Summer Wellbeing Adventure - For People Leaders

A Guide To Making The Most Of The Summer Wellbeing Adventure For Your Team

Why the Summer Wellbeing Adventure?

• Wellbeing is both an individual and an organizational responsibility.
• Caring for our wellbeing – individually and as a community – is a necessity for our physical and mental health. This leads to more satisfaction and effectiveness at work and in our personal lives.

Why your involvement is so important!

• Employees need to feel that it's okay to take time for themselves and care for their wellbeing; as a people leader, you are responsible for creating an environment where your staff feel comfortable asking for time off, discussing workload, and unplugging.
• This is a great opportunity to get staff comfortable with Microsoft Teams Viva Engage as a communication tool - your leadership is key in helping us to leverage this powerful community-building and information sharing platform.

Ways you can help your team get involved:

• Lead the way – Participate in the campaign yourself!
• Communicate - Send a message to your team encouraging their participation.
• Engage - Ask your staff about their interests and experiences during already scheduled one-on-one or team meetings. 
• Organize - Organize inclusive and optional low effort activities for recreation and connection.
• Delegate - See if someone on your team might be excited to organize activities or keep the group motivated during the campaign. 
• Recognize - Use the Appreciation Portal to recognize those who support or engage in #employeewellbeing.
• Share – Post to our Summer Wellbeing Adventure Viva Engage channel (formerly Yammer) for the summer campaign and share your experiences and/or highlights of what your team is doing.

Consider these summer workplace practices:

• Evaluate - Adjust deadlines and priorities where possible. Not sure where to start? Check out the Workload Prioritization Process.
• Free Up Schedules - No meetings and/or emails during certain days and/or windows of time (ex. no meeting Fridays, no evening email).
• Support Focus Time – When possible, encourage your team to block chunks of time for project work and turn off Outlook, Microsoft Teams, etc. notifications to reduce distractions.
• Get Outside - Use the outdoors for meetings and breaks. If you’re unable to be together in-person, use headphones for a virtual walk and talk.
• Time off/Away - Encourage use of time off – both in chunks and intermittent - and help staff make plans for coverage.
  • Meet with staff as needed to discuss their plans for time off and assist with plans for emails and workloads.
  • Make plans for coverage while people are away, so there is less of a concern about the amount of work waiting for folks when they return.
  • To view your employees’ time off balance in Workday, click on the My Team Management app, Time Worked and Time Off within Manager Reports by Categories, then select the Time Off Balances by Supervisory Organization report.
• Team Agreements - Set expectations of mutual support and fair processes. Build team agreements about:
  • Preparing for time off
  • Respecting boundaries during time off
  • Easing transitions back
• Flexible Work Options - Discuss with your team what summer flexible scheduling options are possible (earlier/later start/stop times, 4-day work week, additional remote day for X weeks, etc.).
• Ease Transitions - Use out of office responses that build in a pre- and post-vacation transition buffer to help reduce the stress of preparing for and returning from extended time off.

Take care of YOUR wellbeing!

Being a people leader can be draining at times. It is crucial that you invest in your own wellbeing to sustain yourself.

• Lead by Example - Role model wellbeing practices, take breaks and time off, and unplug, so it becomes a part of your team’s culture.
• Plan - Start planning your future time away now and protect it.
• Evaluate - Adjust your deadlines and priorities where possible and speak with your people leader about potential impacts and needs. Check out the Workload Prioritization Process.
• Calendaring – Carefully evaluate your calendar. Do your time investments align with your priorities? Is the frequency and duration of routine meetings appropriate? What adjustments may help improve your productivity? 
• Boundaries - protect your time away by setting clear boundaries and sticking to them.
• Remove Distractions - Delete work apps on your phone and/or silence notifications during time off.
• Ease Transitions - Set an out of office a day or two before and after time away to allow yourself space to wrap up / catch up on projects and emails.
• Sustain - routinely implement restorative practices; balance heavier workloads and peak times with meaningful rest or less challenging tasks; create consistent daily wind-up and wind-down routines.

Resources

Box Folder with Summer Wellbeing Graphics: Download video screen graphics, flyer, email banner, and other assets you can use to help promote to your teams.

Contact HR Communications if you need a different format or custom layout.