Are you familiar with the saying “people leave managers, not companies”? Having competitive salaries and perks is important, but money is not everything. Additionally, it is essential to think not only about keeping your employees in post but also about keeping them happy and engaged. This is where a coaching leadership style can help you reduce your turnover and increase long-term employee satisfaction and engagement.

What are the main reasons for people leaving their jobs?

42% of respondents to the IIP survey stated that having a bad boss was their primary reason for leaving their job.

According to a survey conducted by Investors in People (IPP), the main reasons for people leaving their jobs in 2023, after money, are management, being valued, career progression, and working hours. 

Check out our article about how poor managers can hurt your team morale.

Consider factors in your organisation that could be adversely affecting staff retention rates – these might not be immediately obvious but employee engagement survey results can be one way of identifying priorities or pinch-points for organisational culture.

What is a coaching leadership style?

A coaching leadership style is centred around people and their needs, and when done well, can help people feel more satisfied, engaged and connected to the organisation and the team.

This leadership approach aims to bring the best out in teams by guiding them through goals and challenges. The ultimate purpose is to develop people and create a continuous learning environment. In leadership terms, a coaching leader would also act often as a mentor or guide to individuals, Offering guidance and support when needed. 

Sir John Whitmore described it as “A coaching style of leadership requires that you connect at the human level, beyond the task and stop thinking that the leader is “the expert” who has to tell everyone the best way to do things. Coaching is based on trust, belief and non-judgement.” 

A coaching leadership style generates awareness and responsibility in people: 

*The benefits of a coaching leadership style (source: Coaching for Performance book)

There are many skills we can work on in order to become better leaders. Fortunately, studies have shown that managers can improve their coaching skills in as little as 15 hours, provided they’re prepared to invest in how to learn to coach in the first place. 

For a coaching leadership style, there are two skills that are essential. The first one is the ability to ask great questions. Coaching is about self-reflection, and this is something only we can do, we cannot be told to change our behaviours, we need to go on this journey ourselves. 

Read more about “how to use questions to empower your team”  here.

The second skill is active listening. Actively listening to someone instead of just waiting to respond is one of the most effective ways to understand your employees but also to make them feel valued and appreciated. 

You can learn more about active listening here. 

How can you use a coaching leadership style to reduce employee turnover?

Using a coaching leadership style is about helping people with self-reflection and allowing them to come up with their own answers. By asking questions that seek to understand your team and actively listening to their view of the world, you can help them find their own purpose but also align it to the purpose of the organisation. 

You also need to help people recognise the value they bring to the organisation and encourage them to bring the best version of themselves to their job. When we are too involved in our day-to-day tasks this can be challenging, a classic case of not being able to see the wood for the trees. As a leader, you have the responsibility to help them see their positive impact on the organisation, which will help people feel more involved and valued. 

An important part of a coaching leadership style is recognising we don’t have all the answers. This knowledge will help you avoid micromanaging and instead encourage people to find the answers for themselves. This will in turn encourage autonomy and ownership. Allowing people to come up with their own ideas, projects and new ways of working, will encourage them to take responsibility. 

Ultimately, a leader/coach facilitates conversations: using meetings, team away days and 1-1s not only to discuss operational stuff but also to gain a deeper understanding of your team and enhance trust. Knowing your team and their individual needs can help you find the right flexibility and motivation that people need to feel happy and engaged with their jobs. 

Check our article about how to optimise performance reviews here.

The Optimist View…

Ultimately, we all want to feel valued, be part of a team, and feel we contribute to a bigger purpose. And this is where a coaching leadership style can help your organisation. 

It changes the dynamics from telling or dictating to a more collaborative and empowered environment where people feel safe to speak up and share their ideas, which will, no doubt, encourage them to take more responsibility. 

At Optimist Performance, we work with leaders to help them develop the necessary skills to become even better leaders. As we said before, no one has all the answers, and coaching is about continuous learning. This is what we are passionate about, helping leaders become their best selves to in turn get the most out of their teams and ensure their organisation goes from strength to strength.

If you want to take your and your team’s leadership skills to the next level, get in touch with us.

The post Can your leadership style help reduce employee turnover? – By Optimist Performance appeared first on Optimist Performance.

