February 3, 2012
I’m afraid this blog may seem a little morbid for a Friday, but an article this week brought back to me how important getting the work-life balance right really is. A palliative nurse has written a book which talks about the regrets she has discussed with those nearing the end of their lives. Number two was ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’.
Of course people recognise that for most of us work is a necessary part of life – and several research projects have shown that it is better for our health than unemployment. In the moment we justify that we have to work, for financial security, or we assume that ‘ambitious’ should be a permanent state.
The alternative does not have to be no work at all, or working only enough to maintain a ‘minimum’ living standard. What we should be considering is not necessarily working less, but working better. This might mean flexible working to allow people to make parent’s evening, a special birthday, or just be home in time for dinner; offered within a culture where people feel able to take advantage. Unfortunately, many organisations and individuals are not open enough to new ways of working, or cannot see the wood for the trees when mid-career.
There’s a second strand to this as well, and that’s about creating ‘good work’, work that is purposeful and that promotes a sense of achievement. Yes, work might still get in the way of life, but if it also enriches us as individuals (as well as having positive knock on effects), it won’t feel so much like something that ‘got in the way’.
There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the relationship between happiness and wealth, this kind of evidence suggests that we need to work on getting our priorities straight before it’s too late.
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job satisfaction, Uncategorized, Work-life balance | Tagged: Flexible Working, good work, happiness, health, work-life balance, working better | 
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Posted by Cary Cooper
January 18, 2012
In today’s Telegraph , there was a worrying story about an employee who had allegedly been made redundant for disclosing to his employer that he was experiencing feelings of depression. In a world where technology and social media is the norm, it’s hardly surprising that the employee took to twitter to share his experience, along with his dismissal letter! Within hours he had received thousands of tweets supporting him and offering advice. This is obviously an unacceptable way to treat someone suffering from depression, but I’m not at all surprised that this scenario has come to light and the power of social media may very well surface similar stories in the coming weeks and months.
Given that around 1 in 6 people now suffer, or will in the future suffer, from a common mental illness (e.g. depression, anxiety and stress) it is astonishing that the stigma of mental ill health is still with us. As well as all the high profile cases we hear about, there are so many TV programmes, films and other media highlighting the problem and, indeed, its treatment, that it’s hard to imagine this episode could have occurred in our times. But unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Even though many more people experience mental health issues and access to support is much better than it was a decade ago, there is still a concern about taking people on who have had mental health problems – or dealing with them appropriately if they are already in employment. Sure, we still need more support for people with mental health conditions, but it is out there and there’s no excuse for this particular employer’s response.
And yet when it comes to physical health issues there seems to be much more sympathy. As Henry David Thoreau wrote in 1853: “how prompt we are to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our bodies; how slow to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our souls!” Given the troubled times we are all going through in this severe and long lasting economic crisis, we are going to see more people who are unable to cope and who succumb to mental health problems, albeit treatable conditions. It would be unacceptable, and unsustainable, to dismiss everyone who said they had a mental health issue – for example, what would have happened if the Lloyds Chief Executive had been treated this way when he admitted struggling with similar issues?! In order to reduce the stigma of mental health issues, employers need to be made aware of the help available to employees who may be suffering this way, as well as the importance of supporting their psychological well-being as part of the way they do business.
We need to invest more in this growing societal issue, in terms of identifying and treating it, or better still working to prevent it in the first place. Otherwise, as Mark Twain put it, “if you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got”. That is not good enough for the many thousands who are suffering or the society in which we all live.
1 Comment | health, Mental health, Redundancy | Tagged: Depression, health, mental illness, redundancy, Telegraph, twitter, unfair dismissal | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
May 5, 2011
Yesterday it was reported that sickness absence from work has declined for the first time in many years. This is something I have been expecting to see, and there will be a number of reasons behind the change. One will have been the introduction of ‘fit notes’, meaning GPs are not signing off as many people with sick notes as they did previously. Although the fit note system is not really fully functioning yet and we are still waiting for a full review of its effects, it will have had a small impact on these figures.
