GrokTalk Blog

COVID-19 and its aftermath has made 2020 a downright challenging year. In the blink of an eye, the very definition of work/life balance has taken center stage — instantly changing from what was once just a desirable goal to the global imperative for employers everywhere. Keeping employees healthy and safe so that businesses can keep their doors open is now every employers’ top priority. Though some semblance of a new normal is beginning to take shape as digital environments begin to repair the disconnectedness we feel at home and at work, there’s a lot of good yet to be done.

Saturday, October 10, 2020 is World Mental Health Day. It's the perfect time to connect with your workforce to share mental health facts, tips, and employee resources. And Grokker is here to help make that easy!

It’s been six months since the initial shelter-in-place orders were given in March — and that means it’s been six months of uncertainty and asking the question, “What am I supposed to do?” But as the Grokker team looks back, it’s been a six month long opportunity for personal reflection and growth, as individuals and as a business. Naturally, we were asking each other, "How can we keep producing meaningful wellbeing content while working from home?"

Against the backdrop of a global pandemic, the world in which we live and work has been turned on its head. The lines between work-life and home-life are blurred, parents with children underfoot are overtasked, and choosing between the family who needs them and the work that sustains them has become a daunting, daily task for nearly everyone.

Earlier this year, during the initial COVID-19 lockdowns, Grokker was made available to organizations of all sizes to help their employees maintain their daily wellbeing routines and connect with colleagues while sheltering at home. We realized that in addition to our traditional enterprise-sized clients, small and medium-sized businesses were looking for solutions to keep their employees active and well during these difficult times -- and beyond.

The last two weeks have been horrifying, overwhelming, and, sadly, illuminating. The tragic killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many other Black Americans have taken us to a point of no return. It’s not enough to feel outraged by the heartbreaking reminders of racism, both in the graphic videos depicting this indefensible racially motivated violence, as well as in the hate speech against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. It’s also not enough to want change. 

Leading a company and workforce during a global crisis is not something I learned how to do in college or law school, and there’s been nothing quite like the COVID-19 outbreak in my professional career to prepare me for this. As with the novel virus making its way around the globe and wreaking havoc on financial markets, it's been very learn-as-we-go, while accepting there simply is no such thing as “business as usual.”

Isn’t it interesting that as we settle into the social distancing routine, we’re mastering creative ways to work around the system? Humans are social creatures, so it’s only natural for us to seek loopholes to get closer together. While we can’t offer handshakes or hugs, we have identified new ways to maintain some form of intimacy with people outside our homes. 

On an average workday — or even weekend — sheltering in place is isolating. But with Passover, Easter, and Ramadan, there is a particular poignancy to the isolation. These major religious holidays are important social gatherings, marked by time spent in group settings breaking bread or matzah with family and friends, and sharing stories passed on quite literally from generation to generation at a special time of year.

From an emotional perspective, COVID-19 is beginning to take its toll. The newly unemployed are facing profound emotional trauma. For many in leadership, the agony comes in corporate belt-tightening and calculating how deeply to make the cuts, all while grappling with the very human impact and the reality of delivering the news while a global pandemic is still in full force with no end in sight.

Every single one of us has been impacted by the disruption to work and life resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak. It’s a powerful, unsettling reality that continues to take on new meaning every time we catch up with the latest news or hear from a loved one or colleague about how they’re adjusting (or not) to their “new normal.”