In my experience, performance reviews have fallen into something that it’s more of a tick-box exercise for the organisation and more often than not, they are too corporate-oriented. Even the phrase “performance review”  has for me, and I’m sure for other people, a negative connotation, which can create a cultural hangover within organisations and teams around the use of them. 

Is there a better way for performance reviews?

That said, I think there is a better way to carry out performance reviews and as Simon Sinek would say, it starts with WHY. Why do we do performance reviews and what are we trying to achieve? 

For me, performance reviews should be aligned with Individual Development Plans within organisations. They should be colleague-oriented. 

A great example would be sports where the performance reviews focus on individual development and the daily, weekly, and monthly, “process” of getting better, rather than the outcome of competition (winning/losing a game) and there is a lot that corporate organisations could learn from it. 

How can we make performance reviews more effective?

Start with company culture

Many of the challenges of performance reviews could be solved with a positive company culture. A culture that puts people at the centre of the organisation. 

Do we really understand what the person on the receiving end of the performance review wants or needs out of it? Do we know what the best way would be for them to do it? Even more important, are we falling into the trap of creating a process that only serves certain people? 

As a senior leader, I have experienced first-hand how ineffective processes are when they aren’t designed with you in mind. So, for me, it’s critical to reinvent performance reviews in a more inclusive and diverse way. Create processes with diversity in mind and for that, you need to include everyone in the creation process. 

Keep your company values in mind

When we talk about culture, we can’t forget about company values. What are the values that we want to live by and how are we living them day in and day out? 

I’ve seen many performance reviews where values were nowhere to be found. Keeping your company values in mind would ensure that the demonstration of these values is assessed in performance reviews, considering we’re looking at them as part of IDPs. 

Making them the norm, not the exception

Assuming that we can cover a person’s performance for the last 12 months in an hour session is unrealistic and it creates more problems than it solves. 

However, they can be a time for reflection and celebration (what has gone well, where can we keep growing).

The fundamental part in my opinion is to make performance reviews an ongoing organic process across the year. Create an environment where people feel safe to speak up, receive and give feedback and have challenging conversations more often, instead of holding up until the end of the year, where more often than not, it’s already too late. 

This is also linked to values, if you see someone whose behaviours don’t align with the company values, waiting till the end of the year is not doing that person or the organisation any favours. Creating an environment where you can give feedback on these things when they happen, allows the person to reflect and think back and hopefully, act differently in the future. 

Develop leadership skills

There are probably only a small number of people who were born great leaders. But this doesn’t mean we cannot learn to become one. Providing training that helps people develop their leadership skills is a crucial aspect of more effective performance reviews. 

Using a coaching leadership style for example can be a great way to make the most of performance reviews. Knowing what the right questions to ask are, being more empathetic, and improving your listening skills, are just some of the few things that great leaders should continuously work on. 

Use a holistic approach

Gathering authentic and objective feedback is always a challenge for executives and larger organisations. However, as leaders, we should always strive for the most real overview possible. 

To gain this understanding, I think it’s necessary to make performance reviews a 360 process where not only managers get to review their teams, but the teams get to review their managers too. 

Fortunately, there are many possibilities to do this, I have seen few options in the past that seem to work well. 

• The goldfish ball activity: where the whole team takes turns to sit in a chair in the centre of a circle and receive feedback (both positive and constructive) from every person in the team. 
• Gathering feedback from different avenues: as part of someone’s review, that person is tasked with gathering 5-10 feedbacks or reviews from different people they work with. This can even include clients or people in different teams that they have worked closely with. 

Using methods like these, allows leaders to gain a more realistic view of someone’s performance, and helps to avoid someone’s biases or opinions of the person being reviewed.

Create accountability for everyone

Performance reviews have a focus on accountability for the employee, but what about the organisation? 

Going back to my previous point about making them part of the individual development plan, we could use these reviews as an opportunity for every member of the team to communicate what they need from the organisation to continue their growth. 

For example, let’s say someone needs to improve their sales skills, how can the organisation contribute to it? Is it more training, or is it more help or support from a manager or a colleague? Whatever that is, the review process should be a two-way conversation where both the employee and the organisation are held accountable for the employee growth and therefore, the outcomes. 

Take action

I previously mentioned that performance reviews have been in my experience a tick-box exercise, and following up from the accountability point above, I think action is a must if we want to make performance reviews more effective within our organisations. 

