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good morning welcome everybody welcome to this presentation on mindful connections um I'm Angela Reiko and going to be leading this session but before we start with this session I'd like us to acknowledge the wury people as a traditional custodians of the land on which Federation Square resides we acknowledge the elders past present and emerging Federation Square rests on the traditional land of the rery people part of the Cora Nation so what we're going to go through this morning and and I also just want to
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acknowledge and say thank you for for joining this um presentation because obviously this isn't Tech this is about people and I know that you're here for for Tech but you are a person and you are important and so are the people that you lead and so thank you for being taking time to be mindful in recognizing um the importance of mental health in remote work so we're going to go through and I'm going to do a brief introduction on who am I going to establish some common ground around um mental health
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and mental health awareness and then go through some strategies that we as employees leaders and employers can um adopt in a remote work culture and then we're going to end with a recap and some questions and if we're lucky enough to get some time I'd like to end off on a mindful activity so who am I um I started in the digital space in 2021 I have uh 26 years working in Age Care disability mental health and so for those of you that are thinking Jas she doesn't look that old thank you um so um my current role at
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Salsa digital is Chief heart officer so that's all things people uh people in culture and I'm also taking uh salesa digital through a process of organizational transformation so rolling out a new organizational structure because in listening to what our people said they want and they needed but also rolling out um an okr framework if I'm not busy working at Selsa digital or on the sidelines of a soccer pitch watching my three beautiful children play that what uh play a sport that they love you'll catch me either on a run walking
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my dog down the beach in a yoga yoga or pilates class or perhaps doing some what my husband calls concoction with my Essential Oils so um I don't know a lot about tech te Tech actually hurts my brain but people is my thing so let's establish some common ground who here is an employee who here is a leader hands up we're all leaders who here is a manager yep and who here is an employer yeah so who here's got family and hopefully you all have friends y fantastic so you're definitely in the right place because mental health
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in a remote work um environment doesn't only impact you personally but it impacts you uh uh sorry it doesn't only impact professionally but it also impacts you personally it not only impacts you but it impacts those around you your family and your friends and that's why it's really important to create mindfulness and awareness in the work that you do so just for some context uh where have we come with remote work so preco remote work was really much a perk um people were having long commutes long days and finding it
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really difficult to balance family and work life a St study conducted by St for um in 2022 shows that in the US these stresses of long commutes um long hours and difficulties in balancing work and life balance cause 120,000 deaths per year so this is why it's really important that we recognize where we've come from and where we're going and make sure that the shift is there preco only 133% of Aussies um employed worked remotely postco in 2023 37% of Australians work from home at least once per week where are we now in 2024 45% of
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Aussies were employed working in a hybrid system and where are we headed so there's a push for return to the office but interestingly enough over the past 5 years um the Google search on remote jobs has increased by 342 that's a massive jump and so that tells us that where we're going is that remote work hybrid working is here to stay and so we need to be mindful in how we adopt and um roll out and embrace remote working ensuring that our mental health is a top priority so let me ask you just quickly
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what do you think some of the benefits of remote work are now if I had Fredo frogs I'd be throwing one at you but I don't have them so let's just improvise what do you think some of the benefits of remote work are yeah yeah ex and I'm going to come exactly to that perfect thank you okay yeah providing support family from home and we know that these are some of the things that were some of the contributors to the stresses preo anyone else y yeah yep you've got this Matt work life balance hey I'm going to
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go like you guys can you you've got this down pat yeah and that's exactly right and so um also flexibility so you know 9 to 5 out the door people can work when they're most productive so for example I know myself I'm most productive from the hours of 6:00 to 9:00 in the morning get Smash that workout and so being more productive so that's a benefit for employers reduce commute times someone said and so 41% of people that were surveyed um in a in a recent surve that was conducted said that avoiding commute
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was one of their main motivators for um remote work and we know that remote work is save on average between $2 to $5,000 a year for remote work so that's got to be a benefit um improved work life balance up the back there someone said um improved work life balance and and Kate you mentioned it as well so ban in the needs of family um and still being able to work 45% of respondents in a recent survey said that they've got improved work life balance since working remote and increased productivity um a recent study that was conducted 39%
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of people part of that study said that they're more productive less office noise um and more ability to focus and someone was talking about the environment being able to make your your working environment more conducive to you you know if you don't want the the heater on if you want the heater off if you need the music in the background whereas when you're in a office space that's a bit more difficult to manage and financial benefit remote workers save on average $2,700 between lunches and coffees a
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year so there's there's the financial benefit there wider talentful and wider opportunity to work opportunities so that's a benefit um for us and also sustainability so um less commuting me Le means less traffic congestion but also means less carbon emissions and business continuity surely you've all heard the word pandemic yeah so um remote work enables business continuity and also means that us as employees if we need to go traveling or want better life work balance um if we're working remote we
