World Mental Health Day: How Digi-X Effectively Implemented a No-Meeting Week

The 10th of October 2021 marks the annual World Mental Health Day, an opportunity for everyone to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world, while taking steps and measures to support mental health. In conjunction with this, Digi-X recently introduced a No-Meeting Week for the very first time, with regular meetings — virtual or otherwise — scrapped in favour of shorter, concise communications over various platforms instead. 

This was an initiative that was designed to give team members the breathing space to catch up on work, as well as some personal breathing space after an extended period of time filled with daily video calls and virtual meetings. Naturally, this required some adjustments from the team at Digi-X, including those that work on the HR super app, altHR — but at the end of the day, No-Meeting Week was a resounding success, with feedback from the team largely positive. 

Naturally, you might be wondering how productivity was affected by five business days of (nearly) zero meetings, and if it’s worth it to implement something similar at your own company. Here are some key takeaways. ‍

Less meetings, less stress, but increased productivity 

This probably goes without saying, but meetings can be a source of stress and anxiety for many employees. As such, Ng explains that the no-meeting week enabled him to have more “me time”, although he admits that there were still some (external) virtual meetings that needed to be attended on his part. 

Bob, meanwhile, says that Digi-X’s No-Meeting Week afforded him more time to work and — crucially — focus. The reduced amount of interactions with colleagues, according to Bob, affected his mental health positively, a sentiment that is echoed by Mae, who says that she managed to get some breathing space to “reset”. 

This improvement to mental health did not come at a cost of productivity for the team. In fact, productivity appears to have increased for many, with Izza explaining that she was able to “cross off more things” on her daily checklist for work. Nic, meanwhile, says that the quiet time (as most of us work from home) enabled him to get into a deep focus mode — which further enabled him to produce his best work. ‍

But… how? 

This success, of course, was also down to pre-emptive steps that had already been taken by senior leadership at Digi-X prior to the pandemic, back in early 2020. According to Lee Kathryn, Head of Digi-X, the right digital tools — such as altHR — enabled the team to work effectively in a hybrid working model: ‍

“For us, the tools we had made it relatively easier to plan for the entire team to work from home, or even a hybrid model. We were well aware that working from home was very different — you didn’t have the convenience of having your colleagues right across the table.”‍

In essence, choosing the right communications and project management tools is pivotal in ensuring that the team runs smoothly and effectively — wherever they are. The team, for example, checks in to work everyday via altHR’s Check-in module, while important documents such as Employee Handbooks can be easily accessed via altHR’s Document module. 

And with the elimination of meetings during the No-Meeting Week, this digital-first approach became even more important to the business. Choosing the right tools for your business can be a different challenge for different types of businesses, but if there’s a single tool that every company needs in 2021/2022: it’s altHR. ‍

Any drawbacks? What were they?

Of course, the No-Meeting Week (or month) isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to mental health, or even productivity. According to Jeremy, video meetings are still important, particularly for WFH/Hybrid work models. While uninterrupted focus time is certainly a huge plus, the effectiveness of similar initiatives can, and will depend on different roles and job scopes. 

However, Jeremy opines that shortened meetings can help here — a realisation brought on by the No-Meeting Week.‍

“A No-Meeting Week forces you to reconsider these meetings, and whether it’s possible to align the team in other ways besides video calls.” ‍

Ultimately, the feedback from the team here at Digi-X was positive, and a large part of that success is down to having the right tools in place, and the right people on board to use them. To find out more about the former, keep reading this post. And to find out more about the latter, head over to our Resources page to access all our HR guides for free!