Supporting Our Employees' Mental Health During 2020

At Clearcover, we want to be sure our employees have the resources they need to be fulfilled and successful. This sentiment rings especially true as they continue in the new remote work environment. During the transition, we had to keep in mind the unique struggles they were facing in their role as employees, as well as the changes they were experiencing outside of the office.

As our employees juggle working from home with personal responsibilities, COVID-19 and current events, Clearcover has installed a few measures to support better mental health in our workplace.

We gathered advice from our permanently-remote employees.

Clearcover’s remote committee collected some of their best practices and tips for working from home for everyone. The committee’s “Remote Best Practices” were presented to employees on our first remote test day and have proven to be extremely helpful throughout the working-from-home process.

The “Remote Best Practices” covered a variety of topics, like maintaining communication between teams, setting up effective Zoom calls, creating a routine and workspace, and balancing household tasks with Clearcover tasks. (You can see their tips here!)

In terms of mental health, our remote employees recommended engaging in some kind of ritual to get “out of the office” at the end of the day (e.g. - take a walk, make a pot of tea, read for 30 minutes, write in a journal, etc.). It’s important to have boundaries, and keeping a consistent schedule can help curb thoughts of always being able to stretch the workday.

We are so thankful for the assistance and advice we’ve received from the remote work experts on our Clearcover team as we’ve all adjusted to their lifestyle!

We’ve sought out guidance from mental health professionals.

Our People team organized several sessions for employees to hear from licensed therapists and life coaches, including:

A workshop with a clinical therapist: Coping with Stress and Anxiety
An open forum with a clinical therapist to discuss challenges during COVID
A workshop with Ama La Vida for parents entitled “You are enough!”
Individual counseling following the death of George Floyd

During challenging times like these, it’s important that our employees know we support them in everything they’re facing. These sessions allowed Clearcover the opportunity to promote each employee’s mental health. Additionally, the sessions offered us that social interaction we’ve all been missing as we shared our experiences with one another.

Our first session focused on stress and anxiety, provided our employees with tangible coping strategies as they dealt with the changes COVID was creating in their lives. Our therapist touched on three safety-seeking behaviors we resort to in times of crisis: avoidance, distraction, and seeking reassurance. Our employees were able to identify their most common response and discern the most effective way to move forward as they continued to deal with current stressors.

Group therapy sessions are a great way for a company to focus on mental health, as they create a space of support, self-awareness, and empathy. We were able to see that while we are all enduring the regulations of COVID, we are doing so under very different circumstances, whether that be overwhelming stress of e-learning for parents or feelings of loneliness for those who can’t see their family.

In addition, the therapists were available to talk one-one-one with employees after each session to ensure our employees felt they could comfortably discuss their individual circumstances and experiences.

We’ve kept the conversation going daily.

At Clearcover, we seek to empower others in everything we do (it’s one of our Operating Principles!) We recognize that this starts internally, so we’ve created a #mentalhealth channel in our Slack system for employees to connect and encourage one another throughout their workday, as well as a channel to discuss inclusion and diversity and share resources on these topics.

“Any company that provides these services and shows their staff they value the importance of mental and emotional health will see an increase in work productivity, job satisfaction, and employee retention,” said Samantha Bill-Erlenbaugh, a counselor at the Centered Life. Bill-Erlenbaugh led a workshop on building resilience to stress and anxiety for Clearcover.

“Many commented how it’s support like this that makes Clearcover stand apart from other companies and why it’s a place they will want to be at for the longevity of their careers,” she reflected.

Ultimately, actions speak louder than words and we strive for our practices to match our beliefs.

Interested in learning more about our team? >> Visit here.