Workplace health and wellbeing programmes around the world must recognise and support the needs of people who have been hardest hit by the pandemic, the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) Future of Work conference has heard.
Speakers emphasised that helping those communities across the globe who had been affected the most was a vital subject for employers to address.
And they added that being able to tailor benefits and programmes for individual requirements was also critical in the current situation.
Justine Cooper, head of consultant Brook Graham, explained: “In addition to ensuring all initiatives are accessible to everyone, recognising just as you and I are different, wellbeing initiatives need to be tailored for the individual and reflect the needs of those communities who have been adversely impacted by the pandemic and recession.”
She added: “Inequities have been exacerbated on gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, and certain socio-economic groups [during the pandemic].
“There’s a bottom up pull for considering the needs of those communities that have been adversely impacted and also where the intersections of those groups lie as well.”
Michael Jenkins, CEO of Expert Humans agreed, adding: “Covid has taken a particular toll on mothers and specifically single mothers. That’s something we need to think about, how can we better support people through that?
“That’s one group that has been severely disadvantaged through Covid in general.”
He also noted that people who see the world different to us, such as those on the autistic spectrum, had their lives disrupted significantly.
“Zoom and these methods of communication have been especially traumatic for people in that part of the community,” he said.
“We all know how incredibly difficult it has been to include these amazing people in our workforce and I think a phenomenon like the pandemic does not do anything to help that?”
