Positive Steps with Jonna Mundy from You HR Consultancy

It’s been fun and refreshing, most importantly it undoubtedly has supported us through the difficult early weeks of lockdown, and now has become a natural part for the course. Despite there being a distance between us, we have disciplined ourselves to check-in every Monday as a whole team (no excuses, unless you’re on annual leave ), do some form of quiz, many of which have been real brain teasers and every week the laughter from our online calls have seen us through the tough times. We are closer now as a team than ever before. The team and I have shared so many helpful tips and ideas of what we can do to preserve our wellbeing in so many ways… Looking back, for the last few weeks’, coming out the other side of lockdown to our new normal, I honestly don’t think I’ve been this happy, healthy and well for a long time, and I would say the same for the rest of the You HR Family Team members!

2. Whilst we worked remotely prior to lockdown in the casual sense, we have often contemplated if it could work on a wider scale and whilst lockdown forced this upon us, we have proven that remote working is sustainable for all. Enhancing our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was a big feature of our Business Strategy for 2019/20 and we have helped ourselves to achieve many CSR objectives. Linked to our positive wellbeing step (above), I personally have achieved such a greater sense of worklife balance from working remotely and less pressurised… It can easily become all too self-consuming and actually detrimental to self, doing just one more hour in the office / getting in an hour earlier and before you know it, that becomes the norm and homelife misses out. So I have led by example to strike that balance of work and home life, gaining more time with family, friends and my wider networks, and I love it!. Our carbon footprint has reduced dramatically and our green practice (less paper) is pretty much at 100%! So remote working has been a massive positive step with many personal, business, environmental benefits as well as being a great financial saving for the Consultancy too.

3. I have dedicated time to my own learning which has been brilliant. As a business owner, mum, wife, sister, daughter and friend, it was difficult to dedicate time for myself or even if I did, it would probably be for things like sorting my barnet (hair) out, a rare treat, as most of my time was consumed ‘helping out’ which took many forms. With a bit more time on my hands from gaining a better work life balance, I have been able to do so many things on my ‘learning list’ over the last few months that I’ve wanted to do for a long time and haven’t got round to doing – from reading books, doing online courses, personal assessments, obtaining our new Accreditation levels with The Institute of Leadership and Development, learning new skills including upcycling an old garden table with mosaic!

4. I have fulfilled such a large part of my ambition to ‘give back’… We are doing more than ever before to support charities, namely our Charity Partner, Homeless Oxfordshire and our Nexus Partner, Sobell House. We’ve given away more than 150 hours of free support to those businesses than need our advice and guidance the most – and all of this continues. As we’re about to celebrate our 11th year of trading, I am super proud when I look back on what I’ve created in You HR Consultancy and how our brand has flourished… it really is “all about the people”. Our vision to support local communities has always been the backbone of the Consultancy’s purpose, and this is more prevalent now than ever before, with everything we source, supporting local wherever possible. The feedback we have received across our network has been an incredible testament to the You HR Consultancy teams hard work, and the encouragement to keep going is phenomenal, it’s inspired us to continue on our journey and continue to demonstrate just how much we care about others and their success from our support. Our brand shines through, more stronger now than ever before, it’s about ‘You’ anyone that we have the pleasure to work with and supporting their most important asset… what business would exist without the people?

5. My final positive step has got to quite simply be the growth, commitment, support and unity of the You HR Team, particularly during lockdown.

www.youhrconsultancy.co.uk