This has been quite a year and if 2020’s taught us anything it’s that we need to take very good care of ourselves, as our business’s biggest asset. Your wellbeing is the source of energy and creativity that your business needs.

As the UK emerges from lockdown for a second time, it’s crucial we keep up the conversations we’ve been having about the importance of a healthy work life balance. The majority of people who I’ve spoken to have enjoyed the freedom of remote working and are keen to retain some of this newly-discovered flexibility in the future. With this new mindset and the ongoing restrictions, I certainly don’t anticipate an immediate rush back to offices.

Winter alone can have a negative impact on anyone’s mental health. Couple this with spending the best part of the year dealing with a pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns and it's no surprise that according to ONS statistics, the weeks after the clocks went back saw record levels of loneliness in the UK.

Considering introducing an employee wellbeing programme in 2021, but concerned about the financial outlay and where to begin? Fear not, as it does not take a huge chunk of cash to create a successful wellbeing programme for your staff. However, you do need to invest some time to plan an initiative that will best suit your team. Here are four cost effective suggestions to get such schemes up and running, and to maintain momentum. 

Small businesses in the UK still aren’t offering their people enough flexibility, according to new research from Tiger Recruitment. While the pandemic has required many to work more flexibly from home, more than a quarter of employees questioned say they still aren’t happy with the flexible working options available to them, and men are just as dissatisfied as women.

With one month to go until Christmas, social impact accelerator and mentor network, Impact Central, has released its top fifteen picks for ethical Christmas gifts for this season - from planet-friendly stocking filler snacks to sustainable menswear staples.

First Office Hub, the global workspace broker, which has just helped a tech company to expand from a traditional leasehold property into a 20,000 sq ft managed office space, describes the London office scene as extremely active with companies of all sizes and across all sectors researching offers and looking to secure the right deals ahead of 2021.

We are in a new world war, with a common enemy. However, the frontline is not on the beaches of Normandy, the plains of Russia or the Pacific islands but in the homes, offices, hospitals and care homes of every country in the world. 

Are you working from home? Do you enjoy it? Given a totally free choice how would you like to split your time between working from home and working in the office? These are questions facing not just many millions of people in the UK, but hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

New research involving 150 HR leaders has found that 3 in 5 UK workers have experienced mental health issues since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. The report authors, Accountancy and Finance, HR and Data Analytics recruiter, Wade Macdonald, and workplace law specialist, Doyle Clayton, have raised concerns of an increase in known incidences as a result of the current lockdown measures.

As England is once again in lockdown, new research shows the rate of ‘lockdown loneliness’ and its impact on mental health is as high as 27% in the UK. As the NHS strains to support an increase in mental health conditions, the Flow headset and therapy app treatment for depression, the first of its type to be medically approved in the UK and EU, aims to tackle ‘lockdown loneliness’ and mental health outcomes by providing immediate, at-home access to effective treatment.

Startups from around the world are being called on to apply to join the first investment portfolio of the Venture Studio from Crisis. The Studio will invest in, support and scale ventures that help accelerate the end of homelessness.

You’ll have a difficult job browsing content platforms nowadays without coming across articles focusing on - or at least alluding in some way to - the working from home revolution. A whole host of companies, including Twitter, have announced that they will allow staff to continue WFH permanently if they wish, following its success throughout lockdown.

The sudden move to working from home has been a challenge for many SMEs. With smaller teams often benefitting from close knit relationships with their colleagues, COVID-19 is forcing many businesses to reconsider their approach to employee wellbeing. In many cases, however, this is easier said than done, with research from Wildgoose finding that nearly half (47%) of employees at SMEs are finding that their mental health has been negatively impacted by the pandemic.

As we enter Lockdown 2.0 we are at least all much better prepared than we were in March when we entered Lockdown 1.0 and went into the total unknown. We are better prepared this time because we have all learned so much already this year about living and working during a pandemic and we take those lessons learned into the second lockdown.

With the gyms officially closed more people will now take to the streets to get their exercise, although this wasn't a problem during the 1st lockdown, (remember those lush summer days) we have an extra obstacle to come up against - the weather. Finding the motivation to run in the rain is tough, but getting out of the door is the hardest part. Once you’re running, the wet weather and puddle-dodging are exhilarating. And logging the miles in a downpour is a surefire way to feel hardcore. Wet-weather runs can give you a mental advantage if you’re training for an event, too. Knowing you’ve run in all conditions means you’re prepared for any weather race day throws at you.

Somerset based communications agency, ADPR, is offering completely free careers advice and support for anyone considering a role in PR & Marketing and has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the beginning of the year, wellbeing has been a prominent topic of interest among Brits, in fact, searches for the term ‘wellbeing’ have increased by 257% in the past five months. As people continue to spend more time indoors, Rebecca Snowden, Interior Style Advisor at FurnitureChoice.co.uk, explains how to create a calming oasis to maintain wellbeing at home.

A third of employees are too busy to take holiday, with another 63% stating 'there’s nowhere to go' when asked why so many had the majority of their holiday left to take.

Today’s workplace culture has many employees feeling the pressure to turn up to the office at all costs, even when ill; however, the global pandemic COVID-19 has shown it is more critical than ever for businesses to tackle the widespread challenge of 'presenteeism' especially when majority are working from home.