Continuing with the previous example, what is the organisation doing after hearing what the employee needs? Taking action proves that you are a people-centred organisation and will impact your employees’ engagement and satisfaction, with in turn, will help retention. 

On the contrary, not taking action, will communicate to everyone in your organisation that what they say doesn’t matter, and disempower them to speak up in the future. And this is a really dangerous place to be. 

Be agile and adapt

Creating new processes is not easy, which is why being able to adapt is crucial to success. I believe there is a better way but I’m also aware of the challenges when creating something new. 

So, when thinking about how to change and make performance reviews more effective, we need to plan for reviewing the process and making changes until we get it right. And even then, times changes and we need to continuously adapt to new realities, so making sure we have an internal review process of the process is an important element towards success. 

File for divorce

It’s not uncommon to link performance reviews to promotions and pay rises, which first, re-directs the objective of the process and secondly, it creates a great deal of stress both for the team members and the leaders. 

But we can divorce the two. Having conversations about promotions and pay rises is essential, but we can find a more appropriate time for them. This will allow us to keep our reviews focused on individual development and growth. 

Be aware of feelings

Any situation or experience will generate an emotional response and it will be different for each of us. While it is impossible to prevent these emotional reactions, we can make sure we do our best to ensure they are positive ones. 

All my points above will hopefully make people see their performance reviews as something that is good for them, a way to grow and learn. In addition, another thing to consider is thinking beforehand about how are people feeling after the review. You want them to feel enthusiastic and engaged instead of drained and disengaged.

Download our guide to prepare for challenging conversations here. 

There is no one-size-fits-all to do this, but starting with the end in mind (what is it we want to achieve? How do we want people to feel?) is a good starting point. 

The Optimist View…

I think optimising performance reviews is possible, there is a better way, and there are many companies already trying to do better. For me, the fundamental part is to see a cultural shift in organisations where we put people at the centre and reinvent the wheel to create working environments that are inclusive of the real diversity of the world. 

This is a passion for me and one of the reasons I am passionate about my job at Optimist Performance. Our leadership programmes work with teams to develop their leadership skills to help them thrive in their organisations. Get in touch with us to learn more. 

The post 10 Ways to optimise performance reviews – By Charlotte Wathan appeared first on Optimist Performance.

Productivity is different for each individual, so even when we implement new ways of working with the best of intentions, we may wind up obstructing rather than helping.

Is it really about productivity or is it workload?

It doesn’t matter how many tactics, tips, or benefits people have to boost productivity if they are overworked. Even if the project is completed, which it usually is, two things happen: first, the quality of the job is not as good as it could be, and second, employees are working extra, which leads to dissatisfaction, stress, and burnout. Furthermore, continued overworking can lead to serious health problems. 

First and foremost, we must consider how much we are asking of people. We can’t always control how much work we have, and even when we can, there are a lot of other factors that might influence it. People quitting their jobs, vacations, sick days, and so on… we’re all sure to feel like we’ve got too much to do and not enough time to do it, at some point. However, as leaders, we must consider long-term situations, and while we may need to ask members of our team to put in extra effort on occasion, we must ensure that this does not become the norm.

Having clear processes and timings for how long each task takes can be a good place to start. We have a tendency to underestimate the amount of time it takes to complete particular tasks. So, while we may assume it will be a simple process, it could take hours. We also need to prioritise more and make sure that everyone understands what the individual, team, and organisation’s priorities are so that we can all work together to complete projects and assignments on time.

As leaders, we also need to keep thinking about how the team feels and what we can do about it. It’s not the same to ask your team for a push to meet a deadline when they know they will be appreciated and even compensated in the end. Giving people an extra day off for example. More importantly, we need to make sure people feel comfortable voicing concerns. Having a safe space where people can speak up if they feel overwhelmed or if they need extra support is not easy, but it’s definitely a must-have to ensure satisfaction and wellbeing. 

Flexibility: The Where, the When and the How

We mentioned above that productivity is something really personal, what works great for one person, may not necessarily work for another. So, how can leaders ensure that everyone takes ownership of their productivity? By being flexible.

The Where 

The debate around working from home or at the office doesn’t seem to have an end or a clear answer, and while some may misinterpret the motivations for working from home, the majority of individuals consider it as a tool to increase productivity.

