How do you feel on a Sunday night?

With an extra bank holiday to mark the King’s coronation, we have just enjoyed consecutive bank holidays in the UK with another to follow at the end of May. Whilst long weekends are a treat for full-time employees, it can make going back to work on a Tuesday much harder due to the extended break in routine.

At Mercer & Hole, we take the mental wellbeing of our team seriously. We have looked into the research around ‘Sunday night blues’ and talked to our people about how they feel and how we strive to combat this through measures such as wellbeing support and flexible working.

In October last year, to coincide with World Mental Health Day, The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) published their commissioned research into people’s mental health around going to work and their subsequent coping mechanisms.

It found that overall, 67% of the people asked frequently experience anxiety on a Sunday. The advice given to combatting these feelings of anxiety centres around keeping active, documenting feelings, confronting particular issues and making the most of your weekend.

We want everyone who works at the firm to feel happy and calm about work on a Monday morning. You might have things you are worried or concerned about in your life but work shouldn’t be one of them.

As Bill Marklein, the founder of Culture Crossing, said, “Culture is how employees’ hearts and stomachs feel about Monday morning on Sunday night.” This quote highlights the importance of building a workplace culture that values and supports employees, and fosters a sense of community, purpose, and fulfilment. At Mercer & Hole, we place a lot of importance on valuing our mental health and supporting each other so that when difficulties arise, we can tackle them together.

Taking the above into consideration, we asked some of our team members to talk about how they feel on Sunday nights.

We are pleased that people feel supported and able to maintain a good work/life balance, but we understand how important it is to continue to actively support our teams particularly throughout times of uncertainty and change. The lockdown experience enabled us to work effectively at home, which is something we have carried on, so that we can work remotely to help create balance. We have also built a network of Wellbeing Champions who meet regularly to share ideas between the offices as to how to ensure that our culture of a healthy workplace continues to thrive.