Today marks IBEC’s 8^th annual Workplace Wellbeing Day. It is a day for heightened awareness of the importance of wellbeing in the workplace and to encourage organisations to examine the needs of their team members and reflect on how to best support them. The past number of years have been a disruptive and tumultuous time, with the imposition of new ways of working unsettling previously established norms for work/life balance. As the nation continues to make strides towards a brighter future out of the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic, the long-lasting impact of such a momentous shared experience, both physical and psychological, remain for many. This, when combined with other individual stressors, can have a detrimental impact on the wellbeing of employees.

In Datapac, we have been proud employers for over forty years. In our efforts to continually strive for ever greater levels of excellence and innovation within the IT sphere we have always supported and strengthened our greatest and most important asset: our employees. As communities around the nation begin to emerge and re-build connections, we in Datapac further reinforce our commitment to ensuring a positive work/life balance for everyone in our extended team. To that end, we are pleased to announce the launce of our newest employee support benefit, the Datapac Community Contribution Initiative.

Datapac Community Contribution Initiative

Under our new Community Contribution Initiative, we are dedicated to supporting our employee’s wonderful contributions to their communities by providing each and every employee with an additional three paid days of leave per year to engage in volunteering activities with organisations of their choice. Over the span of our 40 years, Datapac has engaged with numerous charitable organisations, volunteering and providing support to many worthy causes. Because of our own lived experience, we know just how rewarding and self-actualising the act of giving back to the community can be. A person’s time is their most valuable asset, which is why we want to empower our people to spend their time in the most enriching way possible. Everyone has a cause that is near and dear to them, yet due to the constraints and pressures of modern life it can be difficult to find the time to fully contribute our efforts to them. Oftentimes, giving ourselves to the causes that resonate with us draws from elsewhere in our lives, be it monetarily through taking unpaid days leave or by missing out on quality time with our friends and family. Through our Community Contribution Initiative, we’re encouraging our employees to champion the causes that matter most to them, free of worry from these negative repercussions. In addition to positively impacting our communities and the broader society, simply giving people the option to spend their time doing something different from the norm can help solidify the healthy work/life balance that we promote.

Datapac Employee Assistance Programme

Our Community Contribution Initiative is just the latest addition to the benefits we offer to our employees to have a positive impact on their wellbeing, both within the context of the workplace and beyond. Last year, we launched our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), an extension and evolution of the support we provide to those that need it. Our goal was to enhance the best-in-class support available to our team, whenever and wherever it is needed. To that end, we partnered with Laya Healthcare to provide a free and confidential counselling support resource available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. With this support in place and readily available, our team members can access the expert counselling services they need to assist with their individual challenges. It has been tremendously gratifying to see the positive impact the EAP has had on the lives and wellbeing of our teams over the past year and we are committed to ensuring that it remains available going forward. As with all aspects of the support we provide to our team, we recognise that to truly help and support individuals we need to holistically support them as people, not just employees. This is why we have ensured support resources are also available to the family members of our team which can be accessed regardless of location, with multi-lingual support available.

Supporting the Person, not just the Employee

We proudly stand behind the excellent support provided through our more formal programmes, while recognising the fact that individual challenges and concerns may need additional assistance. We firmly hold fast to our ethos of helping people, not just employees and take every effort to support the full scope of human challenges and difficulties, be it bereavement, physical and mental health, housing and relocation concerns and financial or legal issues. We are the Datapac team, and as a team we work together to provide assistance to overcome adversity.

#WorkWell22

Karen O’Connor, General Manager, ICT Services and Solutions at Datapac