3.2 Supporting your colleagues’ wellbeing
The last section asked you to consider your own wellbeing at work. Now it’s time to think about the wellbeing of others – your colleagues.
Activity 5 How can you help others?
Read this short article (500 words) titled How can I support my colleagues? [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] , from Scotland’s National Wellbeing Hub (no date), then spend some time reflecting on the following questions:
- Have you tried any of the suggestions in the article? If so, how successful were they? What sort of response did they elicit?
- To what extent do you feel responsible for supporting your colleagues’ wellbeing at work?
- What other actions, ideas, approaches and strategies have you identified as having the potential to improve the wellbeing of your colleagues?
You can make some notes in the box below.
Discussion
Even if you don’t have any formal responsibility for supporting your colleagues’ wellbeing, if you think back to the PERMA model, helping others – having a positive impact on their wellbeing at work – is an easy way to add more meaning to your working life.
Some of the activities mentioned in the article will be explored in more depth later in Section 5.
A useful approach for helping others, especially when working in a team, can be to create a ‘team working agreement’ that all team members contribute to. This can help to support team and individuals’ wellbeing. Section 4 of Hybrid working: digital communication and collaboration provides guidance on how to create a team working agreement’.