Life and business coaches Lee Chambers and Alison Blackler, and nurse-turned hypnotherapist Colette Keenan, all offer their perspectives on work and life in post-pandemic 2023 in this special LBN report. Tony McDonough reports

It is now more than three years since COVID-19 turned the world upside down.

In late March 2020 the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced, in a television address to the nation, something that just weeks before would have seemed unthinkable. We were going into lockdown.

Not since the Second World War had society experienced this level of disruption. Employers across all business sectors, both public sector and private, faced huge logistical challenges to keep their organisations going.

Rules on person-to-person contact meant the working from home revolution, long talked about but only to that point tinkered with, was now being accelerated by a thousand percent. Meetings on Zoom or Teams became the norm.

Three years on it is tempting to think we are more or less back to normal. In some ways society feels normal. But the scale of the change in the workplace has been profound and many employers are still trying to figure out what the new normal is.

Some want their staff back in the offices. Others recognise the world has changed for good and are trying to navigate a new path. The challenges aren’t just logistical, they are also psychological.

‘Our people are our best asset’ has been an oft-used mantra in the corporate world. The reality of that philosophy is proving more difficult than theory.

LBN has spoken to three consultants to get a snapshot of where we are right now. Life and business coaches Lee Chambers and Alison Blackler, and nurse-turned hypnotherapist Colette Keenan, all offer their perspectives on work and life in 2023.

Lee Chambers

Lee is no stranger to dealing with crises. He started his working life as a graduate trainee in financial leadership and corporate finance for the Co-operative Group just eight months before the financial crash in 2008.

His scheme was cancelled but Lee quickly pivoted to turn a childhood passion for video games into a business called PhenomGames.

“I had grown up with the video game world and played a lot with my brothers when I was younger. I set up the business at a very good time and it grew quickly,” he said. However, fate then served Lee another curveball.

“My immune system collapsed in 2014,” he said “At this point I had never been to the hospital in my life. But in the space of a few days I went from perfectly healthy to being in a hospital bed unable to walk or feed myself or wash myself.

“I had already had mental health issues at university, got back from that and graduated. Then the redundancy and then the ill health. You can fall into a hole but only you can climb back out again.”

Lee’s son was aged just 18 months when his dad fell ill and Lee’s wife was six months pregnant with their second child. When the illness struck he was on the verge of taking a step back to spend more time with his family.

He added: “I was then suddenly in a place where not only could I not support my family, I couldn’t even support myself. At first I thought “why me, why now?’. I didn’t know what the future would hold.

“But after a few weeks I just realised I can’t change what has happened. Just have to accept that I am in a bad place and find out how I can get into a good place again.

“I wanted to be up on my feet again, play with my kids. My daughter was born a couple of months into my recovery and I wanted to get well again for her and walk when she could walk. That gave me a target.

“And a month before she started walking I was back up on my feet and was able to walk a mile unaided.”

During the period of recovery Lee was fortunate to have a degree of financial security through his business.

But he realised many people were not so lucky. He explained: “ I had this psychology degree but I had never really used it and I thought ‘how can I empower other people?’.”

So in February 2020 he founded Essentialise Workplace Wellbeing. Of course, just a few weeks later, the whole world was suddenly thrown into crisis mode when the COVID took hold.

Lee said: “Obviously I had no idea the panic was coming. Then I was hearing what was happening in other countries and I was like ‘it’s not going to happen here’. A month later we were locked down.

“I had three or four clients lined up. And three of the four said ‘sorry, our focus is now elsewhere’. But in some ways some adversity isn’t a bad thing. It gave me more time to see what I wanted to do.

“I then started supporting two NHS trusts and a number of charities. All free of charge. That built our credibility and reputation. We were up against it but it helped us become more efficient and helped us focus.

“Then companies started to become more interested in health. We hosted a radio show and supported special educational needs schools. We did a lot of stuff in the community.

