Wellbeing Resources: Reopening Reticence, Supporting Kids and More

When it comes to wellbeing, employers often find themselves challenged by how to approach a shift from a traditional wellness model to a comprehensive and holistic program that supports the whole person. Below you’ll find this week’s curated list of wellbeing resources. Feel free to share these resources, as appropriate, with your team. 

A special note: This September, we’re hosting a Virtual Employee Wellbeing Fair where your teams can come to hear from experts on how to pursue a holistically healthy life. We’ll host the event; all you need to do is invite your team. Register and learn more on our event portal. 

Career Wellbeing

• What to Do When You’re Covering for Colleagues – and Can’t Keep Up – When covering for one or more coworkers who are out of the office, it’s difficult to keep up with everything the way you usually do. The key is finding a solution where you keep up on the essentials but avoid putting the full weight of multiple jobs on your shoulders. Here are six strategies that can help you to strike that delicate balance.


• Taking Tough Feedback – Criticism rarely comes wrapped in a shiny gift box, tied with a bow. As a trailblazing leader, one of Mellody Hobson’s gifts is finding the diamond in the rough. She and organizational psychologist, Adam Grant, unpack how to look for the grain of truth in any critique, when to discount feedback, and what it takes to be honest without being brutal.

Social & Family Wellbeing

• 5 Ways to Help Your Kid Develop Social Skills Post-COVID – Not everyone is excited to return to “normal”. Some kids who struggled to engage socially before the pandemic may be struggling even more now. Here’s how to help your child navigate social interactions and build confidence. 

Financial Wellbeing

• 19 Things You Should Be Buying Used Instead of New – Savings experts say that in many cases buying new is overrated. Gently used items can still have a long lifespan, and for some items, you can enjoy significant savings off the price you would pay if you bought the item new. Here are some tips on what you should look for second-hand.

Physical Wellbeing

• Five Surprising Foods That Spike Blood Sugar and How to Make Them Healthier – While we might all expect things like donuts and pizza to cause a big blood sugar spike, there are some seemingly healthy foods that can also be the cause. Read on to learn about these 5 surprising foods and also some tips on how to modify your choices to minimize the sugar impact. 


• The Best Exercises You Can Do at Home to Strengthen Your Lower Back – Your low back can often get tense, stiff, or weak, especially if you’re one to sit at a desk all day—same goes if don’t save time to stretch adequately after working out. Here are 6 of the best low-back exercises to do at home for strong muscles and improved health. 

Emotional Wellbeing

• Free 30-Day Yoga Program – If you think that you might benefit from a regular and sustainable at-home yoga practice - look no further. Yoga with Adriene, the ever-popular host of the YouTube channel Yoga with Adriene, an online community of over 10 million subscribers, is offering this August yoga calendar with 30-days of free yoga classes.


• Cultivating Mindfulness to Manage Workplace Stress – Join Calm.com for an interactive and experiential online session. Learn how to identify work stressors and how they impact our well-being and workplace culture, spot the difference between reflection and mindfulness, and begin to strengthen the skill of staying present from moment to moment. You can join this event on Wednesday, August 11th at 1 PM ET.

Community Wellbeing

• How to Cultivate Kindness at Home – There is no better way for kids to learn kindness than from their parents right in their very own home. The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has created a kindness curriculum that contains quick, convenient kindness activities for families of all ages and discussion topics on a monthly basis. Each month covers a different kindness concept. This is a great way to bring your family closer together through kindness.

Employer Focused Wellbeing

• Center for Workplace Mental Health: Guide to Returning to the Workplace – Uncertainty around a return to the workplace remains high for many. Even with widespread vaccinations and elements of “normalcy” coming back to daily life, many feel unsettled about disrupting new routines to return to a workplace with new and different dynamics. Employers are faced with unique challenges that accompany building a “new normal” during the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes leading and supporting the workforce through the transition back to work. This guide provides tips for supporting employees through that transition.


• Redesigning the Employee Experience: Preparing the Workforce for a Transformed World – Much about the workplace has changed in 2020—but as the dust settles, several themes around employee needs are evident. As workers face these new and old challenges, they’ll need their employers to address them head-on. In this report, MetLife discusses five trends to watch in the changing workplace. 


• Reopening Reticence: What’s Worrying Parents Today and How You Can Help – In this 20-minute podcast, Ovia Health holds a candid conversation about the toll the pandemic has taken on working parents. Based on Ovia’s most recent study, learn what is most impacting parents’ mental health today and how organizations can better support and improve parental mental health.