Your health is your wealth! It’s an age-old saying, but it’s one that has been taken extremely seriously at Forth Valley College as staff worked tirelessly to ensure students completed their courses during the pandemic.
First and foremost the college strived to make its three campuses in Falkirk, Stirling and Alloa as safe as possible with the implementation of effective, efficient and comprehensive COVID secure safety measures.
Next up were strategies and working practices to help ease and manage their our new ways of working , and helping 650 lecturing and corporate services staff to navigate their way through working hard from home in the unchartered waters of lockdown.
As the early cartographers tentatively outlined the shape of the coastline on their charts, Forth Valley College began to map out the best way for their valued employees to plot their route towards a further education landscape of the future.
Well known for being sector leading in many fields, FVC’s online learning community had already been blazing trails long before working from home became the norm. Microsoft Teams became a lifeline for our students and our expert staff in this field were so proficient that they were being called upon to help bring other colleges and organisations like the NHS up to speed with training workshops.
It was quickly realised that mental as well as physical health was going to have to be nurtured in the unprecedented weeks and months ahead and that social as well as professional contact with staff, would be essential for everyone.
A Social Hub facility on Teams – offering quizzes, bingo and creative challenges – gave staff the opportunity to keep up valuable social links with colleagues and friends at the college.
The idea developed from a virtual Tea Room Channel where staff were able to come together for a cuppa during the day and have a general catch up.
Hospitality lecturers provided regular simple recipe blogs for staff and students to try at home and the gym team – as well as some inspirational students - provided regular online workout sessions to keep people active and fit and also provided tailored bespoke workout programmes and advice where needed. An early morning Zumba session has become so popular that when the campuses fully re-open, few will bat an eyelid at the sight of staff dancing into work!
With the three college gyms out of action an inspired move by the College’s Leisure Facilities Coordinator Wai Mun Lee, led to equipment and exercise machines such as weights, rowng machine and exercise bikes being loaned out to staff so they could work out more at home.
A dedicated Health and Wellbeing page on SharePoint, the college’s intranet service, to offer advice, information and contact details for health and wellbeing services available was swiftly up and running and the workforce was looking out for each other and building an even stronger workplace community Health and Wellbeing (sharepoint.com) .
Collectively staff saw that one of the best ways to improve their own mental health and wellbeing was to get involved in helping others and at the All Staff Development Days in November 2020, it was decide that staff would donate at least one day of their time to local worthy causes as part of a ‘Giving Back’ to the Forth Valley Community campaign.
This led to many excellent local efforts to make life a little easier for those less fortunate in the Falkirk, Stirling and Alloa areas and at Christmas more than 1,000 Christmas dinners were cooked, packaged and delivered by staff and students in the Hospitality Department, to those in need.
With health and wellbeing awareness coming very much to the forefront of everyone’s thoughts a series of Health Courses for staff – such as Avoiding Burnout, Personal Empowerment and Developing Menopause and Peri-Menopause Awareness - continue to be very popular and like the Giving Back initiative, also counted towards the Continual Professional Development of individual staff.
By the start of 2021, it was clear a second wave of the pandemic could well be worst that the first one and an innovative approach would be needed to give the FVC workforce a boost to be able to face the struggles ahead.
The result was the roll out of two pilot initiatives to help maintain the health and wellbeing of all off its employees.
A Weekly Re-charge allowed staff to take up to a 10% reduction in their working hours to help with work-life balance and boost wellbeing, and a proposed daily Time 4 You two hour lunch-time slot (12-2pm), enabled the workforce to clear all meetings and calls from their diary to enjoy their lunchbreak and also have some time to work without disruptions. Time for you will continue in session 21/22.
Senior management were inspired by a number of organisations across the world who had implemented a shorter working week in recent years, and realised this would be an important asset to help everyone navigate the second lockdown.
Dr Ken Thomson OBE, Principal for Forth Valley College, said: “The newly imposed lockdown in January 2021 resulted in additional pressures for everyone. We recognised this and took the decision to implement these ground-breaking initiatives to try to help our staff cope with lockdown restrictions which were needed across the country at that time.
“The Weekly Re-charge and Time 4 You, were designed to make things a little easier as most staff were working from home at that time. We were only too well aware of the efforts our employees had put in over the previous 10 months and we hoped the new working arrangements would help us all re-charge and prepare us to navigate our way through that critical period which the entire country was facing
“We wanted our staff to know that whether they were finding it difficult to find a work-life balance or were just feeling overwhelmed in general, we were supporting them and wanted them to recognise the importance of looking after their wellbeing and were encouraging them to take time to de-stress.
“As an organisation, we wanted to offer as much help and support as we could during these challenging circumstances.”
By the end of term in June, light was beginning to show at the end of the pandemic tunnel. The vaccination programme – which FVC was heavily involved with after offering NHS Forth Valley the use of all three of our campuses as vaccination centres – was in full swing and restrictions were beginning to ease.
It was announced that the gym in our Falkirk Campus would be open throughout the summer and a booking system would be in place on SharePoint as the path to normalcy picked up pace.
The College also wanted to look forward to a positive future and make the most of the changes we’ve had to make to our working lives across the whole of society, as a result of the unprecedented lockdown arrangements over the last 16 months. We now know that working from home can be productive and be an asset for many people, especially those with young families or health issues, and the college wanted to hear the views of its staff as they planned the way forward.
So around Christmas, the College’s Springback Project was launched with a survey of all staff on their working preferences and the potential for an efficient hybrid model for staff. A mix of working on campus and at home and recognising all the sustainability and environmentally friendly travel reduction benefits that entails could well be a very positive way forward. But also, mixing working on campus and at home could well lead to a more healthier work-life balance in the future.
Before the end of term, the college took heed of feedback from its Listening to Employees committee and organised their first ever online Staff Awards on Wednesday 23 June.
Dr Thomson, added: “An expert judging panel found it difficult to choose winners for each of the six categories with the excellent spread of staff innovation throughout the year. There was a high number of deserved nominations and the universally agreed sentiment that every single staff member deserved an award, after the tremendous efforts over the last year during the pandemic.
“I personally am very proud of everyone who was nominated as they have all gone above and beyond their roles to provide support, advice and expertise to their colleagues and peers.
“I have to say that this recognition shows an exceptional level of commitment to their professionalism and College role, as our entire workforce has risen seamlessly to the challenges presented to them during the pandemic lockdown and shown that each and every one of them are winners in my book. A big well done to everyone, they Make Learning Work very well.”