HR Magazine have today reported on a poll which suggests 1 in 10 workers are ‘coasting’ through their day. I don’t believe that employees are inherently lazy or workshy, so why is this happening and what can we do about it?
I think there are three important things to consider here. The first is that these people are likely to be underutilised and experiencing ‘rust out’ as a result, which is the opposite end of the pressure performance curve to burn out, but just as important. Work needs to be challenging and purposeful and should stretch people to use their skills, allowing them to feel the pleasure of accomplishment – which then needs to be recognised. That 72% of respondents who said they would be unhappy if they were no longer challenged by their role implies that many people are instinctively aware of this.
The second is that micro management is not the answer. Although some were more likely to coast if their workload was unmonitored, if employers offer the kind of ‘good’ work described above then people are likely to be more self-motivating. A more closely monitored workforce will just lead to a lack of trust from managers and resentment from employees, neither of which is good for productivity or creativity. Of course if there is a situation where one team member is coasting and leaving others with a heavier workload, this needs to be addressed for the well-being of the broader team.
Finally, senior leaders should paint the bigger picture, so individuals can put their effort (or lack of) into context. This is especially important in large teams and organisations, where people need to understand what they are contributing to and why.
This week is Mental Health Awareness Week and the theme for this year is altruism. The Mental Health Foundation’s campaign tagline ‘Doing good does you good’ reflects research findings that helping others is beneficial for both those who give and receive. They’ve produced a very interesting report which explains these principles in more detail, and you can download a free copy here.
The report also mentions their recent survey findings. One of the results was that 76% agreed that society had become more selfish and materialistic, and 67% thought people were less likely to be kind to strangers than 10 years ago. But is this really true or just a perception? I ask this because in the same survey, high volumes of people still report performing acts of kindness, so presumably there must be people on the receiving end! Either way, there’s a risk that if people believe others are less kind, they’ll be less likely to behave in that way themselves. We may not always like to think it, but many altruistic acts are based on the assumption that there will be others who will help us in return in times of need. A perceived increase in ‘selfishness’ could be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
My university spin off company, Robertson Cooper, are supporting Mental Health Awareness week by rewarding those who share their acts of kindness with us via Twitter and Facebook. So that’s more incentive than ever to keep up the good deeds! You can find out more here.
As a Manchester City supporter of over 35 years, I was overwhelmed by my emotions as we have finally, in my life time, won the top prize in English football, the Premier League Championship. My four, long suffering kids who have followed them up and down the Leagues, were also stunned into silence in the 95th minute of the game, as the team produced a Hollywood ending to 44 years of drought!
There are several aspects of this occasion that made me reflect, as an occupational psychologist, on the workplace more generally. First, how loyal people can be to something as amorphous as a football team. The banners across the grounds read ‘Loud, proud and loyal’, and they were right. You could see this when City were relegated down to the old 2nd Division and their season ticket sales actually increased. The fans (insert stakeholders) knew they needed the financial resources to survive and claw their way back up. That belief and loyalty unfortunately is missing in many businesses today, particularly at a time when they need commitment as never before, as our economy continues to suffer in a prolonged recession. How can we bottle the loyalty, belief and commitment we find in the community of football fans, and transfer this to the British workforce, to management and trade unions, to the individual employees who can make UK PLC recover?
Second, we hear the pundits and managers of other teams decrying that City did it because of the vast sums of money they spent on players. It is certainly true that money can buy you talent, but management and leadership are about bringing these players together with a common purpose and sense of family. What we saw on the final Sunday of the Premier League was the product of an outstanding manager, who had the good fortune of being able to buy some of the best players but who created a ‘team’, a group of players who played for the greater good. As Machiavelli wrote in The Prince about the difficulty of change management and leadership: “It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating change…the innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prospect under the new”.
A PwC report published today reveals that the financial services sector risks losing graduate talent if they fail to meet their new employees’ expectations – and these might not be what you’d predict. Corporate Social Responsibility is a big factor here, with over 60% saying they actively seek out employers whose values reflect their own (this rises to 76% in the insurance sector). At the same time, a difficult recruitment market means that around 50% report having made compromises when taking on their current role. Worryingly for their employers, this suggests there are a significant number who would be keen to leave when the opportunity arises.
For many of these job seekers CSR includes the commitment to employee well-being. A visible, effective well-being programme is a crucial component of what employers can offer their graduates to increase loyalty and improve performance, securing and nurturing the talent that will be needed in the future. Of course this isn’t just about physical health; total employee well-being requires everything from learning and development opportunities to flexible working and provision of a balanced workload.