“In the end we were getting some really good referrals.”

The business has gone from strength to strength and Lee is now working with a number of Liverpool-based clients.

Earlier this year his work received global recognition when he became the first Black British scientist to receive the US Kavli Fellowship from the National Academy of Sciences in the US, and the only Brit to receive it this year.

The National Academy of Sciences was founded by Abraham Lincoln with the aim of keeping science independent. It offers scientific knowledge to the world.

Earth year it invites 40 scientists under 45 and are leaders in their field. They have the potential to become the global leaders in science.

“I went to California to meet the other 39 recipients,” said Lee. “You then have that network of individuals and the idea is that you will connect and support each other and collaborate on research.”

During the pandemic Lee began to focus on mental health with a particular emphasis on the impact of people in marginalised or minority groups.

These included disabled people, people in ethnic minorities, those in lower socioeconomic groups, women, younger people and healthcare workers.

“They all saw a real spike in anxiety and depression disorders and other mental health challenges,” said Lee. “And it has not really been recognised that much. People just assume we have gone back to normal.

“It is important to remember that life was already becoming challenging for many people even before COVID. Critical services were stretched. We entered the pandemic in not a great shape.

“If we have another adverse global event can we ensure that our services are in a good place?

“For a lot of people they got through the pandemic and there were lots of other crises going on. There was the war in Ukraine, there was the change in the monarchy, cost of living crisis, political instability. And people would say ‘oh other people have got it worse’.

“But now people are starting to look at themselves internally and realising they have just been hanging on. And they are really really struggling.”

Working from home became a big phenomenon during the pandemic and now, in a post-pandemic world, it is still unclear how much WFH is here to stay.

Lee added: “I feel there are a lot of mixed messages from employers. The move to hybrid and flexible working means they have to find a balance of what works for the company and what works for your workforce.

“Different people across the workforce will have different preferences so that makes it quite a challenge to manage. Still a lot of organisations are still trying to find the best model.

“If you offer employees a degree of flexibility and then say you are going to take it away again it is a difficult message to deliver. From a communications perspective some employers are pretty poor way.

“So much of this is around how you communicate. Most employees are reasonable if you make it clear if you explain clearly why you are making particular decisions.

“You will still get some who challenge that. Flexibility is really important, especially for generation Z employees. They are coming into the workforce and in 10 years time there will be millions of them.

“If you look at the pilot of the four-day week. That has had a lot of positivity. Hybrid and remote working came in really quickly. A typical company would spend a year or two on that transition. A lot of employers had to do that in a week during the pandemic.

“We have not got it all worked out yet and we are probably looking at 2025 to 2026 before we get a much clearer picture of the working landscape.”

Lee believes there is a real split on the issue among younger workers. There are those who feel they are missing out due to not being surrounded by their peers and senior people.

“Being able to wheel your chair over to someone who is more experienced and ask ‘can you show me how this works?’,” he said.

“That’s more difficult when you are working remotely. You can’t just nudge someone quickly. You can’t pick up on things going on around you.

“There are a lot of long people saying I don’t have the same connectivity to my peers. Courses take care of formal learning but not the informal stuff.

“However, other young people are saying ‘if you want to come into the office that commute will take time and money – I need to see what value I get from that. They have grown up in a digital world anyway.

“But even they are asking ‘how can we build networks and relationships?’.”

Alison Blackler

Although it was a global crisis and a personal tragedy for millions of people, COVID has also been a catalyst for societal change.

And some of that change will turn out to be really positive, says Alison Blackler, Wirral-based mind and business coach.

Alison worked for the NHS for 25 years and now runs her consultancy business 2minds, which works with multiple corporate clients. She is also the author of two books.

“That realisation among employers that the wellbeing of their staff was important was a real revelation to some during the pandemic. And I was like ‘welcome to the party’. I have been banging on about this for years,” she said.

