Many leaders nowadays take into account the well-being of employees. However, we might be missing the first step; awareness. A poll conducted by Nuffield Health shows that two out of three people won’t share their mental health issues with their employer. 

It’s common practice now to have well-being and mental health policies, but looking at those numbers, we still need to consider if, as leaders, we’re creating a space where people feel comfortable and safe to share those issues and benefit from those policies. 

Read “What I have learned about stress and mental health since quitting rugby – By Ollie Phillips” here. 

Why will this disconnection cause issues?

Even when leaders have the best intentions, it’s impossible to solve an issue if we’re not aware of it. 

Due to the fast-paced environments we are accustomed to, it can be challenging for many people to address well-being issues. A culture of urgency, increasing workloads, and blurry boundaries can all contribute to our team not finding the space or not feeling comfortable to bring up their well-being.

This is why focusing on our team’s well-being is not only about policies, but, even more importantly, about reflecting on the culture and environment we’re creating for our teams. 

Why should leaders focus on well-being?

Well-being must be well maintained. It’s crucial for leaders to keep a healthy working environment where everyone can perform at their best for desired outcomes.

Failing to achieve this, can have huge implications for the team and the overall business. Our environments and workloads can directly link to stress and burnout. This, in turn, will influence your team’s performance, and can even make you lose great talent. 

However, leaders can be role models and demonstrate attributes of open and positive well-being for their employees. Starting with non-judgmental catch-ups, taking time and breaks for yourself, and reassuring employees about these healthy actions can all be successful ways to start. 

Through these good examples being set, employees will be encouraged to follow, allowing an increase in well-being advocacy and positivity.

How can we as leaders build a culture of well-being?

There are many ways of doing this, and for each leader and business, it would be different. However, we can start with some non-negotiables:

• Create a safe environment where people can openly talk about their well-being, their professional and personal lives, and how they might be impacting each other. Once people feel comfortable and safe to talk about an issue, we can start putting strategies and policies in place to help them get better. 
• Reflect on your culture. Cultures in the workplace are created by the behaviours we demonstrate day in and day out. Taking the time to reflect on what those behaviours are and what they are communicating to our teams is a great first step towards a healthier culture and workplace. 
• Allow flexibility and boundaries. These two can seem opposites, but they don’t have to be. Now more than ever, the lines between work and life are getting blurrier and blurrier. This is why it’s also more important now to create boundaries that help us achieve balance. This is an extremely hard task because it completely varies from person to person. Nonetheless, just having honest conversations about it can benefit everyone in our teams, including ourselves. 
• Lead by example. More important than what we say, it’s what we do. This is why as leaders, we need to lead by example. It’s not enough to tell your team to take time for themselves, if they don’t see you doing it, they will assume that it’s not okay. A great example of this is how we behave during holidays, are you still sending emails? If so, you might as well be telling your team that it’s not ok to truly disconnect while on holiday. (Read more about disconnecting while on holiday here). 

By creating balance and support, individuals can enter and stay in their optimal zone of functioning, which is a healthy and stable state of well-being.

Read “Why daily exercise should form part of your corporate strategy – By Ollie Phillips” here.

Optimist view:

At Optimist Performance, we believe that great individuals and teams start with well-being. This is why, in our leadership and coaching programmes, we not only focus on business issues but also consider how personal challenges could be impacting our professional lives. 

Learn more about our coaching programmes and book your free call to see if we are the right fit.

Are you ready to get the best out of each person on your team, including yourself? Then you need to start looking at the human behind the performance. Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can help you and your team become the best versions of yourselves.

The post Well-Being: The human behind the performance – By Optimist Performance appeared first on Optimist Performance.

The CIPD’s findings are a stark reminder of the negative impact people managers can have on employee mental well-being if they are not trained and supported to go about their management role in the right way.  As well as being damaging to employees and their families, a stressed workforce can result in poor performance, more sick days and higher staff turnover.

Healthy leadership starts at the top

Many businesses go through tense periods, but good people managers can help mitigate or even prevent negative effects on their employees. While a certain amount of stress, such as a realistic deadline, can have positive effects, too much can contribute to common mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. 

One in four people will experience issues with their mental health at some point in their lifetime, and with the CIPD listing it as the main cause of long-term absence, it should be a topic that can be openly discussed without judgement or stigma. But the survey highlights – and indeed warns – about the “defining influence” top table attitudes and behaviours can have on the mental wellbeing of employees. 

Sadly, the CIPD has found what it calls a “small but disappointing slip” in attention to employees’ mental and physical wellbeing within this year’s survey statistics in comparison with the first year of the pandemic. Seventy per cent of HR respondents agreed that employee wellbeing was on senior leaders’ agendas (down from 75 per cent last year) and 60 per cent said they believed that line managers have bought into the importance of well-being (67 per cent last year).

