The lone worker protection product company Vismo announces a new Vismo Wellbeing feature. It’s a service aimed at businesses whose employees work from home [WFH] or elsewhere remotely. Included in every Vismo App, the feature can assist employers with their duty of care obligations and aid staff wellbeing and morale, the developers say, especially in a pandemic enforced lockdown.
Accessible via tiles in the Vismo App, as used by employees of FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies and NGOs, and SMEs and public sector bodies for helping keep staff safe in at-risk areas and situations, the new feature addresses concerns about the remote working, the firm says.
Wellbeing tiles in the app enable employees to press “Good”, “OK” or “Not good”, to report how they are feeling. HR staff can then assist, via a helpline including support from a well-being team or “buddy system”. Options and wording in the app are customisable by HR or well-being staff.
Apart from the option of being able to call a helpline, employees can request a follow-up and choose anonymity if they wish. A prompt can be set up by HR or well-being staff – every few days or by a set time since the last check – to ask lone workers how they are feeling.
Vismo CEO Craig Swallow says: “The app provides organisations with the capability to understand how their employees are feeling. From there, appropriate support can be provided.
“Since covid-19 lockdowns started and WFH increased dramatically, feedback shows that while there are benefits to WFH from home and other remote locations, there are downsides too. The upsides include not having to commute, a feeling of freedom and choice of which hours to work, and in some cases increased productivity.
“The downsides revolve around mental and emotional stresses associated with being isolated from colleagues, trying to work among the distractions of children- including home schooling, sharing accommodation with flatmates, having a restricted work space or being alone much or all of the time, and decreased productivity.”
The data from the Wellbeing feature can be fed into external HR systems through an API.
