Fresh year, fresh faces, fresh ideas.

Off the back of the Inside Quest Simon Sinek interview that’s making its way around the internet (worth your time if you haven’t seen it yet), combined with the new year and all the promise it holds, there is an ongoing opportunity for a business to take a look at itself and see what’s possible. 

We have the foundation to build great things - a blank space for future creations

Based on ThinkHowe data from Australian employers - we can tell you the following:

• Disengaged employees occur at all ages
• Disengaged employees have a higher risk of injury and sick leave
• Resilience education is ranked highly as an area to address within the workplace
• Meaningful communication in all formats (written, electronic, spoken) is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate, thus gaps within the workplace are expanding

None of these things are revolutionary news to those who are seeking to solve the recurrent issues within their workplace. More and more data is being discussed by researchers like Simon, who drill down into why the current landscape has these psycho-social ‘potholes’.  Business currently exists in a time where evidence based research tells us that creating an engaged work culture founded on strong leadership leads to increased productivity.  There are endless research papers on burn-out, engagement, resilience, mental health, ROI metrics, accountability, leadership, management strategies, empowerment, etc etc (I know this, I've spent a lot of time in the databases of several universities). The research is there. The challenge is in being able to step up and collectively work on it. For a company to access sustained opportunities for engagement with the employees getting to the root of the issue to address how it's manifesting within the business is really step one.  This is a big step, it means acknowledging that things could be done differently, potentially better, and that this hasn't been addressed previously. Before growth there must be vulnerability, uncertainty, and a strong desire to truly see what the current situation is.    

Step one:
Start with your people.

From an objective and evidence based view, finding out what values are held by the employees and how they see them being expressed in their work life is a nice starting point. Moving on to how they see the company's values being demonstrated through actions internally and externally is another nice insight, potentially leading to new ideas, which may present as an opportunity for how the business can re-commence or continue to foster the relationship between the employee and business.  These are some qualitative questions that are just as important as the quantitative data that makes up the bottom line. By matching the the company’s values and linking them back to the individual need to feel like a contributor, there is an opportunity to support and facilitate personal values into something greater through policy and procedural expectations within a business line. These key points highlight the beginnings of a longer and deeper conversation can be difficult or challenging to initiate. 

Step two:
ThinkHowe

Sustainable change to build better workplaces is why we exist. It is our ‘why’. Through gathering specific data and asking the right questions in the right format, we support employers to see things in a new way to create innovation that is sustainable.  

How does this magic happen you may ask? 

ThinkHowe - creating bridges between knowledge and action

Step three: 
An Age Impact Analysis. 

In a time where the filter of ‘age’ can produce a large gap between ‘accepted’ and anticipated social skills, communication styles, the meaning of ‘work’ to the individual; it is invaluable to pause and see what’s happening within your business and develop action points around it. 

How much impact can be had with the asking of questions and listening to the answers? That’s step one.  Step two is to implement them in a manner that is considered and effective. Step two can never happen in sustainable manner if step one isn’t addressed wholly and completely. 

Can I say it again?
Age Impact Analysis. 

Call/Email/InstagramDM/Facebook/LinkedIn/CarrierPigeon us - we are here to build better businesses. We do the hard stuff in a fun manner.
You’ll like it. Promise. 

Workforce Design... Chess, not checkers

Did you know:

• In 1970-1971 that 31% of Australia’s population was 15 years old or younger?
• In 2001 - 2002 that same age bracket dropped to 22% of the population. 

Conversely:

• 1970 -1971 the Australian population of those 65 and over = 8%
• In 2001 - 2002 those 65 and older it rose from 8% to 13%, predicted to hit 25% around 2050

Ageism in the workplace is a real concern in a number of manners. Baby boomers:

• Are less likely to go for new roles
• Less likely to change roles

Due to the ‘negative’ perception of age and an inherent fear of associated rejection, people are staying in roles they feel ‘stuck’ in.  This leads to a high level of disengagement within a workforce.  

Why the concern about changing roles or trying new positions?

Well, let’s be honest - though the thought of changing out of a role you feel stuck in can be exciting and exhilarating to think about, change is not everyone’s favourite thing to do. Add in a layer of fear and it’s no wonder that disengagement and wheel spinning (to the magical age of *65*) is occurring in all areas of industry.  

