REBA's Inside Track: The world of work one year on from the beginning of lockdown

We all went into that first lockdown determined that we would stop the pandemic from escalating further. Few of us appreciated just how hard a task that would be.

To date, nearly 130,000 people in the UK alone have lost their lives to Covid-19. A staggering number that is hard to comprehend.

Our thoughts go out to all those who have lost loved ones during this traumatic and unprecedented time.

The wider consequences of the pandemic have caused even further distress. Despite the government’s support schemes, many businesses have had to close permanently, redundancies have spiked and many employees are still furloughed and unable to return to work. There are also those who have had to improvise makeshift workplaces under difficult circumstances at home, with a permanent return to the office or other space still firmly in the distance.

Beyond this, every individual’s social, mental, physical and financial wellbeing has been affected. Many of us, or our colleagues, have felt isolated, and many have experienced mental ill-health, perhaps for the first time. Physical activity has been restricted, while people’s financial wellbeing and resilience have been tested.

Yet, despite the demands and challenges, UK workplaces have risen to the challenge of supporting their employees through the most difficult of times, and we hope that REBA has been there to help you navigate this shifting landscape.

Our series of webinars, driven by issues we heard about from our members and the wider industry,  aimed to help employers as they tackled situations and adapted to circumstances that would have been unheard of even six months earlier.

In total, the webinars have been viewed more than 3,000 times, as we worked hard to focus on topics and challenges that were facing our members every day. Many of these webinars showed just how crucial reward and benefits professionals’ roles were during the pandemic. Shifts in policy and practice forced by Covid-19 intensified and changed strategies.

REBA also published a series of ‘snap survey’ research reports with our members to better understand how employers were responding to the pandemic. The latest survey, published in December, considered how the pandemic was changing reward strategy for 2021 and beyond.

We also, along with the support of our strategic partners, developed hundreds of pieces of content under the content category of Coronavirus actions. This is our one-stop-shop of all things related to the pandemic, and continues to be updated with the latest insight.

Finally, rebaLINK, our confidential members-only forum, has also proved to be an essential tool for reward and employee benefits professionals looking to remain connected to their peers. As the opportunities for networking have diminished, rebaLINK has ensured that peer-to-peer conversations have continued. Key topics are still evolving around changing ways of working, what support others are offering home workers and more in-depth issues such as pay reviews and how to reward performance. 

Based on our year of activities, here are just nine of the key trends we’ve seen evolve since the beginning of lockdown:

• Transparent, open and more frequent communications were essential during the pandemic and, in many cases, led to higher engagement than normal. Going forward, regular, transparent communications are likely to remain.
• As the pandemic took hold around the world, the value of consistent company culture and global benefits strategies became ever clearer. We heard about how employees in global companies supported each other as the virus spread, and how they worked together to find new solutions.
• Social wellbeing’s relevance suddenly became pivotal, as employees lost touch with their professional and personal networks overnight. What started off as hastily assembled workplace video quizzes is now evolving into strategies that replicate at least some of the crucial personal connections we need at work, perhaps permanently.
• Covid-19 put employee wellbeing right into the spotlight and showed that organisational-level resilience is intrinsically linked to individuals’ own personal resilience.
• Furlough became part of our everyday vocabulary, and its effects on colleagues’ financial wellbeing is likely to remain part of employers’ strategies for years to come. There were also the considerations of how to support both staff who had been furloughed, and those who continued to work.
• Digital wellbeing became a core priority. As everything from family gatherings to work meetings moved online, and the blend between home and work life became ever more hazy, the need to manage digital health has become a key part of wellbeing.
• The value of employee assistance programmes (EAPs) as a first-line form of support became even clearer as the pandemic took hold. Many employers introduced them for the first time, or significantly upgraded the services on offer to employees. From money worries to bereavement support, the breadth of EAPs’ offerings and quality of support also became a major consideration.
• Flexible and remote working are here to stay – although that might not mean everyone works from home permanently. But with these changes come other considerations for reward directors, particularly when it comes to how to handle regional pay weighting.
• The effects of the pandemic on mental wellbeing, particularly burnout, stress and exhaustion will remain a major concern for employers, with worries that burnout could get worse before it gets better as ‘normal’ life starts to return.

Whatever your experience of the past year, we hope that REBA has helped in some small way to provide guidance, insight and support. This year we are continuing to deliver webinars and research and, if all goes well, we hope to begin running live events again from the autumn.

The REBA community is at the core of everything we do, and as we look to the future, we hope we can continue to support you and your organisation.