With a remote working environment being the norm since March, we have made it our mission to ensure the Capital & Regional team can continue to build relationships and maintain connections with each other. Over the last four months our ‘All About You’ committee has been responsible for coordinating weekly initiatives to ensure teams can stay connected, not just on a practical level, but mentally and emotionally; to boost team building, communication, trust and cohesion.  

Our monthly company-wide quiz has been instrumental in this, regularly connecting Capital & Regional employees at both a corporate and centre level. To the same end, one of the committee’s first actions was establishing our ‘Care Tree’ communication tool, ensuring that peers, colleagues and friends can maintain an element of social interaction during this period of social distancing. Everyone within the business is buddied up via a cascading phone list and each person initiates contact with the person directly below them on the list and so on. We have found that throughout lockdown people from different areas of the business, who may have never had the chance to meet previously, have now gotten to know one another on a personal level, which we are confident will improve our operational performance in the long term.

The committee also aims to encourage self-care amongst employees via our weekly calendar of activities open to anyone within the business that wants to get involved. From Meditation Monday’s to Foodie Tuesdays and Workout Wednesdays to Self-Care Thursdays, our ‘All About You’ calendar has given C&R staff the confidence to connect across common interests, in addition to key advice on nurturing personal health and wellbeing. Further, appreciating that many of the C&R team who are working from home have the added responsibility of looking after little ones, the committee has regularly organised initiatives to engage their children through our ‘All about Kids’ programme. This has included organised drawing competitions, colouring-in and spot the difference games, as well as distributing useful resources to support learning from home. In line with the easing of travel restrictions in the UK, our latest ‘All About You’ initiative is providing staff with top ‘Staycation’ destination suggestions for summer holidays. Everyone at Capital & Regional deserves some R&R after all, and with the right intel our teams are discovering hidden gems to visit across the UK.

There is definite excitement across the business over the prospect of seeing friends and colleagues face-to-face once again as the wider situation in the UK improves. Despite spending several months apart, the fantastic work of our ‘All About You’ committee has meant that relationships within and across our teams are stronger than ever. The processes we have adopted to nurture these relationships, and encourage wellbeing and self-care have been fundamental to our operations during this difficult period, and will continue to play a key role in our development as a business long after we return to the workplace.