May 24, 2012
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.
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Posted by Cary Cooper
March 6, 2012
The Sunday Times’ ‘Best Companies to Work For’ lists are currently being published and I’d like to extend my congratulations for those who’ve made it on there.
But who are these lists really for? It’s great for the achievement of these companies to be recognised, it’s obviously good for their employer brand and it’s a helpful signpost for jobseekers. But what we really need to do with this information is use it as a starting point for sharing best practice. There’s still a way to go before all companies are convinced of the value of creating a good place to work. Even those who are already striving to improve in this area will benefit from the experience of those who are succeeding. And with budgets tight it’s more important than ever to pool experience in order to replicate success and avoid potential pitfalls.
Of course for best practice to be shared someone needs to be on the receiving end! One of our values at Robertson Cooper is being ‘open and connected’, and part of this means being on the alert for new ideas and open to exploring them. These might come from attending events, reading articles and increasingly from Twitter or LinkedIn. Day to day demands can mean finding time to explore these new ideas is difficult – we’ve all meant to do it, only for something more urgent to come up. But if you can get in to the habit of safeguarding a certain amount of time for these activities you’ll be amazed at how valuable it can be. And if you’re a leader or manager, make it clear that your door is open for internal suggestions, they’ll probably be some of the best you’ll receive.
The Business Well-Being Network is designed to share these examples of best practice among HR and well-being professionals, if you’d be willing to contribute your experience at an event, webinar or in writing, email sophie.armond@robertsoncooper.com.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Best Companies, best practice, Business Well-Being Network, LinkedIn, Sunday Times, twitter, values | Permalink
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
October 10, 2011
World Mental Health Day
Today is World Mental Health Day and the wealth of coverage around this is very encouraging. The inclusive nature of a global event means we can really get as many people as possible thinking about the subject – from individuals, to organisations, governments and NGOs. The success of this is demonstrated in a small way by the popularity of #worldmentalhealthday on Twitter!
The official theme this year is ‘Investing in mental health’, but I think there are actually three key strands that seem to stand out in discussion:
The first is directly linked to the official theme, and is concerned with ensuring there are adequate resources for treatment and care of mental health patients around the world. This will mean very different things in different contexts, for some countries it will be basic provision of trained mental health professionals, while for organisations it might mean reviewing the business case for support in this area.
The second is to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues. Although it’s something that will affect many of us at some point in life, lots of people are still unwilling to speak out and ask for help. The Ministry of Defence’s ‘Don’t bottle it up’ campaign is a great example of action in this area.
Finally there are some important considerations for individuals around taking a pro-active, preventative approach to mental health. We look after many other aspects of our health without even thinking about it; brushing our teeth, eating well and taking exercise are all preventative activities which ward off physical health problems. But there are very few people who do the same for their minds! I suspect this is due in part to a lack of understanding of what can be done in this area. Mindapples is one scheme that is raising awareness of this using its ‘5 a day for the mind’ model, while at Robertson Cooper we’ve made our i-resilience tool free, to try and encourage people to develop their personal resilience.
In keeping with the spirit of the day, please comment below if you have any other free resources or stories to share!
1 Comment | Guest Blog Spots, health, Personal Resilience, Well-being | Tagged: #worldmentalhealthday, Ben Moss, Don't bottle it up, i-resilience, mental health, Mindapples, Ministry of Defence, preventative, pro-active, Robertson Cooper, twitter, World Mental Health day | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
May 20, 2011
Careful what you write
Footballer Wayne Rooney made the front-page headlines again this week for a ‘threat’ he posted on Twitter. While his threat was obviously not going to be followed through, it does highlight that people in the spotlight need to be careful about what they say and how they say it – a lesson that I think also applies to the rest of us to some extent.
Responding to an abusive message, Rooney tweeted “I will put u asleep within 10 seconds”. Despite ending the message with “I’ll be waiting”, I’m pretty sure most people realised that he wasn’t actually going to meet this individual to fight. But I think the media reaction was blown out of proportion, and to clear things up, an official spokesperson for Rooney released a statement to say “there is no suggestion, nor is there any intention of a suggestion, of a real fight”.
Rooney has over half a million followers on Twitter who want to hear from him and interact with him in whatever way possible. He’d soon be labelled aloof or surly if he didn’t tweet, and while this particular response was certainly ill-advised, any comments he does make are scrutinised to the nth degree. In future, he’d be best off ignoring the negative comments he receives and focus on positive messages to his fans.
Remember this story when you’re engaged in debate using social media or email. While I doubt many of us would go to Rooney’s extremes, it is nigh on impossible to infer your tone-of-voice in what you write, and even seemingly harmless comments can be misinterpreted. What you consider to be a concise and direct response may be construed as rude and abrupt. This case also particularly underlines the need to avoid ‘flame mail’, which is when you express feelings in the heat of moment – on re-reading your sent items having taken time to consider the situation, you may shudder at your response. And as most of us don’t have an official spokesperson to apologise on our behalf, we need to avoid making these mistakes in the first place!
