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A real estate giant is giving all of its teams and employees across Australia and New Zealand the afternoon off to focus on their emotional wellbeing.
Acknowledging the importance of R U OK? Day, employees across the entire LJ Hooker network are being encouraged to press pause on the afternoon of 9 September, taking time out of work to care for their mental health.
This will be the 12th iteration of the national awareness day championed by suicide prevention not-for-profit R U OK?, now held yearly on the second Thursday of September. The day aims to encourage conversations around mental health issues, and prompts Australians to reach out to members of their community, asking the question ‘r u ok?’.
Ruth Trewhella, chief operations officer of the LJ Hooker Group, noted that the network was motivated to give employees the afternoon off in recognition of the increased mental load the implications of COVID-19 had placed on people across the country.
“Currently, we have about 90 per cent of our team working through lockdown as they’re located across New South Wales or Victoria,” Ms Trewhella said.
“It gets tiring; we’ve all felt it, and we want to do everything we can to support our employee’s wellbeing by taking proactive steps to help them through the challenges of COVID-19.”
LJ Hooker employees from across the teams of technology, marketing, network performance, customer support and finance, as well as staff in their network of offices around Australia and New Zealand and direct agents who operate under LJ Hooker Connect and Atlas by LJ Hooker brand will all be afforded the time to pause and reflect.
“R U Ok? Day is an opportunity for our employees to take a moment to check-in with themselves and/or someone else. We believe it’s important that our people are given a chance to switch off and remove some of the added stress of working in these trying circumstances,” Ms Trewhella said.
The LJ initiative coincides with the network’s recent launch of an employee assistance program as well as a corporate wellness program to support staff who are juggling shifting requirements of lockdowns.
Their wellness program uses webinars, online classes, podcasts, and workplace community-building activities to help employees adopt mental health-friendly behaviours. The employee assistance program, meanwhile, offers confidential counselling on personal and professional matters.
“With so much uncertainty experienced over the last 18 months, supporting employees, promoting work-life balance, increasing employee engagement and health, and prioritising personal and professional development have been key priorities for us at the LJ Hooker Group; and it will continue to be so going forward,” Ms Trewhella said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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