response to date (136 responses as at 27 May). These are the findings so far:

We asked people how worried they are about the impact of Covid-19 on them personally. Over half (54%) said they are somewhat worried, with a further 18% saying they are very worried. 27% are either not so worried or not worried at all. 

The picture was less varied when we asked how worried people are about the impact of Covid-19 on their company/employer. Just 18% are not so worried while 45% are somewhat worried and 36% very worried. These concerns reasonably focus on longer term employment security.

The experience of working effectively from home for most people is largely smooth and easy. Our survey results indicate that less than a third (27%) find it somewhat difficult with the remainder finding it easy, very easy or neutral. Anecdotally, conversations with our coachees suggest that most have adjusted well, technologically, to remote working from home. We asked people for their top 3 biggest challenges working from home. 9% included poor internet connectivity as a problem. Otherwise, reported challenges all concerned non-tech matters:

     1: general anxiety about the impact of coronavirus on my life (54% mentioned this)
     2: difficulties communicating with co-workers (45%)
   =3: social isolation (36%)
   =3: being motivated to keep a regular schedule (36%)

Other challenges included:

• too many distractions at home
• childcare
• fear of the return to work
• brain fog and restlessness
• increased workload and working hours
• worry about the well-being of family members (e.g. older parents) 
• steep learning curve as everything goes online which slows productivity

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Despite these common challenges, 91% of people considered that they could continue comfortably working from home with their current arrangements for three months or more. This was supported by responses indicating that 81% consider that their employer is providing them with the right resources and benefits to support them through this period.

Outside of the work environment, 100% of people indicated that their personal support network will support them though this period (with a broad split between somewhat, very and extremely confident).

This pandemic has provided a real-life stress test of company cultures, systems and processes. Conversations with our coachees have revealed some outstanding examples of communication, care and leadership. These examples have included leaders taking the time to communicate weekly, in person virtually, with all staff and providing assurances that they are supported, their jobs are secure and that they will be provided whatever resources they need. Anecdotally, several coachees have talked about how proud they are to be working for their companies and how relieved and engaged they now feel. In these cases, the pandemic has actually enhanced company loyalty and engagement. Other people's situations are less positive. Clearly such positive assurances are not possible for all companies, many of whom are facing uncertain futures. The frequency of communication however seems to be a key requirement: we asked how often people would like the leadership team to communicate how business difficulties would be handled in the current situation. Most (55%) said they would like weekly updates with just 27% preferring less frequent updates (18% would prefer more than weekly updates).

Just 9% of people responded that they are not so confident that their company's leadership team would make the right decisions to manage through this crisis (45% are extremely confident, with 18% very confident and 27% somewhat confident).

​Finally, we asked what the single greatest work-related concern is right now. Verbatim responses included:

• job security
• what the future will look like at work
• managing the return, which will be complex and not something my leadership team will be comfortable with
• keeping in touch with colleagues
• other people losing their jobs
• lack of physical social interaction
• technical issues with IT equipment 
• that my job will be seen as an unaffordable luxury and I will be made redundant
• the people we work with are not coping well and we are now delivering online so this means accepting about a quarter of our original community will not be engaging as they have no laptop etc. So it offers opportunity but also leaves people behind.

In summary, and as we might expect, for most people their principal concerns are:
- uncertainty about the future and fear of the unknown
- social disconnection

and to a lesser extent,
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- finding effective and motivating working patterns and structures at home, while juggling busy workloads and childcare

​We have been amending existing programmes and developing new resilience programmes to support our clients during the coronavirus situation. These findings are being incorporated into these programmes, in particular in helping people find strategies to bolster social connection and to develop their realistic optimism responses. We will also be sharing some of these tips more widely so please do get in touch if you'd like to be added to our mailing list. In the meantime we hope that by sharing these findings employers, leaders and other coaches will find useful information to support their colleagues and clients.

​Managing Change provide specialist coaching and development programmes in resilience and well-being throughout the UK. For more information about how we can help you support your people, do get in touch - e: enquiries@managingchange.org.uk or call us.

​If you would like to take part in the ongoing survey series or wish to share it, the link is here.  

Law careers are changing. The pace and nature of client work, the impact of new technology, global markets, diversity targets and changing career aspirations are leading to changes both in opportunity and expectation for UK lawyers. We know from our work with law firms that retaining good lawyers and providing a stimulating and satisfying work environment is challenging. Turnover rates can be high in competitive markets and time needed to induct new lawyers into complex and fast moving client work inevitably impacts performance.

Over the past five years we have looked specifically at these areas, tapping into the experiences of a number of UK lawyers at differing levels of experience and in varying law firm sizes. In a forthcoming series of short articles we assess the key challenges of retention, performance, well-being and gender diversity, and offer some solutions.

​Here, we look at retention.