Page 23 - BusinessWest October 26, 2020

than April.”
He was planning to close the office down for a few days and give
his team a break, another attempt to help them get rest and recre- ation in a year when there has been much less of both.
“There’s so much stress going on in this world right now,
we’re just trying to make it as stress-free in the office as we can,” Theobold went on, noting that efforts ranging from the new dress code to flexible hours; from bringing food into the office more often (even if people can’t eat together) to delivering care packages (mostly snacks) to those working remotely, are efforts that will have to continue as the pandemic wears on.
Wise agreed, noting that, between work and home, many employees simply don’t seem to be able to get a break from the pressure and stress.
This leads to lack of sleep and even more mental and physical fatigue, she said, adding that matters are compounded by the fact that traditional
“A lot of places are scaling back on these kinds of things for various reasons, and I don’t think it’s the time to do that. I think it’s time to put a little more gas on the fire because
you don’t want to lose
engagement or enthusiasm
with your organization.”
“We try to encourage people to take their time off and to completely disconnect from the office,” she
said. “We’re requiring people, when they’re taking a day off or a half- day off or a week off, to put an ‘out-of-office’ message on all of their devices. And that message should say that they will not be respond- ing to e-mails. I don’t necessarily want to cut off people’s access, but we’re saying, ‘put that out-of-office message on, and don’t respond to anything.’ I can’t stop you from checking, but don’t respond.”
Roberts agreed, and said PeoplesBank has been pushing its workers to use their paid time off.
“When there’s nowhere to go, people are inclined to say, ‘I’ll just work,’” she said. “But over the summer, we were encouraging, and in some ways pushing, people to just take a staycation and unplug from work.”
Stressing Some Points
Roberts told BusinessWest it was only a few months into the pan- demic when upper management at PeoplesBank recognized that fatigue was becoming an issue and needed to be addressed.
“We’ve had some pretty deliberate management conversations where our president, Tom Senecal, has said to team managers, ‘make sure you’re paying attention to the fatigue factor and that you’re communicating with people in a way that they know you understand that this is a very unique and evolving situation.’
“While we want obviously to meet the needs of the customers and do everything we need to do as a business, we recognize that there’s another side to this,” she went on. “Just acknowledging this and having that conversation with managers gives them that aware- ness and pushes them in a direction where they’re taking a more flexible approach with their people.”
Meagan Tetreault, senior Employee Services field manager for Big Y Foods, agreed. She told BusinessWest that, as an essential retail business, the company has obviously been open for customers and focused on their safety. But it has been focused on employees and their various needs as well — everything from steps taken to keep them safe to flexibility with schedules to enable them to success- fully balance work and life.
vacations have become far more difficult to undertake. Indeed, trips to Disney World, cruises to Europe, weeks on the Cape, and even visits to relatives in other states have become daunting, if not impossible, because of the pandemic.
As a result, people are vacationing at home, which is good for the region and its tourism venues — the ones that are open, anyway; Six Flags, the Big E, and many others have not been — but the time off is, in many cases, not as relaxing and therapeutic. Meanwhile, with tech- nology and the pandemic both being what they are, time off is usually not time off from many work stresses.
As a result, Wise and others in posi- tions of leadership are strongly encour- aging employees to completely unplug when they are taking a day or a week off.
“Our first priority was making sure we’re put- ting in place different
Fatigue
Continued on page 48
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