Your people are not ok.
They are stuck in stress, stuck in isolation, stuck in loneliness, stuck in worry and they are not talking about it to you.
Only 49% of employees feel comfortable talking about mental health to their line managers. And the average cost of this per employee is £3,300 in the private sector and even higher in the public sector. *
How do I know your people are not ok? I know because they are my private coaching clients. As well as my clients, I have friends, family, past colleagues, peers, networking associates and many are saying the same – organisations still do not understand the true investment required to look after their employee's wellbeing.
I am told employees do not trust HR. They do not trust anonymised surveys about wellbeing. They believe it will be detrimental to their career progression to share their fears, and often even their hopes and dreams. They don’t want half a day of training on wellbeing, they don’t want a wellbeing portal or some 6 soulless sessions with a counsellor on the end of the phone. For many, they see a wellbeing ‘tick box’ exercise has been completed with little or no impact. They are despondent and choose not to speak up.
When you enrich the working environment (and let’s face it that’s not a fancy office with a receptionist that meets you on a skateboard anymore – yes, that’s a real thing) it is about enriching someone’s personal and professional life because the line between the two is most definitely blurred.
Covid and the shift to home working have created a huge problem for so many, in many ways. What is certain is when humans are faced with problems we use less of our rational brain, meaning we do not handle change well, struggle with making good decisions and lose our ability to maintain relationships and communicate effectively.
We are taught to regulate our emotions instead of using them as signals that we might need to stop and think.
What if you see your employees’ emotions as an opportunity rather than a challenge? I have an innate ability to sit with emotion, but I also have years of training meaning I know what to do with it, how to use it to great effect, how to allow someone to take their time with it and make positive lasting change.
Not only am I a trained counsellor and coach, but I also spent the last 10 years of my corporate career as a Unified Communications Specialist or in other words living and breathing everything required to create a ‘work from anywhere’ environment from the technology required to the culture that needs to be created.
Our company strapline was work is something you do, not somewhere you go. So, I get it, I really understand the transition of what has happened for both employers and employees over the past 18 months.
As an external coach, I create a truly confidential environment for your employees where trust and relationships are built. Coaching goes to the unknown to create something new. I describe wellbeing as feeling good and functioning well. This is always an outcome from coaching – the ability to feel good and function well.
With knowledge and understanding of ourselves comes capability and intention. This cannot be taught in a training session; it is deeply personal.
I often hear the incomplete stories clients tell themselves about situations. They revert to their experience of the world from a very young age and apply that, rather than the logic, knowledge and evidence of their adult experience.
There is a significant cost associated with employees who are not thriving, who have poor mental wellbeing. I also like to talk about the impact of great mental wellbeing - how exciting and fantastic would it be, if you, as an organisation had people who were thriving, day in, day out. It is possible.
External coaching enables an employee to go from struggling to thriving. Not once, but time and time again.
Amongst so much uncertainty, one thing for certain is, some of your people are not ok and your employee's wellbeing will not improve by chance.
Interested to hear more? I work with both organisations and private clients –book a call in my diary to talk more.
#wellbeingatwork #wellbeingcoach #wellbeingworkshop #corporatewellbeing #wellbeingworkshopsforemployees
#wellbeingcoach #hrdirector #employeewellbeingprogramme #corporatewellbeingprogramsuk #corporatementalhealth #employeewellbeing #employeewellbeingstrategy #wellbeingmatters #wellbeingintheworkplace #wellbeingstrategy #wellbeingforal l#hrnews #hrandwellbeing #wellbeingofstaff #wellbeingandresilience
*Mental health and employers | Refreshing the case for investment Deloitte. January 2020.
Comments