Le CACT

Are confinement restrictions easing where you are? Is your employer asking you to come back to the workplace? Or are you asked to work from home for a longer period of time, maybe even permanently?

Here is some basic guidance from WHO on how to stay safe and keep others safe. Please share widely!

Preventing COVID-19 in your workplace or while teleworking There are simple things you can do to keep yourself, your colleagues at work and your family members protected from COVID-19. Watch this short animation and ...

The uncertainty and all the unknowns of Covid-19 and the pandemic and the uncertainty and unknown that the current situation causes in our lives can leave us feeling powerless. We may look at health professionals and think that what they’re doing is so much more important than what we can do from our home, under the stay-at-home orders many of us are complying with (please!). And yes, they are indeed superheroes.

But we’re also all superheroes. You’ve seen it often in the past few weeks, staying home is the best way to slow the spread of the virus and in order to give our health systems and health professionals the opportunity to be more prepared at handling the surge in demand that is coming. So be a hero. Don’t go out unless absolutely necessary.

Since we’re all superheroes, we also all have superpowers, qualities that make us unique in this world. Now more than ever, we need to tap into these superpowers and apply them to the circumstances we’re facing. For many of us, these circumstances may be different than usual because of the stay-at-home orders.

For example, our Director, Caroline-Anne Coulombe, has the superpower of staying socially connected with people all over the world on a consistent basis, through various technological means. She’s practiced this superpower for 15 years, having lived in 6 different countries in 3 continents since 2005, and travelling almost constantly during that period. She’s purposefully applying this superpower while being hunkered down in Quebec City to check in with friends and colleagues across the planet.

What are your superpowers? And how can you apply them to your current situation? We’d love to hear from you.

Le CACT specialises in supporting organizations and individuals to develop “change agility”, the ability to quickly adapt, shift and pivot with changing circumstances, technology, deadlines, teams, etc. The current Covid-19 pandemic is showing us contrasting examples of what happens when we lack change agility, and succumb to the biological reflex of fear instead of overcoming it when change is needed, and what happens when we acknowledge the reflex and rapidly move beyond it to more smoothly adapt to new circumstances.

One key concept during this pandemic has been the importance of creating physical space between people in order to avoid or slow the spread of Covid-19. In epidemiological terms, this has been called “social distancing”. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve seen many instances of people having difficulty coping with the idea and resisting the reality of not being able to congregate as usual. We’ve noticed that many people seem to confuse social connection with physical contact, thinking that they won’t be able to be social if they stay at home or are not in close physical proximity to others. This thinking and the associated beliefs and behaviours are having a significant impact on mental and emotional health of those people.

This was acknowledged by the World Health Organization who, this past week, showed its change agility by listening to how people felt and changing some terminology. WHO is now referring to “social distancing” as “physical distance”. While it urges people to create physical distance between each other, it strongly encourages everyone to nurture social connection through means other than physical gatherings and touching.

From our perspective, connection and social connection are a way of being, they are emotional states, they are not ruled by or dependant on physical proximity or geography. Yes, at some point physical contact and proximity are extremely important. But the two are not essential in order for connection to exist and be nurtured.

During the pandemic, let’s practice change agility too and take advantage of the physical distance to nurture social connections. We can all be caring and kind, through actions and words that don’t require physical contact.

If we do, we will have a different and more positive experience during this period of uncertainty. We can also establish a whole new world on the other side of the pandemic.

PS- Thanks to our colleagues at WHO for alerting us to this change in terminology!

Happy International Women's Day! Le CACT is proud to collaborate closely with strong and compassionate business women who are redefining the leadership of women in society, in the business world, and in the United Nations. We are acutely aware, as shared in the attached article, that this is a work in progress. Yet our vision is unshakable and we remain committed to effecting change through kindness, gratitude and love.

Report reveals nearly 90 per cent of all people have ‘a deeply ingrained bias’ against women Despite decades of progress in closing the gender equality gap, close to nine out of 10 men and women around the world, hold some sort of bias against women, according to new findings published on Thursday from the UN Development Programmme (UNDP).

Healthy work environments are key to employee fulfillment and productivity. One of the ways to keep our work environments healthy is by protecting ourselves, of course, but if we’re an employer, it’s also by protecting the physical health of our colleagues and others who may visit our workplace. This is true every day, but it is particularly important during times of uncertainty, like we’re experiencing now. Here is a summary of the World Health Organization’s guidance on workplace safety in relation to the novel coronavirus currently circulating across the planet (Covid-19).
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/getting-workplace-ready-for-covid-19.pdf