Mental Health Awareness Week: The Importance of Movement

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week and this year’s theme is all about movement.

Quorum is committed to supporting each other in prioritising mental wellbeing. We recognise the crucial relationship of physical and mental health, and we strive to create a workplace environment that nurtures this. We also understand the importance of creating a support system so that our staff can receive help when they need it most all year round, not just when it’s highlighted on social media.

The Importance of Movement

Regular physical activity isn’t just beneficial for our bodies; it’s also crucial for our mental health.

We work in a sedentary industry where we are often sitting in front of a screen. This has all sorts of implications for our mental health, including:

• Increased stress and tension.
• Poor eating habits.
• Bad posture impeding focus and creativity.
• Increased apathy.
• Poor sleep.

How we get moving in Quorum?

In Quorum, we’ve introduced a number of employee engagement tactics to help support people in moving more. We hope you can take some inspiration from our ideas!

Walk Around the Block

Our Walk Around the Block Teams channel began in lockdown as a way to encourage people to get out for a daily walk and also to connect with our colleagues as we couldn’t physically be together. Although it’s used less frequently now, we still encourage people to get out and about daily and share any funny, beautiful, or interesting things they see on their daily walks.

Stretching

One of our colleagues in the Data team took it upon himself to create a stretching Teams channel. There is a timer and set of stretches made available and people announce in the group when they’ve done their daily stretches to encourage and remind others to do so!

Team Challenges – Walk This May

Over the years we’ve implemented several virtual challenges to get people moving, dubbed “A Quorum Journey” where we create specific team or individual challenges for walking, running, or cycling and employees unlock achievement badges and proudly show them off e.g. the Inca Trail, which was a 40km walking challenge or our virtual team journey from Land’s End to Lapland!

As part of our commitment to supporting mental health, we launched “Walk This May,” a challenge designed to encourage our staff to incorporate movement into their daily routines. Throughout May, our colleagues are competing for the highest number of km’s walked in May and the top 3 win a trophy. Some of our staff are not interested in the competition element, which is ok!, they can still take part by simply walking 20 minutes per day and track their progress through our Power BI dashboard (pictured below).

Quorum Strava Groups

All Quorum “athletes” ? are encouraged to join our Quorum Strava group and enjoy a bit of healthy competition! We track everything from walking, cycling, running, swimming, and rowing and have club leaderboards!

Sports and Social Clubs

As well as our virtual challenges, we like to get together in real life and have a Quorum Squash Club, and a five-a-side football club – all just for a bit of fun and varying levels of skill!

Supporting Mental Health First

In addition to promoting physical activity, Quorum is committed to supporting the mental health of our team members. We’re proud to have established a peer-support group of Mental Health First Aiders who are trained to provide immediate assistance and support for mental health issues. This network of compassionate individuals ensures that every staff member has access to a supportive ear and the resources they need for mental health concerns all year round.

We remain committed to exploring new avenues to support our team members’ wellbeing, ensuring that our workplace continues to be a place where everyone feels valued and supported.