I’m often asked how to overcome scepticism about the importance of employee well-being. It’s a difficult question to answer, often requiring a blended approach that adds up to major cultural change. But here we have a generation of new employees expecting that companies pay attention to this subject. By responding to their needs, organisations have the chance to introduce positive change that is actively supported by a growing number of their workforce and improve retention at the same time.
In other graduate news, today has also seen the launch of government backed recommendations to increase the opportunities for international work experience for students. The benefits for individuals are multiple…but home-grown graduate schemes will have to work even harder to make sure they are attractive enough for those whose horizons have been broadened.
I was reading an article yesterday about the importance of serving good staff meals in restaurants. Those interviewed believed that happy staff meant better food and service for the customer (but confessed that it was not as common as it should be).
This got me thinking about the relationship between food and work. At its worst, food is abandoned as a result of a heavy workload, with meals skipped altogether or sandwiches hastily consumed at desks. But in many organisations at least two meals a day are consumed on site, so it’s dangerous to ignore. Google is probably the most famous for providing free food for its office staff (giving rise to the also infamous ‘google stone’ that employees put on when they start!).
There are seemingly infinite providers of workplace fruit baskets, veg boxes and healthy snacks as encouraging healthy eating is obviously going to be good for individual health and can impact on sickness absence rates. And for some organisations it’s vital – if our police officers do become obliged to undergo annual fitness tests then healthy options are going to be a must. All staff canteens should provide good, affordable food and information on how to manage a balanced diet.
But what really struck me in the article was the bonding element of this experience. Many compared these meal times to family occasions – an opportunity for people to spend time together. The lack of hierarchy was important, everyone is included and afforded the same quality. Using this time to develop team spirit and share information across teams appears to be a very valuable part of working life. Although the food itself wouldn’t be so central in other industries, the informal nature of the ‘meeting’ is certainly something that could prove effective in many other settings. Based on personal experience, the breakfast I take into my university spin off company, Robertson Cooper, on a Friday, certainly seems to go down well!
This week we’ve seen uproar about privacy laws, civil liberties and to what extent the state should be able to monitor our private lives. Which has also left me wondering…how much say should our employers have over our personal decisions or beliefs? A look at just a handful of stories from the past few days leaves one in no doubt that there’s a cross over. From the response to George Galloway’s multiple marriages and David Cameron’s religious comments, to a teacher who was sacked for being a former sex worker, it’s clear that what you do outside of work will have an impact on how you’re perceived, and on whether you keep your job. What’s telling is that however you react to the stories mentioned, someone else will have had a contradictory opinion. So how are HR professionals supposed to navigate through this maze?
The difficulty of drawing the line between work life, home life and personal beliefs arises on a fairly regular basis. Memorable cases have included the right to wear religious symbols in the workplaces and the right to belong to the BNP. An even higher proportion of employees now risk being embroiled in these sorts of discussions as we add social media into the mix – how responsible should employees have to be about what they post online, even when the comments and images are not work related? Will we all have to move towards a squeaky clean image, as so many seem to demand from those in the more traditional ‘public’ eye?
I’m not talking here about gross misconduct, or the stories that just cry out for a little more common sense from the individual involved, but the things that hover around the blurred line. What for one person might be black and white, will be distinctly grey for another – making the distinction between right and wrong a difficult one. In addition, there is obviously a sliding scale of severity and the response will be context dependent – but who should decide what the terms are? Should they be based on an organisational, industry or national guidelines? This is a real challenge for those working in HR, equality and diversity, especially when, however the organisation responds, they run the risk of a brand damaging public back lash.
The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) has just published their 2nd European opinion poll on Occupational Safety and Health. Surveying over 35,000 workers in 36 European countries, the poll sought to establish the level of perceived job related stress in each country, and whether this was likely to increase over the next 5 years. The findings make grim reading as overall out of the 36 countries 77% of respondents said they thought job related stress would increase over the next 5 years, with only 7% saying they thought it was likely to decrease. If we look a little closer to home, 78% of UK respondents thought job related stress would increase, with 54% saying it would increase a great deal and only 4% saying they thought it would decrease, putting the UK in the top ten most stressed countries in Europe as perceived by employees. This isn’t altogether surprising though given the tough conditions currently being experienced by UK employees and the increasing challenge of having to ‘do more with less’.
There were some positives to come out of the survey though, which highlights that the UK is committed to moving health and well-being up the corporate agenda. Most notable was the fact that the UK came top of the European league table for having confidence in their supervisor/employer’s ability to deal with occupational health and safety issues. This is a great feat and reflects the hard work that is being done to promote the importance of health and well-being at work throughout the UK (the category that job related stress falls under).