However, it’s not only about home or office, there are many other options. Some people may think better in busy spaces while others may need the quiet. Some people may even like to work outside. Even more, the same person can prefer different workplaces depending on the type of work they are doing.

Working from home can be great when doing something that requires our full attention, but being in the office can work magic when it comes to creative tasks.

The When

The When can be even more overwhelming than the where. According to studies, productivity levels are different depending on personality (night owls, lurks, nappers, etc…). Obviously, allowing individuals to work whenever they want isn’t always realistic, and it’s certainly never easy. However, flexibility is becoming essential in order to retain people.

According to research, 40% of Brits believe working traditional hours in an office environment would hinder their performance. 

Consider the case of a creative writer who is extremely prolific late at night. Couldn’t we allow them to write at night and work fewer hours during the day if we’ve prioritised and committed to a deadline? Another great example is parents who prefer to spend time with their children in the afternoon and early evening hours, then work in the evening to maximise productivity and life (this is certainly what some of our team does).

A few weeks ago, on LinkedIn, there was an interesting survey asking if people work on weekends. The majority, predictably, say yes, but what’s interesting is that they do it because it’s a calm time when they don’t have to check emails or know they won’t be interrupted.

The How

Following the interruption point, there are numerous methods in which we may provide flexibility in the How. To decrease interruptions and boost productivity, several firms are introducing meeting-free days or attempting to reduce the number of meetings or emails. However, we must always keep in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all solution while developing new ways of working.

Did you know that a company loses 6.2 hours every day due to interruptions? Or that, even if the interruption is brief, it takes us 23 minutes or more to refocus?

Furthermore, interruptions aren’t always associated with meetings; they can be as simple as responding to a quick slack message or checking our emails to ensure we don’t miss anything important. Did you know that the average employee is interrupted every 10 minutes, or 56 times each day? On top of that, we need to consider all the notifications we receive daily from different sources. If we start summing everything up, it’s a wonder how we get anything done at all. 

Fortunately, there are things we all can do to reduce interruptions, but as leaders, we have the opportunity to provide even better solutions. Allowing people to schedule time for deep work where they are completely off the radar can be a great way to deal with interruptions. However, we need to be conscious of what that means for the team and the organisation because, in the end, it all comes down to trust and transparency. Are you, as a leader, willing to relinquish some control in order to increase productivity? Do you trust people enough to know that they are working to the best of their ability? Allowing flexibility is a matter of trust, without trust, there will never be real flexibility. 

The Optimist view…

The leader’s job is not to tell people how to do their job, but to create a safe and great environment where people can shine. As leaders, we must recognise that each individual is unique and we need to allow them to be themselves. Because it’s only when people are at their best, that they do their best work. 

Are you ready to give your team the freedom to be the best they can be? If you are, you will need to focus on trust, which, while not the easiest thing to do, is the greatest option in the long run.

At Optimist Performance, we help leaders and organisations to build a culture of trust where everyone can bring their best selves to work. Get in touch with us and learn more about how we can help your organisation. 

The post Are you allowing productivity within your team? – By Optimist Performance appeared first on Optimist Performance.

The single biggest decision you make in your job — bigger than all the rest — is who you name manager. When you name the wrong person manager, nothing fixes that bad decision. Not compensation, not benefits — nothing. – Gallup CEO, Jim Clifton. 

Furthermore, finding new talent is becoming more challenging, and employees are more likely to leave their jobs because they know there are more opportunities out there for them. In addition, high turnover is not only expensive, but it also takes a significant investment in time. Consider how much time your company spends between hiring and onboarding new employees.

So, while reviewing and identifying concerns with new hires may appear daunting, consider how much you’re losing by waiting until it’s too late.

Is the new hire hurting your team?

There is usually a follow-up process when recruiting a new employee; there is a probation period and, in most cases, a review. When it comes to new management, though, finding the truth might be difficult.

It’s likely that members of the team will be afraid to speak up and express their worries about their new boss. Furthermore, outcomes from performance and productivity can take a long time to appear, and by that time, it’s usually too late. The same is true for annual reviews.

Here’s where team morale becomes a strong indicator of management success. The impact of a poor manager on a team can be noticed sooner than the impact on productivity, allowing you to intervene before people start heading for the door.

Why is team morale essential?

