How are we dealing with pandemic fatigue, almost 2 years in?

"Nike closes offices for a week to give employees a mental health break"—the eye-catching article topping my LinkedIn timeline. Instantly I thought it was a wonderful idea, only to be interrupted 10 seconds later by several questions wrestling their way to the surface of my consciousness.

As with any other retail brand, Nike doesn't just operate with offices. With over a thousand brick-and-mortar stores worldwide (as of May 2021), do their sales staff get to catch the same break? Unfortunately not, particularly when their annual global revenue has been steadily rising and hit an all-time high this year.

Ground staff have been equally impacted, if not more so, by the flux of this pandemic. In Singapore alone, they've had to deal with several changes in regulations—from being out of work due to the "non-essential" nature of their job, to checking temperatures and SafeEntry passes of every individual.

Nike's effort to emphasise mental well-being in such unprecedented times deserves praise; however, ignoring the needs of ground staff speaks volumes about what kind of workers they are willing to go the extra mile for.

On the other hand, Microsoft added five "wellbeing days" to its paid time-off benefits globally in an attempt to help employees prioritise their mental health. This in turn allows ground staff to enjoy the same welfare, with a flexibility that should minimally impair daily operations at stores.

Such symptomatic solutions fail to address the root cause and are not sustainable in a world where working environments will be irrevocably different in time to come. It is easy to fall back on our old ways, but we now have a glaring responsibility to decide what we want the future to look like.

Several companies have been trialling four-day work weeks, with exciting success. Australian digital marketing agency Versa "banned" work on Wednesdays, reporting better efficiency and greater staff satisfaction. Of course, this doesn't work for everyone—some start-ups in the US reported their staff feeling less competitive and more stressed.

The key here is to offer flexibility and encourage staff to offer their own solutions while making company-wide systematic adjustments to support those changes. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to improving mental wellness for workers in these uncharted waters, but making your staff feel heard goes a long way to reaching that goal.