But UK respondents obviously don’t feel confident that job related stress is something that is going to be alleviated over the coming years, so it is important not to lose the momentum that we have already created. And this is an organisational issue too; as this and other surveys show, stress-related problems at work are now one of the leading causes of sickness absence for UK employees. They can also lead to lower engagement and productivity, two things that are both vital if UK employers are to weather the storm of these tough economic conditions and re-gain competitive advantage. Unfortunately it is clear that the link between stress and competitive advantage doesn’t always resonate in the minds of employers; the UK were in the bottom 10 for thinking that tackling health and safety issues would make organisations more competitive.
This statistic illustrates the work that still needs to be done to persuade senior management that improving the health and well-being of employees is a strategy for growth, and not just for improving employee health. However, if we can convince employers that enhancing the engagement, well-being and resilience of employees, improving their work-life balance and reducing the excessive pressures they are facing will have a positive impact on the productivity and growth of the organisation, then we might be going some way towards reducing the effects of job related stress on both the organisation and individuals.
Apparently we’ll spend more than the average amount of time ‘cyberloafing’ at work this coming Monday. Why? Because we’re likely to have lost sleep as a result of the clocks changing.
Research has suggested that willpower is a limited resource and that when we’ve used it up, we’re more likely to take the path of least resistance (which in this case means roaming the net rather than focusing on the task in hand). And missing sleep means we haven’t ‘recharged’ our willpower, and will therefore find it more difficult to remain focused.
Researchers used the clock change phenomenon as a quasi experiment on a large group, and recording an increase in the number of entertainment related searches performed by workers. The controlled version of the experiment that followed demonstrated the same effect. Interestingly, this research also found that those with certain personality traits (like high conscientiousness) can overcome the effects of sleep loss to some extent.
They’re not the first to suggest this ‘willpower depletion’ theory. Roy F Baumeister has come to the same conclusion and suggests that willpower is like a ‘moral muscle’ which can get tired. According to his recent book, the flipside of this is that we can develop this ‘muscle’, or at least identify its affect on our behaviour and take steps to redress the balance – mimicking the impact of natural personality traits.
And willpower is not the only thing that can be developed to help us overcome our natural (and sometimes hindering) responses to challenging situations. Personal resilience is also a quality that will differ between individuals, but can be developed in all of us. If you’d like to get started with yours, you can click here to use the free i-resilience tool.
Reports have recently emerged that many carers of the elderly are not providing the kind of service they should for this vulnerable group, indeed, that there are numerous cases of lack of respect and even abuse. So, why is this happening?
In terms of paid carers, part of the problem stems from poor selection by local authorities or private providers. They don’t necessarily select carers on their compassion, social skills, patience or their emotional intelligence. In many cases, I suspect, they are just looking for people who are prepared to do the job, tolerating the unsocial hours and the hard physical side of the work. This is clearly not the appropriate criteria for what should be a caring and supportive role.
In addition, even if they are selected with these psychological criteria, the stressful nature of the job can erode the compassion, leading to disinterest or even burnout. It’s a physically and emotional challenging role that’s not always appreciated, whether done by relatives or paid carers and maintaining high standards of service is not easy. Those working as carers need support themselves, before their behaviour turns into inappropriate treatment of their charges.
Analysis of Department of Work and Pensions figures has shown that the number of benefits claims as a result of mental health problems has increased by 29% since May 2010. They don’t estimate how much of this is related to more demanding working environments and rising unemployment, but it is having an effect on workplace sickness absence.
Legal & General, who did the analysis, say this demonstrates the importance of flagging these issues quickly and then supporting people to return to, or stay in, work. This is true, but I think it also tells us that we can do better at taking preventative action. This reinforces a message that’s been around for a long time – the need to look after our mental health as much as physical.
Physical fitness is already taken seriously, with gym membership, walking clubs, healthy eating initiatives and smoking cessation programmes in full force in many organisations. But what about caring for employees’ mental health?
The good news in there’s probably more going on than you might think – any activity that improves the 6 Essentials of workplace well-being will be helping to improve psychological well-being. The increasing interest in resilience training also signals that companies are starting to understand the importance of equipping their employees with necessary behavioural skills to preserve their psychological health.
It can be a difficult subject to approach as the results of interventions are not as tangible as physical improvements. The video below shows Andy Gibson of Mindapples, explaining how their concept is designed to get people thinking about their mental health:
Posted by Cary Cooper 
