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Help and support

Social support is about helping, supporting and guiding each other. It also has a broader meaning and is about acceptance, trust and recognition. Read more here about social support and what you can do as an employee, a manager or a member of the health and safety group.

VIDEO - INSPIRATION FOR STAFF MEETING - watch this video and talk about how you can help and support each other in your shop or store (in Danish with English subtitles).

Understanding social support

The culture at the workplace affects the way we help and support each other.

How to help and support each other

Employees, management as well as the health and safety group can contribute to promoting help and support.

For employees For managers For health and safety groups
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For employees

For employees

Do you receive support? Do you give support?

Below are some questions that may inspire you to be supportive and be supported in your work:

  • Do you ask for help if you need it? If not, why is this difficult for you?
  • Have you asked your manager or a colleague for help or support? Did you receive it?
  • Are you good at listening to each other’s work problems? Do you help and support each other?
  • How many of you engage in the collegial community? Is anyone left out of?
  • Are reports about problems taken seriously and resolved by your manager?
  • Do you know the procedures for dealing with difficult customers, violence or threats of violence, shoplifting and robbery?

Here is what you can do

Below is inspiration that others have found useful.

Say when you need help

It can be difficult for others to know whether you need help. It’s therefore important that you say when you need help, even if you don’t know exactly what it is you need help with. Perhaps you just feel insecure about something.

Support and help your colleagues

You can support your colleagues just by being attentive. If a colleague is dealing with a difficult customer or task, you can offer to help. You can make yourself available and listen if a colleague comes to you with problems. In this situation, you should know how best to ask and listen.

Make the collegial community stronger

We all need to be part of a community. There will always be some people we trust more than others and some people we are more comfortable sharing problems and challenges with than others. However, you can promote the collegial community by being open and, for example, welcoming new colleagues, supporting social events and encouraging others to support such events as well.

You can also build a sense of community through simple actions such as saying good morning, smiling and asking, “Can I do anything to help you?” if a colleague looks as if they need help.

Being able to talk with colleagues about work also creates a sense of community. If you address a problem, you show that “we can talk about our problems here”. Acknowledgement and recognition also help build sense of community and collegiality.

For managers

Do you provide help and support?

Below are some questions that may inspire you to provide help and support for your employees:

  • Have any of your employees indicated that they wanted help from you or from colleagues? Did they get it?
  • Do your employees listen and support each other?
  • Are any employees left out of the collegial community?
  • Do you take reports about challenges or problems seriously? How do you contribute to a solution?
  • Do any of your employees find it difficult to cope with their tasks alone? Do they lack the necessary qualifications (professional or personal) to carry out their tasks? Or do they feel insecure about taking responsibility for their tasks?
  • Do any of your employees find it difficult to deal with rude customers? How do you help them to cope with this?
  • Do you have procedures for how employees should deal with violence or threats of violence, shoplifting and robbery?

Here is what you can do

Below is inspiration others have found useful. Find out what works best at your workplace:

Tools and links

Related pages on Det du mærker

For health and safety groups

The work of the health and safety group

The health and safety group does not have a clearly defined responsibility in ensuring social support for colleagues at the workplace.  Through the health and safety risk assessment (APV), the employee satisfaction survey, surveys of your psychosocial working conditions, or through some other channel, you may receive feedback from employees calling for more help and support from colleagues and management.

In such cases, you should consider addressing this topic in the health and safety group.

If there are positive reports, you can capitalise further on your good experiences. If there are negative reports, then rewards and recognition can be a way to improve things.

Here is what you can do

The quick method

If you want to address the subject of social support at a small workplace, a simple staff meeting may be a good place to start. The meeting will help you put your experiences and thoughts into words. At the end of the meeting, you can all assess whether there is a need to launch initiatives.

  • Watch the film about social support together.
  • Talk about the film: What is it like at our workplace?
  • What can we do to promote a culture in which we help and support each other?
Initiatives based on a health and safety risk assessment

You can conduct a health and safety risk assessment (APV) with special focus on the psychosocial working conditions and examine the factors that affect how you help and support each other in day-to-day work.

There are several ways to conduct a health and safety risk assessment:

  • The dialogue method by which you identify the problems at a staff meeting and discuss causes and solutions together.
  • The questionnaire method by which you collect employees’ opinions and experiences in writing, and then find causes and solutions either in the health and safety group or at a staff meeting.

Tools and links

Related pages on Det du mærker