Mark was angry. His Department was restructured. Management said it was a logical change in response to new market trends. Mark saw it as he and his team being screwed.
Mark had been angry about this for 10 years. It ate away at him. He had resolved to ‘make life difficult’ for those managers. The Gallop Organisation would define Mark as ‘actively disengaged’.
Mary had a job as Executive Assistant. Within a few months she realised she worked for a tyrant.
She felt constantly badgered, told her work was inadequate, ‘not up to scratch’. She felt constantly questioned and micromanaged, told at the last minute about ‘urgent – drop everything’ projects.
Her confidence was down to zero. She would cry often at the end of each day. She would long for the weekend and Sunday nights she would sit dreading Monday mornings and having to go to work.
These are just two fictitious (based on real life experience) examples that are not so atypical in today’s workforce.
The Hidden Epidemic
In Australia today there is a hidden epidemic. It is an epidemic of upset, distress, anxiety and depression.
People are working harder, longer with more debt and financial pressure than their parents and maybe even their grandparents.
Employees today have been downsized, right-sized, centralized, diversified, process re-engineered, quality controlled, one minute managed and empowered to ‘work smarter not harder’, yet the effects are sitting on the workplace horizon like an iceberg waiting for the Titantic.
Just like the iceberg, above the water line, what is more visible are statistics like these:
- 200 people per month die from suicide in Australia
- Right now, over 1,000,000 Australians suffer from clinical depression
- 500,000 work days are lost due to depression each month
- 1,000,000 work days per month reduced productivity due to depression
Each and every one of these ‘statistics’ has a very human consequence. People in pain. People suffering. People impacting those around them, both at work and at home.
In many cases, people don’t know what to do about it. Either how to recognize it, or what action can be taken to prevent, intervene or treat these conditions.
Below the water line on the 'Epidemic Iceberg' are the less observable statistics including:
- 4 out of 5 people will be impacted by those suffering distress, anxiety, depression;
- 55% of employees are disengaged from their work and 19% are actively disengaged;
- 58% of people feel overworked;
- 30% often feel worthless;
- 36% have experienced bullying at work; and
- 68% experience pockets of negativity in their workplace.
The Science Behind The Statistics
- The Science of Positive Psychology
Dr Martin Seligman from the University of Pennsylvania has founded the Positive Psychology Centre to research, develop and promote the new science of Positive Psychology.
"Positive Psychology is founded on the belief that people want more than an end to suffering. People want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play. We have the opportunity to create workplaces that not only heal psychological damage and negativity but also build on strengths to enable people to achieve the best things in life." - Positive Psychology Center. University of Pennsylvania.
- The BCE Model
The BCE Model explains the dynamic and complex inter-relationships between:
B = Brain Fuels (the biochemistry of brain function and its relationship to mental health);
C = Cognition (how we think, what we think); and
E = Environment (our work, home relationships and environment and how it determines your levels of stress, anxiety, depression, happiness, optimism and productivity).
Training people in positive BCE strategies, brain fuel repletion and depletion prevention, not only increases positivity and resilience in your teams, but builds a stronger bridge between management and employee as staff realize management are interested in the ‘whole person’, not just the ‘work person’.
- Best Workplace Drivers
The University of Sydney and Business Council of Australia in their ‘Simply the Best’ report found 15 key drivers of a best performing organisation.
Factors included:
- The quality of working relationships
- Workplace leadership
- Having a say
- Clear values
- Being safe
- The built environment
- Recruitment
- Pay and conditions
- Getting feedback
- Autonomy and uniqueness
- A sense of ownership and identity
- Learning
- Passion
- Having fun
- Community connections
In addition, worldwide research from Hewitt Associates shows that 'Best Employers' clearly have the following 5 characteristics:
- Inspired leadership
- Unique company culture
- Focus on growing talent
- Strong sense of accountability
- Aligned HR practices and excellent execution
Hewitt’s worldwide 'Best Employer' survey provides a definitive benchmark for participating organisations to measure how effective they are in engaging the intellectual and emotional commitment of their employees.
Their results show clearly that when employees are intellectually and emotionally engaged in a positive way, revenue and profit results are 200% to 300% greater than when they are negatively engaged.
What To Do About It
Watch out for Corporate Psychopaths, Narcissists or the Simply Untrained
If we know there are 15 key drivers for high performance in organisations, why don’t we consciously construct these elements into our organisations?
One reason is that there are managers in workplaces who are more interested in their own development, career or ego than the organisation. Some psychologists call these people narcissists or even 'corporate psychopaths'.