Employee morale is defined as the attitude, satisfaction and overall outlook of employees during their association with an organization or a business. An employee that is satisfied and motivated at the workplace usually tend to have higher morale than their counterparts.

People will be more engaged, proactive, and eager to go above and beyond to ensure customer satisfaction if they feel safe, content, and happy in their jobs.

On the other hand, people who are nervous, anxious, or feel unsafe, will be less motivated to do their best work, ultimately impacting their performance. 

You can end up with an unmotivated team that only does the bare minimum or with no team at all. Either way, the effect of low morale among your employees will have a negative impact on the business.

The manager accounts for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement.

Furthermore, emotions are contagious, and negative emotions spread even faster. In addition, managers are responsible for at least 70% of the variation in employee engagement. Employees rely on their leaders for inspiration, motivation, and growth, thus a bad manager may quickly turn a high-performing team into a demotivated one.

How to measure team morale?

For small companies, it’d be easier to identify changes in attitude. However, it can be more difficult for big companies. 

Nonetheless, team morale is just as important for every business. So, here are some suggestions for determining whether your recruit is negatively impacting your team’s morale. 

• Use anonymous feedback. People who work under a bad boss will be hesitant to openly voice their opinion, which is why anonymity can help. Also, ensure everyone in the team that it is a safe space for them to talk and that there won’t be repercussions if they do so. 

• Ask other teams. The chances are that if your team has been in the company for a long time, they will talk to people in other departments about their problems, even if they don’t want to talk to HR or their boss’s boss. So, put your Sherlock hat on and ask other teams and departments.

• Pay attention to individuals actions and attitudes. When people are nervous, apprehensive, or demotivated, they act differently, and their environment alters as well. So, for a while, pay attention to small details and try to identify changes.

What to do if you identify low team morale?

If you identify a problem within the team, there are always solutions available. The essential part is to recognise the issue before it’s too late. 

It’s worth noting that joining a new team is always a challenge; for everyone in any position. It takes some time to adjust to new people and their working styles. It also takes time to build connections and for the team to work as a whole. So, before making any rash decisions, we should always try to find a solution within the team.

• Start with communication. Once you have identified a challenge, talk to the person involved. Explain how the team is feeling, why they are feeling that way and how they may move forward to avoid further harming team morale. Surely no one wants to hurt other people on purpose, so sometimes just being self-aware can help.

• Offer specialised training. According to research, 58% of managers said they didn’t receive any management training. It’s not unusual to promote people because they are doing well in their role, which is great because it gives individuals the opportunity to grow. However, being a successful leader implies a lot more than knowing how to do the job, it’s about leading a team, which involves different skills and abilities. So, it’s important to provide specific training opportunities for people to develop their leadership skills. We can help you with this, get in touch and learn more about our leadership development programmes and our executive coaching. 

The Optimist View…

Leaders must ensure not only that the job is completed, but also that people are happy while doing it. Leaders have a significant impact on the people they work with, which is why it’s critical that we analyse and reflect on a regular basis.

While it appears to be obvious what a leader must do in theory, putting it into reality is far more complex, and there is no shame in asking for help. It’s important to remember that we’re all still learning and making mistakes. However, it’s critical to ensure that the errors do not cause the team irreparable harm.

At Optimist Performance, we help individuals and teams to develop their leadership skills and become the best leader they can be. We work with individuals and teams through our leadership development programmes and executive coaching to help them reach their full potential. 

Get in touch with us to find out more about how we can assist your team and avoid losing your top players. 

The post Is your new hire hurting your team morale? – By Optimist Performance appeared first on Optimist Performance.

Our jobs are no longer solely a source of income; they are a source of social interaction, support and guidance. As a result, organisations need to create a vibrant and supportive community around themselves if they are to thrive and flourish. 

As humans, we require a sense of belonging. We are all, traditionally, part of different communities, involving our family and friends, our neighbourhood, our running or exercise buddies, and considering how much time we spend working, it only makes sense that organisations should also be a community for us. 

The benefits of building a community

M. Scott Peck defines community as “a way of being together with both individual authenticity and interpersonal harmony so that people become able to function with a collective energy even greater than the sum of their individual energies.”

Being part of a community positively impacts our mental and physical health. We become more engaged and accountable as a result of it, and we are more likely to act when we have shared beliefs, interests, and goals.

