Virtual meetings with staff who worked remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic may have prompted business leaders to more keenly consider the work-life balance of their employees, a psychologist said.

Jennifer Card, who specialises in organisational leadership, suggested that a glimpse into workers’ homes could have been the catalyst for a “more human” approach.

She said: “I think the pandemic shone a spotlight on the importance of psychological wellbeing and the workplace.”

Dr Card added: “With the Covid pandemic, organisations have become much more humanised and realised that support is needed to help people to find more work-life balance and wellbeing.

“An organisation’s greatest asset is the people. The culture is co-created. It’s not something that someone can say, ‘Hey, we’re going to change our culture’.

“It has to come from the people and within their behaviour.

“The more support that they get, in terms of helping them to thrive, then the more support for their organisation to thrive.“

She explained: “Through our hybrid working situation, we actually got, physically, a glimpse into people’s homes and lives.

“It was a very stressful time for everyone, and I think we realised that we had to work together and support each other as our unique selves.

“We could see people on Zoom calls, and we could see inside their homes … we realised that we’re all different, yet all the same.”

Dr Card, an organisational psychologist, executive coach and leadership consultant, said the pandemic “shook things up” and caused organisations to think more about what worked well.

She recently launched C-entre, a leadership and organisational psychology firm, with cofounders Eloise Pitts Crick and Kelly Madeiros.

Dr Card said: “We saw a gap in the marketplace for an all-inclusive firm that could offer and support an organisation at the individual, team and organisational level.”

She explained: “Our workplace wellbeing experts help [a] team to develop anti-burnout tactics at a comprehensive level, from understanding the stress response to increased self-awareness of personal stress triggers and how to interrupt the stress response.

“So much of the literature is about physical health and stress, and not enough training is in psychological health related to stress.”

She added: “Stress management is great, but this means that the stress has already occurred.

“We like to help people get ahead of the stress curve and intervene against its harmful effects.

“A lot of this involves understanding the stress response and being armed with tools on how to better navigate stress; this is all part of our Workplace Healthy Mind Habits Programme, part of our Working Well C-entre.”

Dr Card said her leadership coaching can include working with executives “who are exceptional at their job” but may be new to a team or have expanded their role.

She added: “Leading people is very complex, so I’ll help to support them as they settle in, for example, the nuances of having difficult conversations with their team members.”

C-entre also offers sessions to help teams to work together more efficiently as well as an “elevated” employee assistance programme.

Dr Card reminded workers that it was important to “keep your reserves high”.

She said that small, healthy habits — at work or out-of-hours — help employees to be able to face complex or challenging situations if they arise.

Dr Card added: “Anti-burnout techniques are about keeping those reserves high and doing those little things each day that are healthy mind habits.

“There is the physical aspect — we know how to take care of ourselves physically by having good sleep, eating well — but the psychological aspects are a little bit less known.

“There is more education still to be had in that regard, as well as self-awareness work in what fills your energy and what drains you.”

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