Lindsay-Rae Lebrun - Annoyed.

Miki Johnson – overwhelmed

My name is Shelby and I’ve felt lonely!!! :(

Kelly Costello - grief!

Bjork Del Riego- Anxious

Freya - Scattered

incredibly irritated

Melissa Montalto - depressed

Erin - scared

Paul Thallner - dread

Carlie - scared

Sara - alone

Hi I’m Samantha! I’ve felt overwhelmed lately!

My name is Kim and my word is overwhelmed

Abby - Rollercoaster

Gaby - overwhelmed

Also, just a reminder that we'll be doing a live Q&A at the end so if you have questions please utilize the Q&A function in the Zoom toolbar at the bottom of your screen!

Brian Annett - stressed

Lonely

Ebony Hopkins - uncertain

Ashton - Exhausting

Hi, I’m Lauren Singh - Anxious

Charline - frustrated

Megan - sad

Lacey - I’ve felt scared and anxious a lot lately.

Rosie - anxious

Natalie - worried

Aapta Garg- overwhelmed and unsupported

Maria - miss coworkers and seeing them in person

Prudence - unmotivated

exasperated

Johann - unmotivated

Kirsten 😒

Tyler, and I have felt unmotivated and despondent.

Jackie - hopeless

Regina - Frustration.

Beth - distracted

Andrea - Frustrated

Joel - frustrated

Bryanna - lonely

Eve - Anger

Kimberly - Scattered

Sam - Unsure

Zoë - restless

Aly - Worried

Ashley - unmotivated

Allie Kovalik - scattered

Suzy - bored

thank you all for sharing with such honesty. We are so glad to have you all joining us!

Thanks Lindsay-Rae! :) So glad to have you with us!

We start our meetings with everyone saying something they are anxious about and something they are excited about

We’ve been doing a weekly self-care check in on Slack for many months! Different colored hearts to express how people may be feeling.

“How are you?”

I have offered a Google Meet option for those who want to do face to face. It's a better way for me to show empathy / read their faces / ask how they're doing.

I usually lead with a positive thing that I’ve done (gone for a walk, caught up on a new show, etc.) and that tends to model others offering positive things they’ve been experiencing in all of this weirdness.

what did you do that was fun yesterday

recent meeting we were asked to go around and say one thing that makes us hopeful right now. so helped us focus for a moment on something positive before we went into a meeting about difficult topics.

I checking weekly with my staff through video chat about how they are doing personally and with teleworking.

as an IC, I've started a daily slackbot message in my teams channel that asks "how are you doing? :thumbs-up: / :neutral-face: / :thumbs-down:"

a STROBE LIGHT! Love that

I've been approaching check ins by offering where I am at first to show the level of vulnerability

for younger members I have sent weekly check in messages

Thank you Mollie, that’s really interesting. Could you share the research you mentioned on attention levels in virtual meetings?

a chart mood meter would be great

my company is not communicating at all. my team doesn't message each other to chat or check in on each other, and I feel really alone.

Some people are so excited to see each other online (our whole staff has only met once in two weeks), thy border on "giddy."

they

Everyone has expressed a desire for our new focus on compassion, empathy, and vulnerability to continue when we get back to "normal". This seems to have given us the "permission" we needed.

Melissa—I’m so sorry to hear that. That must feel terrible

one person on my team sends a meme with a "mornin" message on Teams (like Slack). Helps us connect but don't really talk as much as a team either throughout the day

my company is being much more proactive and explicit about promoting self-care, mental health, socializing online etc. people seem more empathetic and flexible

I love the water cooler idea. we are going from 25 associates per location to 1. now we are being more alone than ever before

In my non company slack for tech friends, we've created a separate slack channel for covid19 and as well as emotional support so people can properly voice their needs without hurting other unintentionally

I know of a company that hasn’t relaxed it’s formal business dress code for remote work. And they have to literally stand up on zoom calls to prove they’re wearing a full top/bottom work clothes.

Yes! I feel like real leaders (even if that’s not their given administrative profession) are showing themselves by being the ones to step up and communicate and check in with others, instead of just leaving everyone to struggle to find their own lifeboat.

The owners of my company have always been honest with there feelings and what is happening in their life. So the structure has always been there for us to share. We are doing so more.

Our company is SO forward with mental health, destigmatizing it, etc. I’m worried that I’ve been doing TOO much checking in.

My employer is just communicating the basics. Thankfully, I have a great relationship with my supervisor so we’ve been checking in daily/every other day. I’ve been disappointed in my master’s program’s response to this. Very bare minimum requirements/communication. Luckily, me and my peers have been checking in with one another often. Haven’t been happy with the “leaders” in my life.

my unit uses a social chat for folks to share things they are doing like making Smores or hearing music from neighbors, etc

What if you are low on the totem pole and want to bring these things up?