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can still continue working um without interruption to to the business so whilst there's benefits there's also challenges and so um some of the challenges are from from a physical perspective so 54% of remote and hybrid workers report a decrease in movement um by sorry 54% say that there's decreased U Movement by 50% so on average it's 16 steps from bed to workspace if you walk into your car it's more than 16 steps if you're walk into the train station or the bus stop it's more than 16 steps also there's no
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walking over to a colleague to um have that conversation um there so what this means is that there's a decrease in mobility and often we work through the day we don't take that we don't we're not mindful enough to stop and take that break because we're just so focused on getting the work done so decreased Mobility means that this has an increase on our uh body aches and pains pain is a real thing and does have a negative impact on our mental health so if we're not moving as much the impact on our
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body but also um less physical activity leads to more cardiovascular disease onset of diabetes and blood clots there's also if we're not moving and getting outside reduced vitamin D levels vitamin D has a direct correl and impact on depression anxiety tiredness fatigue and poor sleep so less physical activity does interrupt on in our sleep so the disconnect from a social well-being perspective 48% of remote workers say they do not get the emotional support they need in a remote setting from their employees and I can
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see you nodding over there so this is real so you're not alone though you're one of those 48% and sorry I went back a bit and 32% of workers say the remote work is lonely loneliness leads to isolation loneliness leads to um depression from a mental well-being perspective challenges of remote work people say that they have difficulty disconnecting between work that you're always on managing family and household distractions ever been in a zoom meeting and one of your kids runs in it's like oops sorry
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so you know we need whilst we need to be um accommodating there are times where Um this can be quite stressful for us so that's another um Challenge and information overload balancing slack message after slack message after email after phone call excessive Zoom meetings so this becomes adds mental strain on us as individuals burnout the feeling uh the feeling of always having to be on um can cause a St uh can cause stress and lack of um recovery time and that constant connectivity and a report that was released on the state of remote work in
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2022 say that 61% of people say they are in more meetings um in a remote setting than when they're on site 65% of people say they work more hours remote than when they're in the office so what this means is that there's overcompensation ating pressure the this the feeling that you have to pre constantly prove that you're productive so that adds a mental stress to us and in 2024 30% of people said that they find it difficult to separate personal uh separate work and personal life so if you're feeling alone uh if
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you're feeling any of these challenges know that you're not alone but despite um these challenges a study that was conducted in 2022 said that n shows that 9 7% of people want to continue working in a remote setting to retirement um and whether that's fully remote or in a hybrid system and so what we need to do is that we need to be mindful in ensuring that we roll out um strategies to accommodate this shift from where we've been to where we are now and to where we're going so what is mindfulness mindfulness is about being
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fully present it's about being engaged and paying attention to your thoughts your feelings and how your body is responding to the environment in a work setting it's about attention and awareness of current experience and mindfulness what um studies confirm and show is that mindfulness in the workplace so working remote and being mindful of the stresses reduces stress increases job satisfaction improves relationships and emotional well-being which has a direct positive impact on performance and so how do we create a culture of
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mindfulness surely it's more than just gift hampers which are lovely like who doesn't like a gift hamper or or a box of chocolates but it's more than gift hampers it's more than Wellness apps and it's more than yoga um so the foundation so there's four pillars to creating a culture of mindfulness first is the foundation creating a culturally safe environment where people feel safe enough to have conversations around mental health and and discuss their their mental health challenges ensuring that there's clear
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communication and that you promote empathy and compassion as a company value mindful leadership leading by examples and and by sharing your own mental health struggles but being mindful of the words that you use and the language that you use and the interactions that you give everyday practice ensuring that people know what access they have to support systems and ensuring that policies and and processes um accommodate the shift from where we were to where we're going and ensuring connection and cohesion um meaningful
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connections within the workplace so now I'm going to go through some practical strategies for each of those four pillars but knowing that mindfulness in the workplace mind um managing mental health isn't only um one person's responsibility it's a collaboration between us as employees leadership and employers so and I'm I'm conscious that I'm racing through this but I want you to know that mental health is such a big topic um and 30 minutes to present everything that I need to present and
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want to present and that I'm passionate about and that evidence and work experience shows me um is not enough but I'm so I'm available for questions at the end so from an individual's perspective um setting clear boundaries setting your work schedule making sure that you've got defined work hours that you're scheduling lunch in there and that you've got 15 minutes through the 9 till 3: to get out and go for a walk because that's going to impact on your vitamin D levels which I spoke about at
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the start on the hour every hour get up have take a stretch do you know stretch your back out um familiarize yourself with Mental Health Resources whether that's in the workplace or whether that's in your local community and time management set times where you look at email and slack so that you can be productive you know is it at 9:00 12:00 3:00 um and hydration hydration is really really important because hydration actually helps with our alertness it helps with um our focus it also helps with our um ability to you
