Vicky Blogs: COVID-19 (& beyond)

This term 'pandemic fatigue' has been floating around in the news.  Fatigue is defined as extreme tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion.  The idea of pandemic fatigue refers to how a large part of the population is feeling - exhausted from uncertainty and the seemingly unending outbreak.  We, as a population, have tried our best to follow instructions.  We have worn masks, socially distanced, cancelled or postponed events.  We have even totally sheltered in place for an extended period of time.  We have downloaded zoom and are trying to feel like seeing people's faces on a screen is close enough to seeing them in person, when it reality it is nowhere near the same.  The U.S has had more than 8 million cases of coronavirus and this number is still going up.  Europe is also starting to see a rise in cases now.  Much of this rise is due to the fact that people are not handling their pandemic fatigue well.  One New York Times ...

I've previously written about what some of the top employers have been doing to take care of their employees during the COVID-19 pandemic (see post here ).  I wanted to do a follow-up post here, as some companies who offered initial support for their employees have since fallen off the leaderboard for best practices.  Much of this tapering off has been due to financial limitations within companies.  While it may be true that companies want to continue to support the employees that they still have, this often can't be done unless money is reallocated within the organization.  This can be a challenge in itself because it requires taking a hard look at where their might be excess or where cuts can be made. As I mentioned in my previous post, there were a few themes surrounding employee support during the early part of this pandemic.  They were as follows: development of crisis management teams, additional budgeting for time off, reimbursement for medical costs, dee...

  I have been experiencing first hand some of the juggling that working parents have been dealing with because of the pandemic.  As we enter the time of back to school, the stress and anxiety levels of parents have been steadily increasing.  Some parents have been wondering if they can keep their jobs if their child or children are unable to physically go back to their school.  Others worry about extra costs associated with child care and the potential for their child to get sick. It isn't a surprise that the kids also have much higher levels of anxiety.  Often, they don't even know how to communicate what they are feeling.  I've been nannying three kindergarten kids who are all attending public school remotely.  Each child is from a different family and we are a learning pod.  This way, the parents can pool their resources to be able to afford a nanny and the kids get some level of  in-person social interaction on a day to day basis.  T...