Another reason is that managers with good intentions are just not trained in the key factors, or how to incorporate these elements into their overall strategic plans or execution of their plans.
Another reason is that financial or operational concerns outweigh any ‘soft, caring, tree-hugger’ stuff.
Three Key Strategies to Build Your Positive Workplace
Here are three key strategies we recommend you put in place.
- Workplace Diagnosis and Benchmarking
There is a saying in medicine – ‘prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.’ With this in mind it is critical to do workplace diagnostic to evaluate and benchmark key questions such as:
- How positive or negative is this workplace?
- How much are people suffering distress in this workplace?
- What are the causes of distress, anxiety or even depression in this workplace?
- Which parts of the organisation are most positive or toxic?
- What is going on in those parts of the organisation?
- Training and Education
Involving senior management and middle management first, then all staff in key topics including:
- How to create a positive workplace
- Understanding the BCE Model and its role in happiness and productivity
- The role of the team leader in managing positive mental health
- Positive Workplace Advocates and Construction Teams
Only after the diagnosis and education phases do you then establish teams of Positive Workplace Advocates and Construction Teams to focus on key projects that often include:
- Improving communication flow
- Conflict resolution skills
- Breaking down inter-departmental barriers
- Improving praise, recognition, reward structures
- Improving work/life balance skills
- Identifying unnecessary systemic causes of stress, distress and anxiety
Where to From Here? It’s not Fantasy Land– It’s a War for Talent.
As the demand to work longer and harder seems to increase, the probability of more distress, anxiety and depression will grow proportionally.
Organisations that act pro-actively to promote positive mental health and help those suffering from distress, anxiety and depression will move further ahead of their competitors.
The war for skills and talent will continue as the number of people available to enter the workforce declines.
'Best Employers' are positive workplaces who don’t rely on luck or chance. Positive workplaces consciously and scientifically construct places where people are compassionate, caring, collaborative and confident.
Positive workplaces use positive psychology – the education, development and constant practice of the positive emotions of optimism, confidence and trust.
Positive workplaces act quickly to deal with behaviour that creates employees like Mark and Mary.
A positive workplace is not a world of ‘them and us’ or ‘winners and wimps’. A positive workplace is a workplace where the goal is that ‘everyone is a winner.’
This is not Fantasy Land stuff.
'Best Employer' and 'Great Place to Work Institute' winners like Southwest Airlines, Flight Centre, Virgin Blue, Salesforce (who have won the Best Employer Australia and New Zealand for the past two consecutive years), Starbucks or ING Direct show you outperform the competition by 200% to 500% on revenue, profits and share growth measures when you focus on making the world of work a great place to be.
Positive workplaces are not only more healthy, happy places to work, they also work better... for everyone.
This positive mental health message is loud and clear as underlined by Hewitt’s Australia New Zealand Managing Director, Jon Williams, when he concluded, “Hewitt 'Best Employers' understand that a vital ingredient in the execution of their business strategy is the passion and commitment of their people. Highly effective leaders in these organisations work hard to connect employees to the business through effective communication, offer employees challenge and growth through their day-to-day work and future opportunities and build a differentiated high-performance culture that harnesses the power and passion of employees. In doing this, Hewitt 'Best Employers' create superior and sustainable results for the organisation, its customers and its people.”
My invitation and challenge to you is to become a Positive Workplace Advocate. Spread the ripple of positive mental health in your organisation today.
References:
www.beyondblue.org
Positive Workplace Foundation research with Australian Institute of Management in WA.
Dr. Martin Seligman: Authentic Happiness.
Perception Mapping www.perceptionmapping.com
Positive Workplace Foundation www.positiveworkplace.org
Hewitt Associates: What Makes a Best Employer - http://was7.hewitt.com/bestemployers/anz/
Andrew O’Keefe. The Boss – A Novel. - www.greatbosses.com/
Great Place to Work Institute - www.greatplacetowork.com
The Positive Workplace Foundation is a not for profit charity with the key mission of being advocates and educators that help facilitate “A workplace that fosters high job satisfaction, positive mental health and high productivity.”
The Positive Workplace not only develops positive people and positive outcomes, but promotes positive mental health and well being to its employees.
The Positive Workplace Foundation is like a radar warning of the impending dangers and costs, and pointing the way forward to a far healthier, safer, more enjoyable and productive future.
Key messages of the Positive Workplace Foundation are:
- Toxic workplaces are common
- Toxic workplaces are costly
- Toxic workplaces can be treated
- Toxic workplaces untreated are serious
Contact the Positive Workplace Foundation on 0412 945 402 or www.positiveworkplace.org