There are a some larger issues here - by 2040 we need to have a plan in place to keep the boomers engaged to have a sustainable workforce in Australia; the boomers have the increasinglyuseful skills of problem solving, collaboration skills, and people skills into the workplace; and take half as many sick days as the Gen Y population.  Interestingly, employers will be up for more training costs for Gen Y employees tend to move jobs twice as frequently when compared to theboomers.  

This should concern the Gen Y employee - studies we have conducted show that the ‘people skills’ that are already typically undervalued in a workplace will be walking out the door at the same time as work colleagues head of to seek new adventures with other employers.  That right there is a structural issue for any employer! 

Let’s layer the training costs and associated sense of instability with any one of the current health risks that the western lifestyle affords us - emotional eating, lack of exercise, increased stress, etc, etc. Throw in colleagues that don’t have the people skills to listen and understand to their workmates and you have a pressure cooker for economic hell. 

Our own research shows that to keep an older workforce sustainable, people want and need to be engaged in the work they do as well as feel like they have a sense of control of their own journey through their working day. 

Australia’s working culture needs education on what Ageism is, why it’s linked to workplace engagement, and if nothing else - start to think about what we want to create for the workplace that we will be stepping into when we hit our 60s.  Do you want to feel stuck, or work in a space that is open to all ideas, new and old? 

Where you can find us: 

2nd Annual National Ageing Workforce Forum, Wednesday 31st August 2016, Novotel Darling Harbour Sydney with Eugene McGarrell, General Manager Health and Community Engagement, Insurance and Care

AGEING WELL WORKSHOP - BRISBANE
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Northshore Harbour Cafe
http://thinkhowe.com/events/

Better is Possible

Having a brunch date with a friend of mine on the weekend, I was watching this 2-3 year old girl explore the area within the coffee shop while her parents sat and had breakfast with their friends and family. The was group large and keeping an eye on her in a contained space. She wasn’t disturbing anyone; she was checking out the boundaries of her world.  As it was a more ‘relaxed’ style place, there were low lounges and coffee tables interspersed with high benches and stools, and regular sized tables.  Needless to say, she collected herself on the furniture a few times.  Each time she bumped into a low piece of furniture, she would look straight to the group of people to figure out whether or not to cry, then run to them for comfort.  This was a real life demonstration of Bowlby’s (1969) Attachment Theory. I commented to my friend that this was happening, that the girl was demonstrating characteristics of a 'securely attached' child and what that can look like in adult relationships.  Clearly, I like to geek out on psychological theory whilst on brunch dates, always makes for interesting conversation (thank goodness for bacon!). 

Coffee and psychological theories anyone?

Attachment Theory pops into my mind a lot when thinking about our adult working relationships and our workplace.  This theme continues to bounce around in the background of my mind as I listen to and read material on how workplaces are altering, what research is being applied, and what manner.  The latest element that has crossed my awareness is the concept of ‘Psychological Safety’.  This concept isn’t new at all, Maslow (1943) had ‘Safety’ in the form of protection from the elements, security, order, freedom from fear, etc, listed as a basic need that a human must acquire to move up the pyramid towards self-actualisation.  If you are interested in this concept - check Simply Psychology for a succinct overview on different theories. I came across a discussion on Psychological Safety listening to a Podcast about working at Google (NPR Hidden Brain, episode 34: itunes), which then prompted my reading of a NY Times article on the same topic. The beautiful thing about Google is they are constantly analysing data, seeking what’s working and how to make it more accessible / replicable / efficient. Applicable science - that's how I like it. Let's run with what they are learning.  

On the back of looking at fear in the workplace, how that has an understandable impact on employee engagement, Psychological Safety is the next step. "What the hell is it and why do I care?" I’m going to quote Charles Duhigg directly here: “…to be fully present at work, to feel ‘‘psychologically safe,’’ we must know that we can be free enough, sometimes, to share the things that scare us without fear of recriminations. We must be able to talk about what is messy or sad, to have hard conversations with colleagues who are driving us crazy. We can’t be focused just on efficiency.” What did the Google research team find for their 3+ years of investigation? What is the underlying way of promoting this Psychological Safety within their workplace? 

Communication and Empathy. 

Hello? Communication? Empathy?
Are you there? 

How can anyone on the scale of ‘CEO to Front Line Employee’ feel psychologically secure if there is no pathway for effective communication and no demonstration of empathy? This links back with having a secure attachment style with your workplace, the freedom to try things, make errors, celebrate success, have confidence that your employer or the team you work within has got your back. Fear creates distress and erodes our attachment, our confidence, our trust, ultimately our ability to be present and productive at work.
You want the quantitative change? You have to put in the qualitative work. 
Identify, understand, and address structures under pressure.