I suspect, however, that the most significant factor behind the decline in sickness absence is probably sickness presenteeism. This is when people go to work despite being unwell, for fear of losing their position – action that is to be expected at a time when job security is under threat. The problem is that although these people are turning up to work, they are not necessarily contributing any added value to the product or service they provide. Indeed, if they’re not able to focus sufficiently they may actually be doing more harm than good, not to mention risking the health of their colleagues.
Bearing this in mind it’s important to remember that the decline in absenteeism is not necessarily related to improved performance or productivity at work. We need people to not only be present, but to be motivated and contributing added value to UK Plc. Our real goal needs to be enhancing the skills and competencies of our management in the UK, in order to deliver faster growth and productivity, to engage the workforce, to minimize stressful work environments and to improve the quality of working life.
Leave a Comment » | Absenteeism, Engagement, Motivation, presenteeism | Tagged: Absenteeism, Fit notes, GPs, growth, health, insecurity, job security, Management, motivated, presenteeism, Productivity, quality of working life, sick notes, Sickness Absence, UK Plc | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
April 19, 2011
Two pieces of research grabbed my attention recently – from different continents yet drawing very similar conclusions. Broadly, the findings showed that those respondents who were ‘actively disengaged’ at work or had ‘poor quality’ jobs, reported lower levels of well-being than those who were unemployed.
Gallup’s research found that American workers who were ‘actively disengaged’ (emotionally disconnected from their work) evaluated their lives more poorly than those who were unemployed. The disengaged also reported that they were less likely than the unemployed to feel well-rested, treated with respect, to smile or laugh a lot, have learned something interesting, or experienced enjoyment the day before the survey.
The other piece of research was from the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University in Canberra. The researchers found that overall, unemployed respondents had poorer mental health than those who were employed (as we would expect). However, the mental health of those who were unemployed was about the same or better to those in the poorest quality jobs.
These findings are really important, especially with lots of activity in recent years about the health benefits of getting people back to work (such Dame Carol Black’s review, ‘Working for a healthier tomorrow’). However it’s not a brand new concept – Waddell and Burton (2006) were commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions to conduct a review of the scientific evidence to answer the question “is work good for your health and well-being?” Among their many findings, they concluded that “work is generally good for your health and well-being, provided you have ‘a good job’.”
Which invites the question, what exactly is ‘a good job’? The Australian research measured job quality through levels of control, demands and complexity, levels of job insecurity, and fairness of pay. From their review, Waddell and Burton provide a tentative list of characteristics of what distinguishes ‘good’ from ‘bad’ work:
• safety;
• fair pay;
• social gradients in health;
• job security;
• personal fulfilment and development; investing in human capital;
• accommodating, supportive & non-discriminatory;
• control/autonomy;
• job satisfaction;
• good communications.
These factors are broadly the same as those measured by tools such as the HSE Indicator and ASSET survey – tools designed to identify the sources of stress and low well-being. Critically, these are also mostly factors which managers and leaders have some influence over, so it’s vitally important that these issues are monitored and actions taken. Work can and should be beneficial for us, so we need to ensure that it’s ‘good work’!
1 Comment | employee engagement, health, Stress, Well-being | Tagged: ASSET, Australian National University, autonomy, Burton, Canberra, Centre for Mental Health Research, communication, control, Dame Carol Black, Department for Work and Pensions, disengaged, employed, fair pay, Gallup, good work, health, HSE, job satisfaction, job security, mental health, personal fulfilment, research, safety, Stress, unemployed, Waddell | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
June 25, 2010
The emergency budget that we received this week was, of course, widely anticipated and covered by the media. In this sense, the inevitable cuts were expected and few people will have been surprised by how far the government have gone. Of course, the full impact of 25% cuts to all government departments, except for health and international aid, are yet to be experienced – so it’s largely theoretical right now! It will only be when these cuts hit that we will feel the real impact in the short- and medium-term.
