New COVID-19 Support Pack launched to help learners and businesses adapt to return to work

The first pack, which helped people learn and develop their skills while working from home for the first time in the early phase of lockdown, went live on 25 March. It's since had nearly 335,000 unique page views.

The follow-up COVID-19 Support Pack 2.0 focuses on supporting individuals returning to the workplace as well as those left working from home, and their managers and leaders. It features a range of free online learning resources on topics including self-care and mental health, and leading and managing a team. There is also a range of support for stakeholders, customers and suppliers, that looks at topics such as rebuilding finances from scratch, and making wise, possibly radical, decisions.

Other themes are around having difficult conversations, recognizing and managing the shifts in team dynamics, knowing when and how to offer mutual support, and moving into a phase of personal growth and learning.

About a third of the resources were previously only accessible to paying clients, but all of the resources have been made available for free to support individuals and organizations in these difficult times.

John Yates, CEO of Emerald Works, said: “The first COVID-19 Support Pack was released to help people adapt to working from home and it was very well received. With the gradual lifting of lockdown across the world, ways of working are changing again; business leaders now need support with planning and achieving a mass return from home to the workplace, while supporting those who may need or choose to remain at home.

“At all levels, everyone is tired and feeling a range of strong emotions. The COVID-19 Support Pack 2.0 and its unique collection of tried and tested tools will help people to feel more confident, more heard, and more open and able to step back, think about strategy and make good decisions. And through them, we can support their organizations, too.”

Keira Hodge, Marketing Director at Emerald Works, added: “We know that business leaders are looking for more support around planning the new business normal.  Whether that’s a return to the workplace, or remaining at home, we know there are both practical and emotional factors at play. Many people are feeling tired, de-motivated, and fearful; which is driving emotional behaviours, bad decision-making and poor conversations. These are issues for both employers and employees."

“With all these factors in mind, we have developed a second COVID-19 content suite to lead on self-care and mental health, including anger management, as well as having difficult conversations, how to manage new team dynamics and when to offer support as a leader. Overall, this pack should help both individuals and teams to support one another better, look beyond themselves and move their strategy on.”
 
The COVID-19 Support Pack 2.0 of online learning solutions is drawn from the Mind Tools library of almost 2,500 resources which are divided into 12 skill areas such as leadership, creativity, strategy and project management. The resources are accessed by more than 24 million people each year.
 
In addition to the COVID-19 Support Pack, Emerald Works also uses its Minds Tools platform to provides and create customized online learning solutions for companies such as Booking.com, Heineken and AstraZeneca.

Emerald Works was launched in January when it brought together three established international learning organizations GoodPractice, Towards Maturity and Mind Tools – to form one global company.
 
Emerald Works, which has offices in Edinburgh, London, Horsham, the US and Australia, works with global brands such as Virgin Money, Standard Life Aberdeen, Rolls-Royce, Edrington and AstraZeneca among its growing client base. With a focus on the USA, UK and Australia, the company now serves more than 2.5 million learners and learning professionals each month, based in 180 countries worldwide.

The Covid-19 Support Pack 2.0 is available here:

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/covid-19_support_pack.htm
 

About Emerald Works
At Emerald Works, we’re committed to helping individuals and organisations around the world realise their full potential by using evidence-led learning solutions that work. We work together to build learning cultures that empower people to bring about real change for real impact.

About the Emerald Group
Emerald is a global learning organisation, based in Bingley, West Yorkshire, with a presence in 180 countries worldwide. Founded in 1967, with roots in scholarly publishing and bringing research to life, Emerald’s core purpose for over 50 years has been to champion fresh thinkers and help them make a difference so that little by little those in academia or in practice can unite to bring positive change in the real world. www.emeraldgroup.com