Additionally, being a part of a community involves feeling free to speak up, share our thoughts and ideas, and express our feelings and emotions. It’s a safe environment where we can be ourselves. 

It also improves collaboration and communication. It may even encourage healthy competition and knowledge sharing.

Furthermore, from a business standpoint, creating a community around our organisation helps to ensure employee engagement and satisfaction, which can positively impact employee turnover and productivity.

Building a community is about bringing people together

There are many reasons why individuals would like to go to the office, but we’re confident that sitting in front of a screen to perform a job that they could accomplish at home isn’t at the top of the list. Some people may be more productive in the office because there are fewer interruptions, but most of us go to the office for social interactions.

It’s about being together, the spontaneous conversations, the friendly jokes, the quick answers to questions, and even the banter about whatever is going on in our lives. We’re looking for a sense of belonging, the support of others, and the bonds formed by spending time together.

The aim of creating a sense of community around your company is to bring people together, and it will undoubtedly be a compelling incentive for people to go to the office. However, building a community must be about creating deeper connections wherever people work from. 

Tsedal Neeley says “to treat the office as a tool and not a destination is a mindset shift that’s going to be really helpful in using the space in a way that’s productive for all.”  

While working onsite is a terrific approach to develop a community around your company, it is far from the only option. People who work remotely, for whatever reason, should never be forgotten. They probably need their community even more.

4 basics when building a community

First of all, we must ask people and listen to what they want and need. Don’t waste your time thinking up great ideas just to discover that they aren’t what people truly wanted in the first place.

Also, be certain that your community is built on the foundations of trust and authenticity. As previously stated, a community is a safe place for people, thus it won’t operate unless it’s genuine.

Build your community around shared values, interests and goals. Just working in the same organisation doesn’t mean you all share the same values or interests; it doesn’t even mean you all have the same goals. 

Involve everyone in the process. A community is a place where everyone has a voice and it has a positive impact because everyone is involved in the process and has a sense of belonging. People want to be heard and seen. To ensure that everyone is moving forward with the same goals and values, everyone needs to feel confident in voicing their opinions and concerns.

Some tips to build your community

Focus on bringing people together. Whether it’s for an away day, a daily activity or an after-work time out. Even if you do it in person or online, the essential part is that you centre your efforts around getting people together for a social time that they can use to create deeper connections.

Promote shared learning. The ability to learn from colleagues is one benefit people often miss out on when working from home, so promote the benefits of time and space for shared learning. Pair a senior employee with a new colleague, or schedule some time for learning and knowledge sharing during the week.

The Optimist View

We value community because we understand that things are always better when they are shared. And while we don’t spend a lot of time together in the same room, we have made it our mission to become closer together by sharing our day to day activities beyond the realms of our jobs. We know what our values are and what we are trying to achieve, so we don’t lose sight of our goals and motivation. 

At Optimist Performance, we also help other companies to achieve their full potential, to build that community that will allow every individual to be their best.

We create unique experiences for you and your team. Also, our programmes focus on providing safe spaces and constructive environments in which people feel they can express themselves and voice their opinions. 

If you would like to know more about how we may be able to help, get in touch for a free consultation. We are always happy to hear from you. 

The post Our jobs as a source of community – By Optimist Performance appeared first on Optimist Performance.

Whether you are pursuing a new line of work or have been in the same company for many years, finding purpose outside of our day job is important to our personal growth and future success.

In hindsight, I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to turn two different passions of mine into my livelihood. Although injury cut my rugby career short, setting up Optimist Performance helped me shift focus and explore my passion for business and corporate strategy.

Employees deserve time every day they can call “theirs”.

However, it doesn’t matter whether you play a sport for a living or want to pursue a corporate career, or anything else for that matter, finding time in the day that you can call “yours” is vital to staying motivated in the long-term, while it also helps us to keep focus on what’s important in the present and that includes our work ethic.

It may come as no surprise that exercise is a fundamental ingredient to a healthy work-life balance. Studies continually show this link between personal health and community wealth. What’s also cited is the trend between productivity and happiness in countries whose populations lead highly active lifestyles and that is why I strongly believe that exercise is an underused resource in the evolution of the companies we work for.