Good question, Melissa! Maybe there’s a direct supervisor you feel comfortable approaching, or a buddy at a similar level you can brainstorm approaches with?

SO many great ideas in here!

so true

Will there be any information provided on attendees for this - seems like a great network and resource for people to share ideas and support each other in raising concerns at their employer

Melissa, I am the youngest person on my team with the least technical (least important in my mind sometimes) position. I started our virtual happy hours, I started our donut chats, I do our motivation Monday, etc. DO IT!

Thanks Arielle and Alyssa!

@Allie we’ll be sending slides, a recording, and a recap after the webinar. Does that help? Or did you want info on something else?

We’re doing group happy hour with the breakout room feature on zoom—you can put like 10 people in a room together, and send ice breaker questions to the room. It’s helpful if 40 people call in for happy hour, the breakout rooms help keep the size manageable

Yes, well definitely make sure the chat info makes it into the recap and distributed resources :)

We also do trivia—team leaders go on zoom and receive the questions, then send them to their team on slack so it’s as close to a live trivia experience as possible. We just did The Office trivia and we’re doing Game of Thrones on Thursday!

I've seen a friend get a care package of snacks!

We had a pen pal sign up and included kids so we can match them with others their age. A good way to support parents/families

We’ve been sending birthday & anniversary cards! As well as home cooking meal boxes if people have a loss in the family.

weekly, optional Zoom coffee hour where we explicitly don't talk about work. A friend's coworker is offering virtual yoga (most? every?) day right at 5pm. My husband works remotely full time - before all this - he's gotten swag/hat when he hasn't been at big meeting

we’re using snap camera to turn ourselves into potatoes during meetings https://snapcamera.snapchat.com/

My sister’s boss sent her a muffin and fresh OJ because my sis was about to start a big creative project, and she wanted her to have an extra morning breakfast boost!

My boss sent me a small care package

Virtual happy hours

set up 30 min virtual chats with colleagues or groups of colleagues i miss / am closer with to catch up on life

We have a DIY slime-making class next week and we’re mailing the materials out!

We’re working on Zoom with mic and video on for one hour each day. Not working together, just in one another’s presence. It’s lovely – and often prolongs past the hour.

I’ve set up virtual coffee break and happy hour for my team to offer time to also not talk about work.

We provided company wide resource on the 'do's and dont's of working from home' - things like 'do schedule you time, don't forget to schedule time for yourself' or 'do use your video, but don't worry about background noise or other people or kids!'

My fiancé's professor had class with pets this morning as a stress-relief, and a fun way to promote communication within the students (who have never met in-person due to the quarantine).

Sharing cookie recipes the day before our virtual coffee break, so we can (if we have the ingredients!) still have our common snack that we used to have in person. Offering a quarantine version of the recipe too!

we set up an ongoing ring central/zoom meeting that we called “the kitchen” so people can pop in throughout the day and chat with team members as we would do when we run into them in our actual kitchen at the office

Thanks so much Bridget!

Virtual exercise classes

We launched a weekly newsletter highlighting COVID resources, fun activities we're hosting, monthly birthday and anniversaries and a blurb on what to focus on that week like 'thinking downstream' in our actions or 'marathon not a sprint' - it's helped to put things in one place and enhance communication

Rachel do you have a good virtual bingo link?

What an amazing way to create community and support local business - I love that @Jessica! :)

i think this is essential, but the ability to access many mental health services online/over video so we can all stay safer.

to combat the issue of "no control over the world" we're looking at charities in our area and trying to see how we can help so at least we can assist our communities

Artists

Sara Krumminga can you share so good dance class links?

Hi! I saw your hand raised. Anything we can help with?

Hi Haddy! I saw your hand raised - anything we can help with?

sorry

I love Brene Brown! Do you have a link?

Amazing Fern! Can you share the link?

Thank you!!

http://www.booty-therapy.com/public/
https://www.mojomoves.co.uk/

re: learning from employees/each other, we have asked the everyone in the team to lead a 30 minute mini workshop. Some of them come up with ideas and volunteer; others I reach out to and ask. I like how this makes us feel like we are *all* responsible for teaching/sharing/guiding each other at times. Some things the team have led us in are: meditation, Wim hof breathing, hip stretching, 80s aerobics, cross fit

We did a current events channel to separate news/stressful covid articles from our big group channels

Thank you this was very helpful!

Thank you! Very helpful :)

Thank you!!!

Thank you so much everyone!! Please take a moment to fill out the poll

Thanks so much for your time and tips! This was really informative and helpful :)

Thanks so much for joining everyone! Please share your thoughts before you leave :)

Thank you so much!