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: apologise, email, fight, flame mail, followers, footballer, social media, spokesperson, threat, twitter, Wayne Rooney | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
January 13, 2011
It’s obvious that communications technology has revolutionised the way we live and work. But sometimes such a proliferation of available information can make it difficult to pick out what’s most important. There is much written about this, and many examples, but I’ve chosen this one from the NY Times as a quick illustration:
Kord Campbell was the owner of an Internet start-up and he had overlooked an offer from a big firm wanting to buy his company – he eventually found the email 12 days later when sifting through his inbox. The article explained that Kord typically works at a desk with two computer screens filled with e-mail, instant messages, online chats, a Web browser and a task he is working on, such as writing computer code. Arguably, that’s technology at its best – Kord is working on so many things and being productive in so many ways. But, it’s also technology overload – Kord cannot sustain the effective management of all the ‘noise’ from that amount of data coming at him. Few people could.
So where is this increasing connectivity taking us and how should organisations approach it? Whatever their policy it will need to be multi-faceted as there are a number of new issues which require consideration. For example, many companies have historically (or still do) imposed strict internet policies which limit sites that would be deemed distracting. But with social networking via LinkedIn, twitter and facebook becoming an increasingly important part of business strategy the lines are being blurred. Will such bans prove either unsustainable or counter-productive if they continue? Ultimately this is tied up with bigger issues of freedom and accountability, the situation to strive for is one where employees have freedom of access, but levels of engagement and accountability are sufficient to ensure this freedom is not abused.
We also need to find ways to simultaneously encourage and support those employees that are less inclined to embrace and take advantage of new technology. For example, if some employees are already struggling with the differences between retweets, #HashTags, walls and discussion groups, they are likely to shun the ‘next’ generation of sites, whatever they may be. The risk then is that these people will retreat from the newer tools to only work with ‘tried and tested’ methods, such as face-to-face meetings and phone calls – even if these ways of working are not the most practical and effective way to stay connected with their clients and the wider industry. For example, when a face-to-face meeting is not essential, using a tool such as Skype is not only more convenient but can substantially reduce travel costs.
As for overload – yes it is obviously a risk, but only if it is not handled properly. And while the technology may be new, arguably at the heart of it is an issue that has always been present in the work place, namely prioritising workloads. While there are other things that can be done to help, for example encouraging an efficient ‘e-mail culture’ where the overuse Cc’ing (or Bcc’ing) is avoided, prioritisation is a human skill and we need to apply it whatever the tools and technology.
I’d love to hear how your organisation is handling this area, as well as your personal thoughts. Do you find these things distracting and difficult to negotiate? Or do you value the connectivity that modern communication platforms can provide?
References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
1 Comment | employee engagement, Overload | Tagged: accountability, communication, connectivity, data, distracting, email, Engagement, Facebook, freedom, hashtags, inbox, information, instant messaging, internet, Kord Campbell, LinkedIn, overload, prioritising, retweets, Skype, social networking, technology, twitter, web browser, workload | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
November 16, 2010
There’s a lot in the news about happiness at the moment – not least the government announcing its intention to start measuring our psychological and environmental well-being through the Office of National Statistics. This is part of the Prime Minister’s belief (correct in my view) that it’s now time to move beyond measuring the productivity of the nation simply in economic terms.
As many of you may know I am an avid fan of Twitter and I learn more about its power to capture the world’s thoughts, feelings and moods every day. The news of the government’s plans to measure well-being nationally got me thinking about the best way to go about that in an age of technology and social media – my first thought was Twitter. Many of you will know that you can use #tags to see trends on Twitter – indeed in many Universities it is becoming a vital research tool – a genuine addition to the ubiquitous survey!
As a lifelong publisher of research this is an area I’m keen to explore further – but as a starting point, drawn from the #tag ‘#makesmehappy’, here’s a small selection of what’s making people happy worldwide over the last two weeks:
- i could listen to christmas music all year round
- gusto excelente compañía, excelente partido, excelente música!! – Excellent company, excellent party, excellent music!!
- Museums, art fairs and poetry/music open mic nights
- Honesty
- Her laugh
- Polite children
- Avond lekker gewerkt, opdrachten afgerond, doorgestuurd en zelfs een nog een computerprobleem eigenhandig opgelost – A good evening’s work, rounded off tasks and even solved a computer problem personally
- I ♥it when the sun is… BIG, BRIGHT & BEAUTIFUL..!! Like right now!!
- Bout to go shopping
- I love this girl. (with link to picture of daughter)
- Driving home! My fave googoodolls song is on the radio! “What you feel is what you are and what you are is beautiful!”
- Sabado super tranquil – Super relaxing saturday
- Watching little kids smile and laugh
- Hey 206 amigos en Facebook!!!!
- Being in love
- I love long warm showers 
- Dinner at Ugo’s with my buds!
