Uniquely, sport offers a release, a (mostly) safe place where our emotions, hopes and dreams can be expressed wholeheartedly and without fear of reproach. It enables us to put the doom and gloom of the economic situation and all the grim news stories to one side by directing our emotions towards both national pride and the thrill of winning. Well, that’s the idea! But where does it leave us when the people nominated to deliver the dream don’t turn up or just weren’t good enough in the first place? Should we now be expecting a period of national emotional deflation caused by the huge gap between what we hoped would happen and what actually did happen?

I think the fact that for most of us football, indeed all sport, is not ‘real life’ is our insurance against national depression when things go wrong. It’s precisely because we see sport as an escape from real life in the first place that the huge, tear-inducing disappointment when our country gets knocked out of the World Cup is actually quite ‘disposable’. Even the day after the Germany game people in offices and shops all over the country began to joke about England’s demise and carry on with their lives as the disappointment gradually receded into the background.

So sport, unlike so often in life, offers us a win-win: as fans it lifts us sky high and provides lifelong memories when we get the result we want, but when our teams fail we can move on from and rationalise the disappointment relatively easily. I’m not sure that this is exactly what he meant back in 1981, but when re-read in this light the famous words of the great Liverpool manager Bill Shankly still ring true…

“Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.”

But you don’t discover the truth by haranguing an individual to the point of exhaustion.  It is not in the interest of BP to keep the leak spewing oil, so this Committee were politically posturing because they felt they needed to be seen to name, blame and shame.  The feelings of Mr Hayward as an individual were irrelevant – this unfortunately highlighted a dark side of human beings when events aren’t in their control. It was very noticeable that one representative made this point and in doing so actually supported the CEO of BP, but after a recession he apologised for these ‘inappropriate’ comments and towed the party line again.

This happens in the workplace all the time – when a crisis event or circumstance arises that individuals feel they have no control over they tend to want to blame somebody, to project their frustrations outward.  But does this solve problems? Not really.  Indeed, it tends to create additional problems as in this case where we are now reaching a political hiatus in US-UK  relations, particularly at a time when the UK has put its proverbial ‘neck on the line’ for the US in Afghanistan.

The committee’s treatment of Tony Hayward is regrettable. We seem to have very short term memories in relation to the results of putting excessive pressure on people who find themselves in the firing line. It’s not so long ago that this happened in relation to David Kelly over WMD in Iraq.  Yes, naming and shaming might make politicians and the media feel better, but it doesn’t resolve problems and can damage individuals and institutions alike.  In the workplace, it’s important to keep this in mind, particularly as we are entering difficult economic times, where naming and blaming when things go wrong and the going gets tough is all too easy an option to take.

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

The key to the success or failure of the new ‘fit note’ scheme is the quality and effectiveness of a tripartite relationship – between the GP, the employee and the employer. Each has a responsibility and a part to play in making the new system work. Pressure points will occur when GPs fail to understand what’s possible in the workplace; when employers fail to be sufficiently supportive or flexible with returning staff; and if employees don’t really want to return to work and end up ‘playing’ the system. However, if all play their parts positively the new system has the right ethos and components to make a big difference. My hunch is that GPs are the ones who will need the most support because this way of seeing patients and their jobs will be completely new to them and many will be set in their ways after years of issuing sick notes on request.

However, it’s good to see that the government has thought about this aspect of the new system and is taking action to help GPs make the right judgements. The ‘options’ on the new form are a good idea because they will cause GPs to think actively about the advice they dispense regarding return to work. The ‘fit note’ represents a major paradigm shift in terms how we think about illness and work – any process that encourages the ‘operators’ of the system to consider and discuss a range of options for the patient and employer is a positive thing. The absence of an option for ‘occupational assessment’ is also to be welcomed as it places the emphasis firmly on getting people back to work, rather than further diagnosis that could prolong absence. More diagnostic tests may still be required, but they are not seen as a substitute for re-engagement with work – in this sense, the goal of the system is clear.

So the new scheme carries much promise, but in the end two factors that have always been key in absence management will be critical if this culture change is to be successful: trust and communication. All staff need to know the organisation’s expectations regarding attendance and return to work – and this includes the consequences of failing to meet them, plus the support that is available. It’s no good amending your policy, announcing the change and expecting staff and managers to work the rest out for themselves. You will have a head start if a culture of trust already exists to support the change – if not, it’s almost certainly an underlying area that needs development.

Finally, don’t  forget the strategic angle. Absence management processes are important, but they are no substitute for creating a business culture that is characterised by high levels of well-being and employee engagement. Over the long-term this is your insurance policy against high levels of absenteeism because if staff are happy and committed they will do their best to perform for the business and are unlikely to betray the trust you invest in them. When your staff actually want to return to work because they enjoy it absence management becomes a whole lot easier.

This post is adapted from a contribution that my university spin-off company, Robertson Cooper made to a People Management article on the subject: http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2010/02/employers-wary-of-new-fit-notes.htm

And it’s not just home-life – the disparity between knowing and doing is also there in the field of well-being at work. These days few would deny the benefits for staff and businesses, yet so many organisations never turn this knowledge into action. It stays firmly below efficiency savings and monthly targets on the priority list.

Lack of funding; not knowing where to start or where to get help; shortage of human resources with the appropriate skills and difficulty gaining stakeholder agreement and support are among the reasons I come across for not getting to grips with this aspect of working life. For those responsible for well-being in many organisations the task can seem overwhelming even when the decision has been made to address the topic. There are concrete things that need to be done to get into action, but these probably won’t work unless one important pre-requisite is in place.