Care for your people, they’ll care about your business.  

I’m speaking on Mental Health in the Workplace and The Ageing Workforce in Brisbane on 26 July 2016 through QBE Building Better Workplaces. Get in touch for information on this date and other national dates for the remainder of 2016. 

hayley@thinkhowe.com 
info@thinkhowe.com
www.thinkhowe.com
(keep an eye out for our new and exciting website - launch details coming soon!)

Investing in your People – Building better workplaces through building resilient and mentally healthy people

Building a better workplace. What exactly does that mean and what does that mean in the context of you and your workplace? The irony is, you can have the best workplace, however if you don’t have great people then all the ergonomic equipment under the sun won’t be helpful to you and your bottom line. So, in reality to build a better workplace you have to build better people.

The impact of an ageing workforce is not so much that people are getting older but that the flow of their work and lives are starting to impact the way that they work. This is the first time in our species history that we are having to mange an older workforce that needs to be available to manage older parents as well as having younger children. Life itself is creating unnecessary pressure on our ability to create a better workplace for people. As an employer you can be as flexible as you like but if the flexibility is not helpful to the person, then it is not useful.

When we feel distress, we are less mindful and are more likely to make errors leading to injury

A good model to start with is the bio-pscyho-social model. More simply put, is your workplace safe for people in a physical, mental and social way? Humans are made up of three essential parts 1. Our physical strength, 2. Our psychological strength, and 3. Our participation in our social environments (connections). At a practical level it is our ability to function physically (biologically), psychologically and socially in all domains of our life that creates the feelings of “wellbeing” but when we are out of balance we feel distress.

ENGAGED TEAMS INJURE LESS

Engaged people injure less. Having an engaged team means that people are more mindful and less distracted at work. That means we need to build wellbeing into the workplace more and more to make sure we have happy, healthy and balanced teams. We do that through building wellbeing in the teams and that leads to building a better workplace!

Wellbeing simply means BALANCE in all areas of life which includes work

How does it work?       

There are many ways to create a better workplace for people through creating balance.  However just as quickly as we create balance, if the focus lingers for too long in one area, we can become out of balance and that is when our people are at highest risk, through either physical  or psychological injury. For example, if a person is bullied at work, they can become socially disconnected from their work environment. If that happens you will soon start to see a negative impact on both their psychological and eventually their physical state.

Social disconnection can lead to an imbalance in the bio-psycho-social model for wellbeing

Another example is that of an older person. If their physical ability declines then this could affect their psychological state, as well as their ability to maintain healthy social interactions and participate in a team.

Three top tips

For ourselves and for the people we work with, we need to remember that:

1.    We are not our jobs.

2.   To be healthy we need to be balanced in all areas.

3.   Healthy people make a better workplace so build people to build your business.

So where do you start? How do you start building your people to make your business grow?

Where to start? Always at the beginning, in an upward motion

There are solutions and ThinkHowe are offering seminars in a capital city near you, supported by QBE. The ThinkHowe team will be presenting on topics of Better Health, Resilience, and Mental Health; Bullying and Harassment; and Managing an Ageing Workforce. The seminars are founded on evidence based information, mixed with employer based experience and provide the participants with a proactive point of view, no matter their role within the company.

Bookings can be made via the links for "Building Better Workplaces" workshops over at the QBE National Training Calendar

Just make sure to wear clothes you can move in, we are all about practicing what we preach.

Not with QBE and want to get involved in the ThinkHowe action?  Contact us through LinkedIn or the web of all things: www.thinkhowe.com 
Our job, as always, is to make the workplace somewhere you and the people you work with want to be!

Dr. Caroline Howe & Hayley Kearney

Work, Money and a bit of Love

By Hayley Michelle Kearney

Work. From my time within cubicle work spaces I know that Mondays were prime for getting things done, productivity from 8-10:30am. Maybe with a coffee walk placed in there somewhere for exercise and mental health purposes of course. I had to be as productive as possible Monday and Tuesday to avoid the 'Friday 5pm and still at my desk' situation. Plus, there are budgets to meet to keep myself, my direct manager, my team, and my big boss happy. The long afternoons spent staring at a computer, answering phones, signing up for 12 hour days on occasion to get things done. By the time Friday rolls around, your brain is dribbling out your ears, you may be on a sugar high or be seeking one to get you through the afternoon, and starting to think about that first sip of (insert alcoholic beverage here). Through access to different industries in my career, I’ve witnessed the same kind of scenarios played out in different environments. Long days, internal and external pressure, dealing with peers/ managers/ customers/ etc, over the course of the working week then layered with an actual home life can start to show the day to day picture of why shows Australians spent an estimated A$8 billion on mental health related services in 2013-14, which is approximately $344 per person (released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare).