While the CIPD found that more organisations were taking steps to tackle unhealthy practices such as ‘presenteeism’ and ensuring people who are ill are discouraged from working, it also highlighted the need for these messages to come straight from the top.

The survey concluded: “Now, more than ever, we need leaders who are not afraid to show compassion, who consciously role-model healthy working practices and foster an environment where people feel safe to speak about health issues and seek help.”

Culture is crucial for health

Companies need to use both their eyes and their ears – being observant of stressful situations and taking time to listen to their staff can help diffuse the negative impact of situations as they arise. Creating a culture that resonates with employees, where people can be open about the mental and physical health issues that affect them, is crucial.

Health is a fact of life and employees are unable to perform their roles well without it. According to the CIPD’s research, the attitudes of senior leadership are “pivotal” to making sure the well-being of their employees is taken seriously and “embedded in day-to-day people management practices.”

The survey reports that the greater focus on employee health and well-being during the Covid pandemic has slipped down the priority list, but we’re only just beginning to see the side effects of two years of lockdowns and restrictions. The consequences of delayed routine health checks and the knock-on effects on treatment programmes are likely to result in poorer health outcomes in the years to come.

Many of us will struggle with our mental health at some point in our lives – but the good news is that there’s a lot we can do to improve it. Men’s Health Week 2022, took place last month organised by the Men’s Health Forum, which provides an independent voice for health and wellbeing for men and boys. 

“Time for your MOT”

One in five men will die before the age of 65, and the causes of this can be both physical and mental. In a year where we’re all trying to get back to normal, this year’s campaign is urging men to take “Time for your MOT.” 

It encourages men to make both their mental and physical health a priority by attending any routine health checks they might be invited to or by reaching out and seeking help for any symptoms they may be experiencing. Checklists are available on the site identifying when you might need to speak to your GP for additional help with both mental and physical health issues.

The Forum also reports that the number of early-stage cancer diagnoses has dropped during the lockdowns. It’s not because these conditions are getting rarer – it’s just that men aren’t visiting GPs as much as women for these conditions to be diagnosed.

Just as companies need to raise their game when it comes to employee well-being, it’s important not to drop the ball when it comes to your own health.

The post Poor managers are bad for your health – By Ollie Phillips appeared first on Optimist Performance.

Across the country and across all age groups we are now just beginning to experience some other nasty side effects of the Covid pandemic. Our connections to other people, our community and our colleagues have been limited over the past two years, but these aspects of social life are fundamental to both physical and mental health. As the pandemic ebbs away, we’re now faced with tackling another significant public health issue – an epidemic of loneliness.

Earlier this month, Mental Health Awareness Week shone a light on loneliness, to bring it out of the shadows. UK charity The Marmalade Trust, the only global charity dedicated to reducing the stigma of loneliness, will also be encouraging people to talk about their experiences during Loneliness Awareness Week, a campaign which runs from June 13-17, 2022.

Being alone vs Being lonely

Loneliness means different things to different people. You can be happy while being alone but be lonely while surrounded by people. The psychological distress occurs when a person perceives their social relationships to be unfulfilling and lower in quantity and quality than they’d like them to be. 

Most of us feel lonely at some point – it’s a normal part of life. The pandemic has resulted in seismic shifts in our working lives. Employees have had to quickly adapt to remote-working which saw them spending their working time in front of screens.

The traditional office set-up has been a hub for knowledge transfer and social cohesion for decades. It provides opportunities to celebrate your success as a team or go directly to someone for guidance when you need help. People are brought together through meetings, and birthday cakes with some of the best ideas often formulated through moments of serendipity; those chance conversations that take place when you are waiting for the office kettle to boil.

It’s important for companies to sit up and take notice of the loneliness epidemic when considering new models of working as loneliness can have serious effects on employees’ mental health, sapping feelings of self-worth, confidence and belonging. 

The Mental Health Foundation explored the complexities of loneliness during Mental Health Awareness Week. Its reports found that many people still struggle to talk about how it impacts our mental health and the feelings of shame that can accompany it. It also found that being connected to other people in a meaningful way helps us feel valued. Being part of a team can be fundamental to protecting our mental health. 

As we move towards the new normal, the workplace is set to play a pivotal role in building back communities. It is vital for employees that they feel welcome and valued within their workplace and for employers to listen and acknowledge that new ways of working will come with anxieties as well as ambitions.

If you’re feeling lonely, or just fancy a chat then please reach out. Or if you want to learn more about the work we are doing at Optimist Performance, take a look here.

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