As humans our “overall” wellness is important because it encompasses all aspects of our health, including physical, mental, and emotional well-being. When a person is in a state of good overall wellness, they are better able to cope with stress, manage their emotions, and have a higher quality of life.
We have all seen the memes where it can be a bit of a struggle balancing going to work, keeping a clean house, and making sure we drink enough water… but we want to highlight an area of well-being we feel is often overlooked, but can have a huge impact in your mental health and how we view the world.
What is Cyber Wellness?
Cyber wellness is a term that covers a wide range of areas but typically refers to a person's ability to use the internet and digital technologies in a safe, responsible, and ethical manner. It encompasses a wide range of issues related to online behaviour and digital citizenship/ownership, such as cyberbullying, online privacy and security, addiction to technology, and digital literacy.
At Core to Cloud, we also think it is about empowering our industry to support and look after our own and our team's mental health and create better standards for wellness support within our sector. Tech teams and our sector in general often mean we are spinning a lot of plates and have a high level of responsibility (looking after people's core assets and data can feel a little overwhelming at times)
It is time we shone the spotlight on cyber wellness and how we can improve our processes and mindset to support our sector.
Why is Cyber Wellness important in 2023?
You may have been shocked by some of the statistics we highlighted in our previous blog (Link) post, but if you haven't read it yet we shared that according to a 2019 report from BIMA, individuals employed in the tech industry are remarkably five times more prone to depression than the overall population, based on data gathered from over 3000 members of the UK technology community. It was also brought to light that over 50% of these individuals have suffered from anxiety or depression.
These statistics are incredibly humbling, and it is time for us to make a difference.
5 ways to Increase Cyber Wellness at Work
Changes start at all levels, whether you are an individual who can advocate for better mental health support or a manager that needs to focus more on cyber well-being, here are some areas you can improve to start making a difference.
- Cyber wellness and mental health are connected
What we mean by this is that mental health support and acknowledgement need to be held at the core of all your people processes. Everyone within your hierarchy or teams need to have dedicated resources for their role to support them with their overall well-being and in case of mental health decline. Consider implementing a mental health platform, or an online area individuals can access for information about what is available to them for well-being support. It is important to note here, that there do need to be nuances in the information available depending on an individual's role. For example, a developer may need different resources than a Scrum Master or a team leader due to the different aspects of their role. This attention to detail allows your team to recognise they are seen and heard, which is a base need for all of us!
- We need to limit role ambiguity
When speaking to various individuals within our sector, a common theme of role ambiguity is mentioned in conjunction with stress and increased anxiety. This is due to a few reasons. The first is that sometimes within hiring processes for tech roles, there can be a confusion or layer of ambiguity added to the title of the role and what is expected. The second is a bleed of responsibility that can happen when an organisation is growing rapidly and doesn’t increase its internal tech team. This ambiguity can cause anxiety, an unimaginable workload, fatigue, and annoyance towards an individual's role. As a sector, we need to understand our roles, and from an organisational level, we need to hire enough individuals to fulfil the overall workload with clear boundaries.
- There needs to be more flexibility
Individuals work best when they feel free and supported, and one way to give this to those that work within these types of roles is to allow them to choose how they work. The CIPD points out that there are organisational and individual gains from offering flexible working such as saving on office space through to empowerment of an individual. These benefits will have a direct impact on the happiness of a team and the output created by that team overall. It is a win-win in our eyes…
- Make space for additional support
We are only human after all, and sometimes we need to ask for further support. This may be in terms of using platforms that can take over some of the workload. At Core to Cloud, we have some amazing cyber security solutions in our portfolio such as Immersive Labs and Vectra that can really support an internal tech team to have a platform they can rely on.
- Include this in your culture
Make these changes a core principle of your organisation or the organisation that you work within. We need to make this part of our regular rhetoric and include regular meetings and training with cyber wellness and mental health as the topic. All levels of the organisations such as HR, occupational health, managers, and individuals all need to recognise the part they play in ensuring that they are supported and connected to work together to make a positive significant change.
We can’t wait to see what changes you will make and don’t forget to share this article with those in our sector so we can all begin to make cyber wellness a core topic.
Want to get to know more about us and what we do? Well, we have the newsletter for you! You can sign up to receive different themes and information from us at Core to Cloud depending on what takes your fancy within the cyber security world. Take a look at your options here (Link) you don’t want to miss out!