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know have that physical activity so um and it gets you up and about and moving away from your desk as a leader create a no blame culture this is the foundation so when mistakes are made when someone makes a mistake cuz no one he's perfect some might think they are but sorry um create a no blame culture think about how do you respond when someone stuffs up do you is it a I Told You So or is it can we understand how this happened and how we prevent it from happening again um set realistic expectations with your team people that
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you supervise ask them how will I know that I am effectively supporting you as a manager what is it that you expect of me establish that common ground but also communicate your expectations because if you don't commun communicate your expectations of what you expect from your team then how people supposed to know and supporting and encouraging um initiatives so if your team are getting involved um in some mental health initiatives then support that promote that from an employer's perspective creating a a framework that values
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mental health have you got a mental health policy um are you incorporating uh mental health into your Val company values is mental mental health part of your onboarding process do people know um whether you've got an employee assistance program who they can go to and um what they can do what support that the the company is going to offer is there a wellness budget um that your company um offer your leaders to enable to execute on when they feel the need for and do you is Wellness part of your everyday practice like do you have
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Wellness Wednesday um from a a mindful leadership perspective leaders lead with vulnerability share your mental health struggle share your challenges so when you share what you are struggling with it's enabling conversation it's making mental health uh a conversation of normality in within your workplace culture um checkin so scheduling regular check-ins with your team but also on a daily basis sending a a slack message hi hi how you going so you're actually stopping you're being mindful um authentic appreciation at the
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end of the week sending a thank you last week at Selsa digital we celebrated Employee Appreciation Day each staff member that spoke at the the Gathering the online Gathering that we had said that yeah the gift the hampers they're nice but what's more meaningful is the appreciation that they get the the Kudos that they get and the call out that they get from the team that doesn't cost anything thing um initiating mental health conversations as a leader if you're concerned about someone that you
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directly supervise call it talk to them ask them but be mindful of the words that you use so that it's empathetic and it's with compassion and that they can see that you're being authentic don't sweep it under the carpet acknowledge this is a difficult conversation for me to have with you but I want you to know that I care and I'm noticing this um promoting self-care and flexibility if you can see that someone's struggling as a leader ask them do you need to take a day off because that one day off is going to
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have a positive impact on their mental health and it's also um showing a a culture of mutual respect but more importantly it's also going to as from a company perspective it's going to cost you less supporting that one day off than you know in in a month that one week off from an employer perspective Ive employing Kudos platform professional development so making sure that your leaders know how to recognize the signs of burnout know how to have the conversations around mental health and so investing in them so they are
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confident enough to have these conversations and not sweep mental health under the carpet sorry I skipped over those ones um focusing on connection as well some of these I've talked about so I'm just going to go through them quickly because I'm also aware of time everyday practice as individuals ensure your calendars and Slack are up to date share resources that you're involved in have empathetic interactions with your team and mindful communication so think about the words that you use um think about the timing
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of your your conversations and schedule you time stop in the middle of the day Take 5 minutes to just stop listen and be aware of your surroundings because that 5 minutes is going to help you regroup and reground whether that is even getting outside or just going for a 5minute nap take a break focus on you as Leaders mentioned uh reassuring confidentiality if you're in um encouraging conversations with um a teammate around mental health reassure them that what you what they're talking to you about is confidential and you'll
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only sh if you're going to share something or want to share something that you'll ask for their permission first um from an employer's perspective um ensure that people know who they report to who they can go to speak to ensure that there's access to mental health promoting you know I mentioned before about your employee assistance programs and regular Distributing poll surveys to to check check in on health promote health and wellness um initiatives and the mindful connection was a responsibility for all and finally
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connection and cohesion from an indiv ual's perspective if your employers are are putting on an initiative participate um and if it's something that if you want something to happen um share your ideas in in the workplace provide constructive feedback um ah one thing sorry I'm going to go back there daily intentions to feel like you are productive and that you're balancing you've got this you're managing work life balance start your day with writing three um three day three things you want to achieve for the
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day and at the end of the day come back and review your list also Daily manifestation might sound a bit hippie-ish or bit different but the reality is daily manifestation works if you think it write it say it and visualize it this is going to have a positive impact on your on your mental health because your subconscious starts to believe when you think it write it say it and visualize it um leaders acknowledge your your team members you know if they've got something a celebration that's happening P personally share it with the team
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obviously with their permission um organize inperson events and organize virtual co-working with a Twist why not do superhero Wednesday or you know pajama Friday or something like that you know make it a bit more fun so that there's interaction and employers um initiate group challenges for for example 10, 10,000 steps uh the 10,000 Step Challenge in a workplace it's an online it gets people physical it gets people interacting and it gives people a common cause create water cooler spaces in your Communication channel so um