That said, the quicker we, the public, understand and can anticipate the implications of the cuts, the better for us psychologically – and for the large number of people working in the various government departments and public sector bodies. Pain of this sort has been experienced before in our recent history – during the various World Wars, during the depression, during the major industrial relations disputes of the 70s – but it has been a long time since ordinary people have experienced such a major jolt to their way of life. This will fundamentally affect our feelings of job and financial security, as well as our levels of happiness.
The good news, if there is any, is that the coalition government is also trying to find ways to stimulate the private sector. The hope is that it may be capable of taking on some of the fallout from the public sector provided that the switch from growing one to growing the other can happen fast enough. This is laudable but there will still be palpable stress, worry and insecurity in all reaches of society, particularly for those who are the most vulnerable.
There is a lot of uncertainty about this week (and not just in relation to England’s fate in the World Cup!). Not knowing what the future holds and whether the government has got it right can seem frightening. However, we’ve lived with uncertainty for the last two years and maybe when we come out on the other side of this we’ll understand what is really important in our society. I’m thinking about our families, our relationships and the communities we left on the shelf in the search for the almighty buck!
1 Comment | Community, economy, election, NHS, Private Sector, Public Sector, Stress, Well-being | Tagged: 25%, budget, coalition, communities, cuts, Depression, emergency budget, England, families, government, government departments, happiness, health, industrial, international aid, medium-term, Private Sector, Public Sector, relationships, security, short-term, Stress, uncertainty, World Cup, World Wars, worry | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
January 18, 2010
At the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology conference this week in Brighton, a study has reported that if you want a happier and healthier workforce you need to tell your boss what you think of him/her.
The positive effects of doing this are that managers can get direct feedback from their workforce which will help them develop and improve their management style. In addition, if done correctly, at the right time and in the right circumstances, a better relationship between boss and employee can be forged. Achieving these outcomes is not always easy though. Many firms employ 360 degree appraisal systems, but these are often infrequent and fail to include this kind of direct feedback. For a meaningful and constructive relationship to be formed between manager and employee it takes time, personal investment and a certain level of skill on both sides.
So how can we make sure that this interaction is a positive one? The difficulty of giving the boss negative feedback is that he/she might not want to hear it. There are managers who have strong needs for control, who want to maintain the barrier between them and their direct reports and who just aren’t ready to be given any negative feedback. In addition, there are many employees who are feeling so job insecure during this downturn that they would be reluctant to say anything negative to their boss for fear of job loss or damage to their promotion prospects. However, neither party in this situation is doing the right thing for the organisation – it’s critical that managers understand that it is their role to listen to how staff feel and that staff are willing to speak up.
Receiving negative feedback is never easy, but there are ways in which it can be done that will ensure that it is more effective and better received. For example, it must be done at a time and place when both parties are in the right frame of mind and not under business pressure. The purpose of the feedback and the process for delivering it should be discussed in advance so that both parties are clear about the context and ground rules. Finally, and most importantly, the feedback must be constructive rather than blaming or irrational – the onus is on the employee to have thought through why it is important that their manager hears this feedback. They need to have definite ideas about what will improve for staff and the business as a result of the manager changing his/her behaviour. One way of keeping the feedback concrete is to use specific examples of problem behaviours and situations that could be improved so that the changes required by the boss are tangible.
Getting this right is no mean feat, but the research shows that when this is done well it can improve the health and well-being of employees. So although it may be difficult, it is important for all managers to set the right tone for constructive feedback in their teams and organisations. When managers understand how they are perceived by their employees it’s good for everyone.
1 Comment | Leadership, Management, reward and recognition, Well-being | Tagged: 360 degree appraisal, boss, Brighton, British Psychological Society, conference, constructive, downturn, employee, feedback, health, management style, managers, negative feedback, relationship, Well-being, workforce | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
