Work & Recover,
Move Together

Fien Vanden Hoof: “I’m part of the Health, Safety & Security Department. To work safely and achieve our ambition of 0 accidents, we need colleagues with healthy minds and bodies. That is what the work of Sabine De Weghe and myself is about. Together we make up the well-being team. As Social Work Assistant, Sabine focuses on individual support, while I mainly focus on campaigns, collective initiatives and the company’s well-being policy. We want to put well-being high on the agenda of employees, managers and the organisation.”

Mandy Köppel: “As part of the 50Hertz Health & Safety team, I work in both of these areas. Firstly, I’m in charge of the occupational safety campaign gib8, which raises awareness of the various hazards at a very wide range of workplaces, encourages discussion and reflection, and assists external companies with accident prevention. Secondly, I’m responsible for all the initiatives designed to improve employees’ health. We want to encourage employees to be proactive about health. If necessary, support is available to help them deal with challenges in their work and home or family lives.”

Fien: ” At Elia we work with a wide network of support persons. They’re the first point of contact for psychological problems, conflict situations and harassment, for example. You can also make an appointment with an external psychologist via the platform BloomUp. In 2022, we set up a community called “Let’s talk about burnout”, with discussion sessions and mentoring. This community is aimed at people who’ve experienced burnout or are at risk of doing so because of the very high levels of stress they’re facing. Finally, we encourage our colleagues to take an active role in their own health through various initiatives, including the Care4Energy Challenge On Tour, which encouraged our colleagues to take on a variety of sporting and fun challenges.”

Mandy: “We offer staff, management and their immediate families comprehensive support in the form of meinEAP, a service provided by a company called INSITE. This can range from expert advice on health problems such as burnout, anxiety and addiction, to workplace issues such as team conflicts, restructuring and new roles, finding a medical specialist or a therapist, and legal and financial advice. There are also monthly online talks, INSITE live talks, (see events calendar) on various topics to make our colleagues more knowledgeable about health issues. With our health app ‘Humanoo’, we call twice a year for people to take on step challenges together. 50Hertz offers additional services provided by health insurance company Halleschen Versicherung and care advice from health consultancy Amiravita.”

Fien: “The idea emerged in late 2020, during the COVID lockdowns. For many people, working remotely from home the whole time didn’t come naturally. A lot of them found it difficult, especially for their mental health. We wanted to do something to support our colleagues. We were wondering how 50Hertz was handling the situation, and so Mandy and I started to interact.”

Mandy: “Our exchanges led to the creation of a teleworking magazine with all kinds of hints and tips, such as how to organise working at home, when to take a break, which short exercises can be used to help you relax, and how far to sit from your computer screen. This initial collaboration was so productive that we wanted to build on it and join forces – which is how the Work & Recovery project came about.”

Mandy: “We want to encourage our colleagues to think about how they can recover after what are often demanding working days so that they can stay healthy and productive in the long term in both their professional and private lives. The project has three phases. In 2022, the emphasis was on switching off on holiday. This year, we’re focusing on how to recharge your batteries at the end of the working day. To do this, we organised an interactive ‘MITTEndrin’ session, produced an information video and published information on Pulse. In 2024, we’ll be concentrating in particular on breaks during the working day.”

Mandy: “On 22 September, we launched the Move Together challenge on Pulse. With this first common challenge we encouraged our colleagues to stay physically active even in the darkest months of the year – and I was delighted to see so many 50Hertz colleagues taking part.”

Fien: “We measured the total distance between all the sites and the service/regional centres of all the Group’s branch offices. The aim was for as many colleagues as possible to cover part of these 63,000 km by walking, cycling, swimming, skating, and so on. We hoped this would also promote a real group spirit. A successful gamble, together we far exceeded our goal!”

Mandy: “Health is a very wide-ranging area and we’re a relatively small team. By joining forces, we can divide up the work and cover more issues and do so in greater detail. Together we make up a team that is both bigger and better.”
Fien: “The Work & Recovery project is based on a scientific study by a German university. Without Mandy and the exchanges between us, we might’ve never come across this study.”

Fien: “Many people don’t really take breaks when there’s a lot to do, but if you don’t, you become less productive. If you don’t relax now and then, you’ll lose focus in the end.”

Mandy: “And if you don’t relax in time, you build up a kind of ‘rest debt’. The bigger it gets, the more difficult it becomes to balance it out. This can lead to a vicious cycle that affects your health and well-being and can eventually lead to burnout.”

Fien: “Elia performs better than average in terms of sickness rates and well-being indicators, but of course any burnout is one too many. There’s still room for improvement. Just as we aim for zero accidents when it comes to safety, we should seek the best health outcomes.”

Fien: “I enjoy my work, and when it gets busy, it isn’t always easy to strike a healthy work/life balance. At the same time, as a Well-being Officer, I’d like to set a good example. I’m trying to organise my life so that I don’t build up too much of a rest debt. This year, for example, I worked part-time for three months so that I could maintain a good balance at the start of the school year.”

Mandy: “The idea of ‘relaxing’ seems so simple, doesn’t it? But taking time for a break isn’t always that straightforward. Reading scientific texts about the physiological effects of relaxation helped me by making me realise how important breaks are and I now reflect on my own behaviour more often and am more likely to take a break.”

Fien: “Listen to your body.”

Mandy: “Don’t think ‘I have to finish this project and then I can relax’. Rest isn’t something you have to earn; it’s part of the job!”