It’s important that you, as a manager, are using self-care strategies to make sure you are caring for yourself and can demonstrate self-care behaviours to your team. Be aware where staff can access support services or direct them to Caring for yourself and your family resources.

Where possible try and rotate staff from high stress to low stress shifts or activities to avoid burn-out. Initiate and encourage work breaks and if this is not possible, speak to your manager. As you’re observing your staff, assess energy levels, allow for your team to be open about their feelings and take time to acknowledge them and the work they are doing. You don’t have to rush to respond. Pause. Give yourself space to respond in a skilled and kind way.

Resources for supporting Frontline staff

• The Pandemic Kindness Movement was created by clinicians across Australia, working together to support all health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the Movement is to provide health workers with easy access to curated resources to enable them to access the support they need
• Headspace provides best practice guidelines and tools, tips and downloads for managing staff with stress
• World Health Organisation Mental Health and Psychosocial considerations during COVID-19 Outbreak
• Evidence is showing the importance of healthcare workers getting enough sleep to keep healthy and should be encouraged to do so
• The Centre for the Study of Traumatic Stress provides useful tips to promote sleep and useful tips on the importance of taking breaks for healthcare workers

Resources to support remote working arrangements

HETI has developed a suite of resources to support teams who are working in a virtual environment.

• Setting rules when working from home
• Icare provide a range of free webinars for managers who are leading teams remotely and need to sustain a mentally fit remote team

Other resources

• Harvard Business Review Coping with Fatigue, Fear, and Panic during a Crisis