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starting with uh sharing photos or recipes um and uh culture Champion votings one of the things that I forgot to say in here as well connection and cohesion one of the things that we've um recently um instigated SSA digital is that we've also implemented a um meeting free um framework so two two mornings a week and one afternoon a week we have meeting internal meeting free zones because going back to where I was saying how people said that they're in too many meetings and feeling like they're in too
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many meetings um this has actually helped the the connection and the cohesion with the workspace because people people feel like that they're getting more productive work done so and uninterrupted work during these meeting free um zones so when they're actually coming together there's more cohesion because people have had time and space to to think and connection and cohesion as well um one of the things I forgot to say before was around um mindful meetings ensuring that your meetings start and finish on time like this
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presentation's going to start and finish on time Chris it's all right I've got this um and so making sure that your meetings start and finish on time making sure that you've got your agendas in Place making sure that people know what they need to do to come prepared to to meetings because there's nothing worse than being in a meeting and someone doesn't turn up prepared and someone and so then that create doesn't create cohesion in in teams so that's really important as well um and
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so going I've raced through some of these and I've probably forgotten a few bits because I'm trying to get it through so I do apologize but in recapping so my recommendations are that as individuals you take the time to reflect on your personal boundaries that you implement strategies um for yourself and you stick to your schedules leaders lead with intention balance yourself and balance others and be mindful in your connection and employers create a framework a mental health framework conduct a gap analysis
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execute on that analysis and take the time to reflect because by doing this we actually create mindfulness in a remote setting which U contributes to positive mental health outcomes for everyone questions so either I've covered all the information you wanted or you found it really really boring and and not relevant so any questions at all yeah Chris I had one question which was I think you mentioned that um people reported not seeing not getting the emotional support um they needed I think you said from their employers and I just
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wondered about that statement and kind of the scope of getting emotional support from your colleagues or you know the people who want work near as opposed to the support that an employer can provide yeah so um I I think it it's like a pie really there's many bits to receiving that emotional support so you're employer can from a you know um a a resource perspective but it's also really important that as colleagues and that's why I said about mindful connections from in everyday practice from an individual perspective it's
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about you know as if you as a an a coworker see that someone's struggling having those conversations and offering that support so that there's that awareness but definitely everybody contributes to getting that um social support that giving and receiving that emotional support yeah how long have I got okay yeah uh Matt so you mentioned checkins do you find if you're about working you and I priori that yeah so actually having them scheduled and also sticking to them because they're one of the first things
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that are easy to drop off because another meeting you know can come up or you don't have time but what does that say to people about you as a leader valuing them if that's what's being canceled or rescheduled now there's going to be times that that is going to happen because meetings get rescheduled but it's that acknowledgement not just sending through a meeting cancellation putting a a a notice or explaining providing context to people about why that um and if you need to reschedule it making
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it as close as possible to the rescheduled time does that answer your question Matt yeah great now there was yeah um I am quite involved in PE support of SCS cont yeah and one thing that we're encourage to do and interventions there is remind volunteers of the value of what they doing to the community that through and that makes me think in this context perhaps an aspect of mental health would be employ perod value of what doing yeah absolutely and that's why um particularly in your check-ins it's
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acknowledging and and thanking people actually stopping thank you for the the contribution that you've made this week or um that that you bring and and for the personal qualities that you bring as well and also when you're doing those checkings um something that's really important is don't just make it work rated because because people bring their whole self to work so take the time to actually establish connection because you need to establish trust if you want to be able to provide people with the
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support it's about trust going straight into a work conversation you're not going to establish the the trust so taking that time in that to yes acknowledge what they're doing but also first acknowledge also their personal lives not just the work environment is there any other question question okay I'm going to end off with I just want you to take a time and this is an example of how in a remote setting mindfulness doesn't have to take 5 hours it doesn't have to take 10 minutes we can practice mindfulness in a matter of
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2 minutes and while I I know that this might make some of you feel uncomfortable I would like you to close your eyes and take the time to think about two things that you can feel right now think about two things that you can hear that you might not have heard if you weren't Mindful and stopping to actually listen two things that you can smell hopefully the person next to you put some deodorant on today and even with your eyes closed three things that you can see okay so that there in in itself going back to our definition of mindfulness
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you actually took the time to be present you took the time to refocus and that in itself doesn't take long when we're balancing many emails many slacks children running in and out and trying to balance many different workloads and so I thank you for taking the time to listen to my conversation today um please if you've got questions this is a topic you know like I said before I spent 26 years working in this in this area it's not something that I can do justice in 30 minutes so I I hope that you did get something from this
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presentation but always happy for you to reach out um angela. rco at Selsa dodital um and happy to answer any questions or share strategies that you know I've implemented at Selsa but also in my 26 years of working in a completely different industry so thank you for your time I appreciate it [Applause]
Reviewed 03 June 2025