“I think at the beginning COVID when people started to work from home employers started to realise that the well-being of their staff was a priority. I ended up coaching a lot more people one-to-one for that reason.

“It became quite apparent to some of them that they didn’t really know how to deal with people. In many ways organisations were very task-focused.

“I do think a really positive thing to have come out of the pandemic was how many managers suddenly started to value their people more.”

However, Alison also acknowledges that one of the major legacies of COVID – working from home – has created challenges for employers that they are still trying to navigate.

She explained: “Some businesses are still trying to get their head around people working from home. Yes, they now have the physical infrastructure to do that but what is the impact on people?

“The attitude among some was there was no way they could have that many people working from home. There was a feeling they could not trust people to do their jobs. However, now they realise they can.

“There will always be some who may not do so well with that but, in the main, most people want to do a good job. They successfully juggled their families and home lives and still delivered.

“Now the challenge for companies is to figure out how they can manage their teams. Some are in the office all the time, some are half and half, and others work from home. How do they help their staff relate to each other and ensure that their wellbeing is being managed?

“What I always say to leaders is that you are dealing with such a diverse range of personalities in a team that trying to cater for them all is a challenge in itself.”

Team cohesion and cooperation is important, Alison added. How, she asks, can businesses still foster a culture of comradeship and collaboration when some are working from home all the time?

“Employers are trying to navigate that,” she said. “How do we still maintain the comradeship that does help peoples’ well-being? Some people don’t want to come back to the office. And that is the new norm – it is not going to change. That is the challenge.

“Some people are more productive at home working alone while others need people around them.

“And those that have become used to working from home may sometimes have to realise there will be some tasks or projects where they will have to come in and work with people.”

In some organisations, say Alison, a divide emerged between those, such as office workers who could easily work from home, and those in, for example, healthcare or production roles who did not have that option.

“Those who didn’t have the choice to work from home have, in some cases, looked at those who did and said ‘well you had it easy’,” she added.

This all comes back to employers and managers who need to recognise that a one-size-fits-all approach to managing people was no longer appropriate. And, Alison adds, managers also need to be aware of the impact on their own mental health.

She explains: “Your staff need somewhere to go if they feel stuck, and I don’t mean just a bolt-on counselling service. I’m talking about a manager who knows how to support someone, whether that be with workload or wellbeing.

“So much unnecessary stuff goes on in businesses because they just don’t have the infrastructure or the lines of communication to be able to have these conversations. And those managers may have felt quite vulnerable themselves.

“For some senior managers and leaders shouldering the responsibilities that have kept businesses going during COVID was exhausting.

“I think we will all be talking about the pandemic for the rest of our lives. People will tell stories. It is like a segment in time.

“As a general position there is a lot of negativity around on things such as the cost-of-living crisis, Brexit and other wider challenges. There are so many people in a place of fear. And my message is ‘let’s be part of the solution’.

“It is tough for a lot of people but we need to find a way to better look after ourselves and that will enable us to do more for each other. There is so much good stuff going on but it is too easy to focus on some of the negative stuff.

“The pandemic is so unique because it happened to everybody. Sometimes we can look in on awful things and empathise but we can step back because we are not in it. But everybody, no matter who we were, have felt the impact of that.”

Colette Keenan

In 25 years as a nurse and then senior manager in the NHS, Colette Keenan was well aware of the importance of mental health.

But it wasn’t until the COVID pandemic hit in early 2020 that Colette faced her own serious mental health challenges. And it was a factor in steering her career in a new direction and led her to train as a hypnotherapist.

“Many staff I was working with were redeployed into acute areas to deal with the COVID outbreak,” she explained. “That put more pressure on the remaining workforce and I suffered a period of stress and burnout myself. At one point I was trying to do the jobs of three people.

“It was following this that I decided to train as a hypnotherapist. For me it was the first time I had suffered any real mental health problems. As a result of the pressure I was under I actually went off work for a period of time.