- Being kind to a store clerk and receiving it back
- Quemando incienso de sándalo en mi cuarto para purificar. – Burning sandalwood incense in my room to purify
- simplethings like laying down after a very long day
- ya no voy a tener a la misma maestra de ingles ! – I am not going to have the same English teacher!
- Volleyball, volleyball, volleyball.
- All you need is music
- oh this cuppa tea is so what I needed!
- mamãe trazendo pizza! – Mum bringing pizza!
- Ahhhhh gotta love it when thursday night football starts!
- looking at flights home
- Christmasy bottles of coca cola.
- Elvis on shuffle today! Presley not Costello!
- Sleep
- My kids when they aren’t driving me mad.
- Super long catch up call with my best friend!
- PERU PERU PERU I LOVE YOU … PERU PERU PERU I LOVE YOU
- Being able to put a smile on other peoples face
- Mumtaz curry and cheap Peroni makes me happy…
- I’m loving the November flip flop weather
- When a friend randomly calls you
- Knowing that I am a strong, educated black female
- My family and my hubby
- Aww. I love British people.
Well, I’m not going to argue with the last one! Sport, places, weather, family, food, music, feelings, human interaction, very little work….and no one mentioned money! It is important to measure these elements throughout the life course, how we feel about family, work, relationships, the community, etc., and once we do this we need to find ways to enhance these and other aspects of our well-being.
So maybe Twitter should be one of the ways we gather data on happiness – at a base level it’s capturing how the world constructs ‘well-being’ without having definitions imposed by models or questionnaires. But it can also provide quantitative data – for example, research by Bollen, Mao and Zeng at the University of Indiana at Bloomington has recently shown that data-mining on Twitter can significantly improve predictions of stock market movements (see www.arxiv.org). This is futuristic stuff and could only be used in conjunction with traditional ways of gathering opinions like surveys – but I would suggest that a government serious and progressive about reform would ignore these new sources of information about public ‘wants’ at their peril.
I’d love to hear your reaction to this piece of ‘ad hoc research’!!
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Bloomington, Bollen, Community, data, data-mining, economic, family, feelings, food, happiness, Mao, Office of National Statistics, ONS, Prime Minister, Productivity, reform, relationships, research, sport, stock market, twitter, University of Indiana, weather, Well-being, Zeng | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
February 19, 2010
The most common definition of presenteeism relates to the act of coming to work whilst ill and the impact that this has on a person’s level of productivity. However, in recent years many researchers, and indeed organisations, have asked the question – can the presenteeism construct be extended? It could be argued that any behaviour that reduces productivity at work can be called presenteeism. Procrastination or conducting personal business cost organisations millions of pounds in lost productivity. For example, a recent report claimed that social networking sites such as Twitter are costing UK businesses £1.38bn every year.
Employees are still working the long hours – perhaps to prove that they are valuable members of staff, or to help keep their jobs secure – but they are not producing anything extra for their organisations, and perversely may actually be costing them money.
This seems a persuasive argument and has led many companies to simply ban ‘personal business’ at work. Either by blocking certain websites, or by punishing such behaviour, these companies are taking steps to ensure that staff are engaging with the work they are being paid to do.
You can see their point, but I do think that this line of thinking can sometimes go too far. By banning personal business at work, organisations take away an employee’s sense of control, reduce their work-life balance and, as Jill Flint-Taylor alluded to in an earlier blog, damage their personal resilience. Overall, it’s hardly a recipe for a flexible, happy workplace. Although an organisation sets out to improve productivity, they may end up reducing employees’ levels of engagement and well-being.
This is not to say that employees should be allowed to spend all of their time dealing with personal issues and thereby wasting time at work. The important point is that there is a balance to strike here. What works in some organisations may not work in others. Some companies may feel that a more flexible and open approach will encourage innovation – for example, someone in a creative role may get a brilliant idea from Twitter that really benefits the business. On the other hand, call-centre companies may prefer that autonomy is kept to a minimum as the objective is to get through as many calls as possible without distractions. It’s horses for courses, but it has to be consciously managed.
Personal business at work need not simply be a ‘black hole’ for productivity, but trust is the critical factor. It is for this reason that I don’t see the construct of presenteeism being extended to include these behaviours any time soon. The challenge for organisations is to get the balance right between the autonomy and trust with employees on the one side and what’s right for the overall good of the business on the other. We need to actively managing both.
Twitter ‘costs businesses £1.4bn’ – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8325865.stm
3 Comments | Absenteeism, Attendance, employee engagement, Engagement, job satisfaction, Management, Motivation, presenteeism, Productivity, reward and recognition, Well-being | Tagged: Absenteeism, autonomy, cost of twitter, employee engagement, Engagement, Flexible Working, happiness, HR, improving well-being, internet cost to business, Management, morale, motivated, Motivation, personal business at work, Positive psychology, presenteeism, psychological well-being, Robertson Cooper, staff, staff retention, twitter, twitter cost to business, unproductive presenteeism, wasting time at work, Well-being, work-life balance, workforce sustainability | Permalink
Posted by Cary Cooper
