Lighten The Dark Days : Support Your Team This Winter

In this episode of The Inclusive Edge: The Power of Diversity,  I explore practical ways to support staff well-being during winter. With colder days, darker nights, and seasonal pressures, winter can be challenging for many teams.

This episode offers simple, actionable strategies to help People Leaders keep their teams happy, engaged, and supported.

What You’ll Learn:

• How flexible working arrangements can boost staff morale
• Practical steps to enhance workplace safety in winter
• Supporting financial and mental well-being with helpful resources
• Encouraging team connection through social activities and empathy

Tune in now and discover how small actions can make a big impact this season!

Transcript

Andrea Derbyshire (00:18)
Welcome back to the Inclusive Edge, the power of diversity, the podcast dedicated to helping leaders and HR professionals create fair, diverse, inclusive and dynamic workplaces where everyone can thrive. In each episode, we explore practical ways to tackle workplace equality challenges and build a fair, diverse, inclusive culture. I'm your host Andrea Derbyshire, HR diversity and inclusion consultant and founder of Andrea Jane Consultancy.

In today's episode, we're focusing on an important but sometimes overlooked topic, how to support the wellbeing of your people during the winter season. So take a minute just to picture this. It's a cold, chilly winter morning and as the frost settles down outside, imagine your team are gathered together smiling with cups of hot chocolate and tea and they're feeling valued, supported and included. That sounds ideal, doesn't it?

With a few intentional changes you can work towards this being your reality. Winter is the perfect time to ensure that your workplace is warm and welcoming as possible for everyone, regardless of the challenges that the season brings. So why does winter wellbeing matter? Winter time can be really tough on your employees for several reasons really. We have shorter days and darker nights. Some people do have seasonal affective disorder and having low energy levels associated with that feeling tired and fatigued it can have a real knock-on impact on mood and productivity and then there's an increase in winter bugs and winter illnesses so if you think of all those colds flu and other seasonal bugs that are rife at this time of year that can result in many more staff becoming unwell and taking sickness absence from work and that also has an impact on the team and stretched resources and capacity. Winter comes with increased financial pressures so if you think we've all got rising energy bills with the cost of gas and electric and wanting to try to keep our homes and family warm in the winter months on top of the cost of living crisis that many of us are feeling and the added expenses of this time of year with the increase in social expectations and events, gift-giving expectations, gift-giving expenses for those of us that celebrate Christmas. But all of these things together, they can add up and can really increase and elevate people's stress levels. And as people leaders and managers,
you have got the ability to help your teams through putting in place some meaningful actions at this time of year. So some practical ways to support your staff's wellbeing in winter. One of the really simple things that you can do is to offer more flexibility where possible and allow people to adjust their working hours to try and get more access to natural daylight, which gives an energy boost or

Encouraging staff to get outside during the working day to take a break and go for a walk and just get outside and get some fresh air. It can really help to boost moods and lift energy levels. Encourage your managers to check in with their team, just having a regular one-to-one conversation. How are you? How are you coping both professionally and personally? That can go a long way.

For financial wellbeing, can provide budgeting tips to your team, can provide access or signposting to financial advice services, you could even offer salary advances or introduce emergency grants for those in your team that may be suffering financial hardship at this time of year. And you can make information available around what resources are out there in the local community and what support is available for anyone that is struggling. We know that when it's dark and staff are leaving work it can increase safety concerns particularly for women. So you could do something proactive like try to encourage staff to buddy up for walking to and from work from their cars and public transport after dark and that can help to alleviate some of those concerns.

Some hospitals I know have introduced volunteer walking buddies so that they make sure that no one leaves alone after a late shift. That's something quite simple that you could potentially introduce in your organisation. Cold, icy weather, snow, ice, it can result in many more trips and falls. So just try to make sure that you grit your paths and walkways and that will hopefully reduce the number of potential.
accidents that happen in the workplace this winter. And remember that not everybody celebrates Christmas and people may find this time of year hard for a range of different reasons from loneliness and not having people around them to difficult family relationships or experiencing loss. It can be a really hard time of the year for some people and think we need to be sensitive and recognise that and ensure that your staff know what resources are available in terms of mental health support and physical health support, both internally and externally. The cold months and the dark nights drawing in, it can mean that people get out less socially outside of work. And this, again, it can increase feelings of isolation and sadness.

You could do something in the workplace to try to combat that. You could set up something like winter warmer coffee hours once a week or once a fortnight to bring colleagues together to meet up socially and chat just to make sure that they're getting that social interaction which is really important to well-being. You could put all of this information together and share it with your team in a Keeping Well in Winter newsletter or could set up an area on your intranet or SharePoint to put all of the links and resources to keep him well and safe in winter.

Winter is a season of kindness, so there's no better time really to prioritise your team's wellbeing. Even small actions like flexible working, checking in on your staff, having one-to-ones and offering access to resources and signposting to information that can help to create a workplace where people feel more valued and supported even on the coldest days. So if you're a people leader,

Start today by implementing one small change, maybe organising a winter wellbeing coffee catch-up or reminding staff about what support services are available, as by creating a warm, inclusive environment you'll build a resilient, engaged team that feel ready to face whatever winter brings and the challenges that come with it. So we've come to the end of today's episode. Thank you for sharing your time to tune in and listen to the inclusive edge, the power of diversity.

If you found these tips helpful, please do subscribe, share the episode and leave a review. You can also join the Diversity and Inclusion Leaders Facebook group. Let's continue working together to build workplaces where everyone can thrive. Until next time, stay committed to inclusion, stay on the inclusive edge and keep driving positive change in your workplaces.