“It made me realise how much stigma there still is around mental health. It is getting better and it’s one of the reasons I feel so passionate about what I do. I want to do my bit to help remove the stigma.”

From her early days working as a nurse on the children’s ward at Whiston Hospital to her shift into becoming a community practitioner and a school nurse, Colette quickly became acutely aware that mental health was so often an issue for her patients, even if it wasn’t the primary reason for seeing her.

She added: “When I was training as a nurse I was always aware of the impact of mental health and it became a real area of interest for me.

“I went on a mental health placement early in my training and I really took to it – getting into the therapeutic side of mental health.

“Supporting children, and their families, with their emotional health and well-being has been a thread that has run right through my career.

“Working in an area of high deprivation where there is a lack of opportunities I have seen the massive impact this can have on mental health and wellbeing.”

In the last few years Colette worked in a senior management role in Knowsley, one of the most deprived boroughs in the country. She was keen to pursue the mental health path. She took a counselling course but felt it wasn’t quite the right fit.

“Someone mentioned to me about going to see a hypnotherapist at work and how it had been so beneficial,” she said. “So I started to look into it and realised the opportunity to integrate it into my work.

“I trained for one weekend a month for 10 months in 2021 with the Clifton Hypnotherapy Training. I absolutely loved it. I have done a lot of training in my career and this was among the best I had ever done. It was amazing.”

In the last few months, Wirral-based Colette has launched her own venture – The Hope Hypnotherapy Clinic. Despite her significant healthcare knowledge and experience, she says she has learned so much more in the past couple of years.

“When I first started out in hypnotherapy I wasn’t aware of the wide range of issues it could support. I didn’t know enough about the brain and underlying causes of anxiety and depression. It is all about changing our thought processes.

“That is what solution-focused hypnotherapy is about – changing how we think about things. It gives us the tools to find the best mindset possible to deal with any situation better.

READ MORE: Mersey gym sees turnover almost treble to £1m

READ MORE: Hive offers ‘lifeline’ to Wirral youngsters

“It works on the premise that you don’t have to look back at your problems – it is not always helpful to look back. Looking forward you focus on the solution not the problem

“We all have the resources within ourselves to manage our own mental health and I help people to understand how their brain works. What we do is based on neuroscience. It is about how people can change their patterns of behaviour.

“How we think significantly affects how we feel and what we do as a result of that. I help my clients  to look for the positives and create new neural pathways – creating new habits to replace the old habits.”

COVID brought a once-in-generation public health challenge that Colette believes is still reverberating strongly. There is a perception the pandemic is now behind us but it continues to pose multiple challenges.

“Isolation was a big factor during COVID,” said Colette. “This led to increased levels of anxiety and stress. If you already have an anxiety issue and you are watching dramatic news reports then that is going to heighten your anxiety even more.

“People were isolated from their family and friends. It all added to feelings of panic. I saw this among children and young people. They were cut off from their friends and that social aspect is really important at that age.

“And if they were in home situations where there was domestic abuse then there was no escape. People could not get away from bad situations during lockdown.

“Our NHS staff weren’t going out to visit families as usual and so issues that would normally get picked up were being missed.

“Domestic abuse was always a huge issue for us. We would be able to pick up signs. We were having to speak to people on the phone so we weren’t observing directly the conditions people were living in.

“People weren’t going out to work, children weren’t going into school. Everyone was stuck in the house together for long periods and that created some very difficult situations.”

Colette has welcomed a Government policy of putting mental health teams into schools. She says research has shown incidences of anxiety, depression and PTSD have risen among children and young people.

“Even though the pandemic might be perceived to be over there are still many people stuck in that ‘fight or flight’ mindset,” she explained. “People are still in fear so there is still an impact.

“However, as was demonstrated during the pandemic, we possess strength and resilience. And with the right support we can access the power of our inner resources and deal with the challenges that life will throw at us.”