According to a study published by the technology company Kisi, among the best countries for work-life balance throughout 2021, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark all advocate cultures built around family and downtime, while also ranking very high on productivity and work-life satisfaction. 

57% of all UK-based staff are considering a change of job

However, while some countries also value the option to work remotely, even before the pandemic, research shows that UK employees working from home have been putting in longer hours since the Covid-19 outbreak. Only last month, a poll carried out by Censuswide showed that close to three in five (57 per cent) of all UK-based staff, including those working from home, are suffering from low morale, while three-quarters of office-based workers are considering a change of job. 

This is a major concern for our economy because it means that, although our society is adapting to adversity, the mindset among managers, and therefore their employees, is still to navigate the coronavirus pandemic by increasing workloads rather than encouraging staff to take care of their personal wellbeing. This is leading to greater dissatisfaction among workers and is a threat to the continuity and productivity of our workforces, despite appearing to be working harder.

Exercise can play a clear and decisive role in rebuilding morale among workers

In order to reverse this trend, and boost work-life satisfaction among the UK population, exercise can play a clear and decisive role in rebuilding morale among workers. Whether this is part of a benefits scheme, by partnering with a local gym or sporting group, so to reduce the cost on the individual, managers who incorporate ironclad fitness and wellbeing hours into their corporate strategy serve themselves and their company well by helping to boost productivity on the “shop floor”, while also helping to reduce staff turnover and employee dissatisfaction. 

Building a culture that cares deeply about what employees do outside working hours can be achieved – though it won’t be possible while companies continue to put profit margins above the welfare and mental health of their employees, whose talents and expertise underpin the growth and success of the business.

Therefore, by giving individuals the time and tools to focus on their wellbeing, and encouraging them to lead more active lives outside their careers, they will be better placed to thrive professionally and make your company better for it. 

The post Why daily exercise should form part of your corporate strategy – By Ollie Phillips appeared first on Optimist Performance.

What’s Emotional Culture? Emotional Culture is defined as the shared affective values, norms, artefacts, and assumptions that govern which emotions people have and express at work and which ones they are better off suppressing.

Thankfully, most businesses recognise the value of having an emotional culture and taking steps to implement it.

According to research by HBR, emotional culture influences employee satisfaction, burnout, teamwork, and even hard measures such as financial performance and absenteeism.

It’s important to be clear about the difference between cognitive and emotional cultures. 

Cognitive culture is defined as the shared intellectual values, norms, artefacts, and assumptions that serve as a guide for the group to thrive. Cognitive culture sets the tone for how employees think and behave at work—for instance, how customer-focused, innovative, team-oriented, or competitive they are or should be.

Most of us refer to our cognitive culture as a company or organisational culture (read our article about organisational cultures here). While they are distinct, it is critical for any firm to pay attention to both and ensure they are in sync.

How to identify your emotional culture?

As we mentioned before, even if your firm doesn’t have an intentionally developed emotional culture, there is one.

“Every organisation has an emotional culture, even if it’s one of suppression.” — Sigal Barsade.

Finding out what the most frequent emotions are among your team or organisation’s members is critical.

You can achieve this in a variety of ways:

Ask and observe your employees. A fantastic place to start is listening to your employees and noticing their non-verbal cues and signs. Here are some questions you can start with:

• To what degree do other people in this organisation (or division or unit) display the following emotions?
• Which emotions should or shouldn’t people express in this organisation?
• Do they feel comfortable about sharing their emotions at work, or would they rather hold back?

You can also measure basic emotions because, according to research, we can have more than one emotional culture. 

Use Emotional Culture Surveys. These types of surveys measure experienced emotions, expected emotions and ideal or desirable levels of emotions. 

Collect data about people’s emotions on a daily basis. For example, before leaving, employees at Ubiquity Retirement + Savings press a button in the lobby to describe how they felt that day. 

Another example is, Bridgewater where employees can log any negative emotions they experience at work using a ‘pain button’ app on their iPads. They then have the opportunity for follow-up conversations with colleagues to address and resolve any negative emotions.    

There are also bracelets or apps that allow employees to communicate how they are feeling. 

These strategies can be challenging to use; it all relies on how you manage the data you collect. If you utilise the information against employees, you will no longer receive accurate information from them. The “positive” aspect is that it reveals a great deal about your emotional culture.