This kind of blatant data gets me thinking and makes me a little mad. There is clearly an issue happening out there in the ether of the world and it seems too large to comprehend or find a place to start. The other day I had a social conversation with a gentleman who at one point in his career was GM of a mining site for a global company. We were talking about what it is that I do with my work days, which includes assisting companies in identifying the need and benefit of an engaged workforce. The first question he asked me was “how do you get anyone to pay for that?” said with a somewhat miffed tone. My reply was something to the effect of “with returns of $2.30 for every dollar spent, in association with an increase in an engaged workforce which in turn decreases your physical and psychological insurance compensation claims, the long term benefits are hard to ignore. This isn’t a once off deal, this is a long term situation where you invest in your people in a lot of different facets. There is a study out of Johnson and Johnson where they found a return of approximately US$6 on every dollar spent, saving approximately $250 million over 10 years. Just because it’s not happening in large industry here doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t.” To this he replied “Well, you sound like you’ve done your research..." Courtesy of The Harvard Business Review (2010), I have.

I have done so much reading which tells us the same thing, over and over. As a culture we have a bunch of things that are happening in our lives, some work related, some not. Does it matter? Work comes home with us in the form of physical fatigue, mental and emotional fatigue, stress, pain and sometimes injury. Humans and all their feelings show up at work, whether the employee is engaged and productive or disengaged and distracted is partly personal and partly the culture of the employer (Maslach, 2013). I have had many jobs in my time, one career with many jobs. You can feel how engaged the staff are when you walk into a workplace. Sometimes this shifts depending on the time of the tax year, budget dates, etc, however in an engaged environment there is laughter, a contented and productive silence, team camaraderie, a level of appreciation. You show up for your team and your friends at work. Things going on at home? You might lament about it to your work friends during a break, your employer may have the opportunity to offer your some flexitime, work from home, or simply to go and deal with what is happening because you give 110% every day normally. A conversation between the employee and their manager may allow for a plan to be formed to offer support through the situation. With options for flexibility, movement, personal and work related conversations and accountability for the process, some of the pressures may be alleviated and thus mental wellness and personal resilience may remain somewhat robust (Page, 2014). I would show up for a work place like that.

The flip side to this comes from another conversation I had with a self-proclaimed ‘uneducated man’ (his words due to his lack of university education, I find him to be a very insightful individual). He caught me in the middle of reading how much money is being spent and lost in the world of mental health in Australia, which I proceeded to educate him on in a slightly manic manner. “...And I quote: “$11 billion every year, largely due to absenteeism ($4.7 billion) and reduced productivity ($6.1 billion) from unwell workers still attempting to work (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW))”. This enrages me. There are so many things that can be done. Large companies still need to see the dollar figures to justify it and here they are. Massive losses in decreased productivity documented and yet I still come across quotes from actual face to face interviews where health professionals within the industry still see wellness programs as ‘fluff and stuffing’. I’m fuming that this is still fricken happening when we can see the bottom line costs to health and pretty much humanity....” His response to my emotional outburst was as expected: “What would you do to change this, given this is how it is?”

#Milliondollarquestion. Well, a $4.7 billion question for business and industry specifically.

Where would I start? There are solutions and ThinkHowe are offering seminars in a capital city near you, supported by QBE. The ThinkHowe team will be presenting on topics of Better Health, Resilience, and Mental Health; Bullying and Harassment; and Managing an Ageing workforce. The seminars are founded on evidence based information, mixed with employer based experience and provide the participants with a proactive point of view, no matter their role within the company.

Bookings can be made via the links for "Building Better Workplaces" workshops over at the QBE National Training Calendar

Oh, and be sure to wear clothes you can move in, we are all about practicing what we preach.

Not with QBE and want to get involved in the ThinkHowe action?

Contact us through LinkedIn or the web of all things: www.thinkhowe.com