Find external help. You can use team activities, workshops, or learning programmes to find out how people are feeling and how to move forwards with your desired emotional culture. 

This is one of our areas of expertise; we work with companies facing some challenges and help them ensure that everyone in their team is working together. 

Get in touch with us and find out how we can help you. All our programmes are bespoke and tailored to your needs. 

Make use of games. This card deck created by riders&elephants includes questions for everyone in the organisation and worksheets to keep track of your findings and commitments.

How can you create and promote your emotional culture?

Now that you’ve discovered the most common emotions among your peers, you can move on to the next step. How can you create a positive emotional culture that benefits your company? 

Make sure you welcome emotions

This is possibly the most crucial part because welcoming emotions into the workplace is the first step toward creating a healthy emotional culture.

Many organisations have spent years attempting to avoid this. Fortunately, things are changing, and we now understand the importance of allowing individuals to be themselves at work.

Despite this, we still have a long way to go. According to research, 54% of employees don’t feel comfortable showing their true emotions around senior leadership. 

You can also train people to manage their emotions the same way you would train them to learn a new skill. The better we are able to manage our emotions, the easier it will be to implement the emotional culture you need for your company.

Think about your particular company

What type of emotions and behaviours are you trying to promote? What type of company are you in? What’s your industry? 

You may need to promote different emotions, depending on your industry. Healthcare professionals, for example, require a higher level of compassion than workers in other fields. 

Vail Resorts is a wonderful example of this, with “have fun” as one of its values:

HAVE FUN: Fun is our product – create fun, enjoy your work and share the contagious spirit.

In the hospitality sector, this is a fantastic emotion to encourage, and everyone is on board. 

However, before making any decisions, it’s important to observe your organisation; it may surprise you.

At Cisco, for example, they identified that joy was one of the strongest drivers of employee satisfaction and commitment at the company—and more of it was needed to keep up engagement.

Align your emotional and organisational culture 

Creating an emotional culture is not about saying to people how they should feel. It’s about putting in place the structures, environments, and procedures to enable them to feel that way. 

Can you imagine, using Vail Resorts as an example, what would happen if, after advocating having fun, they penalised individuals for having fun while working? It would not only be illogical, but it would also have a detrimental consequence.

Lead by example

From top to bottom, something has to change. And the first step towards change is to take the initiative and demonstrate that you are willing to do your part.

You can’t promote a culture of joy and then show up to work angry every day. Keep in mind also that emotions, especially negative ones, are highly contagious. (Read our article)

To use the same example, Rob Kats, Vail’s former CEO, took part in the ice bucket challenge, and many others in the company followed suit. They also share some fun moments on a daily basis, encouraging these emotions and behaviours.  

Find the right balance 

As previously said, it is the responsibility of the leader to lead by example. And there’s something to be said for “faking it till you make it,” or, in this case, “faking it until you feel it.”

We can model our emotions to some extent. If we smile even when we don’t feel like it, for example, we begin to feel a little happier. Acting out the feelings you want to foster is a good place to start.

On the other hand, you must use caution and avoid overdoing it. If you do, it can end up being overwhelming, leading to high levels of emotional labour, stress, and exhaustion. 

It can also convey a sense of deception. People can see right through our acts, and if they see we’re constantly faking our emotions, we’ll come across as unauthentic.

Pay attention to small details

If you want to promote fun, for example, use photographs of individuals laughing or team activities that encourage these feelings. Even having kleenex in common areas communicates that expressing emotions is acceptable.

Give time

Nothing changes from one day to the next, and when some emotions and behaviours are really integrated into your organisation, it can take time to change them. So, give yourself enough time to create these changes. You can implement recognition programmes to reinforce the emotions you aim to bring forward. 

The Optimist View…

Talking about expressing our emotions at work can seem scary or even unprofessional or unproductive. However, humans are emotional and constantly suppressing these emotions will negatively impact your team or organisation. 

The leaders of today and tomorrow need to be comfortable dealing with their own and other emotions. Whether you like it or not, emotions are part of us. So you can refuse to bring them to the surface and pay the consequences. Or you can openly talk about them and create an emotional culture that enables everyone in your organisation to flourish. 

At Optimist Performance, we help companies on the journey of bringing up their emotions and using them towards a common goal. 

Get in touch with us today and find out how we can help you. 

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