Ultimately, like any New Year’s resolution, the person responsible and those above him/her have to really want to make the change. It’ll never work or be sustainable if it’s seen as just a tick box exercise in which it’s most important to be seen to be doing the right thing! The core theme that determines all resolutions is ‘readiness for change’ – it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about individuals or organisations: unless the key people involved are really ready and receptive it is unlikely to ‘stick’. The achievement of this state, itself, takes work.

All of the reports and guidelines that have been produced over the last couple of years provide great support to help organisations to get started with well-being – but they are not the whole story. The first item on your checklist, personal or otherwise, should be ‘Ensure we are ready to make the change’.

While the risk to patient safety is obviously the immediate concern, there is something else that this situation highlights. That is the importance of tailoring work improvement initiatives to the job role or sector they affect. The EWTD has a laudable aim – to protect employees from overload and consequently stress – but in this instance it’s not working. The intentions were good, as doctors were expected to perform better when working shorter shifts. But, in reality, the change has resulted in doctors being under pressure to work extra ‘hidden’ hours with the fear of being under-trained hanging over them.  The overall result is not likely to be positive for anyone’s well-being.

To be clear, no one’s saying we should ignore the hours that junior doctors work. In my view, this example shows the importance of working closely with those in the job when planning significant changes. Organisations run employee focus groups after a staff survey to create solutions / actions because they understand that those doing the job know what works best. It’s the same here – while reducing hours may be important generally, it’s perfectly feasible that there are broader, more important factors to be addressed in this instance. The fact is that when it comes to employee well-being there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution. Sticking to a fixed series of steps or a blanket prescription is not the way to optimise well-being.  We must make sure that interventions are appropriate and proportionate, while trying hard to anticipate both positive and negative outcomes. Most importantly, we should always involve those who will be affected.

You can read more about Doctors’ hours at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8302053.stm

The relationship between nutrition and our psychological health is, in fact, continually being studied but it is often not particularly visible to most of the population. The importance of eating well is the focus of many TV shows and news items, but usually it is the physical benefits that are emphasised.  Most of us know what we should eat and what we should try to avoid, but understand less about the psychological impact of food. But whose responsibility is it to find out about and source the right foods?  Is it solely down to the individual or are other parties involved?

Many large organisations provide healthy eating options and initiatives to promote healthy eating – this is great, but is it enough?  To what extent should employers be taking an interest in changing what is essentially an individual choice? In my opinion organisations definitely should take an interest – by making sure that nutritious foods are available and starting the education process if they provide food services. After all, they will benefit as well as the employee. The problems with how we eat today (e.g. the obesity epidemic and fast food culture) can only be solved if everyone takes responsibility and the right food education is available.

Individual responsibility is important here, but we are only human and sometimes we need a bit of help. There are organisations out there whose very business it is to influence us to consume things that aren’t so good for our health by spending billions on advertising.  In western economies this is inevitable – they are businesses and they need us to buy their products. They do this because it works, but sometimes they cross the line and government and health-related agencies need to resist the onslaught for the benefit of the population at large. A recent example, from my native California, illustrates the way to go and concerns a group of family doctors who resigned their membership from the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) after it announced a partnership with Coca-Cola to promote healthy eating.

Advertising is a part of life these days, but sometimes it’s important to stick to the pure health message with no other agenda involved. Health is always more important than money and wealth creation.

For more information on the AAFP story see http://cchealth.org/groups/health_services/aafp_protest.php

At the same time the proportion of people reporting they feel under excessive pressure at work has increased over the last six months; with 42% of employees feeling under pressure either ‘every day’ or ‘once or twice a week’ compared with a figure of 38% in the spring. More employees also said they have seen increases in stress and conflict at work.

Of course, a major reason for these gloomy results is likely to be the recession. However, it’s worth remembering that the recession was already affecting many workers in the spring, so what’s behind the delayed impact it has had on morale? Claire McCartney, the CIPD’s resourcing and talent planning adviser suggested:

“In the spring we interpreted high job satisfaction in the face of the recession as a ‘fixed grin’, where employees felt lucky just to have a job. In this quarter, the fixed grin is slipping and the temporary goodwill is being replaced with increasing frustration.”

Enjoying work is difficult in the face of increased stress and unmanageable workloads, especially when this is combined with factors such as faltering job security, frozen pay, reduced benefits and cut-backs in training. This survey underlines the importance of having a resilient workforce: for employees and employers alike, the fixed grin won’t work over the long-term and only real resilience, underpinned by high levels of psychological well-being, will do.

Resilience is a personal capability that can be developed – it is driven by both our personality and skills. It has many facets, including our confidence, our purposefulness, the extent to which we are able to adapt and the social support mechanisms we can access. When an individual understands these aspects of resilience and where their own natural strengths and skills lie it can help focus personal control, as well as how he/she engages with the business. In turn, organisations need to ensure they are co-ordinating efforts to build, develop and maintain resilience across the board – by taking a strategic view of people development and encouraging the right kind of leadership.  If that happens we may see the CIPD reporting better job satisfaction scores in the Spring.

The 2nd Annual Conference takes place next week on 11^th November in Central London and this year we are lucky enough to have speakers such as Dr Steve Boorman, former Innocent Drinks MD, Jamie Mitchell, David Macleod, Rene Carayol and senior managers from the likes of eBay, Sainsbury’s and Greater Manchester Police. When you attend you also receive a copy of this year’s Business Well-Being Network Annual Report  “UK Perspectives on employee engagement and well-being” which contains all the latest ideas and thinking in the area.

Best of all, you also get to network with over 120 well-being professionals and industry experts from over 80 organisations – a great way to share experiences.

If you are already a member of the Business Well-Being Network you can attend this event for free (you may already have signed up) and if you are not a member the price is a modest £249 for a full one day conference – for more details and to book online you can go to http://www.robertsoncooper.com/events/business-wellbeing-network-conference.aspx.

I’m very much looking forward to this year’s event and to meeting you there if you decide to come along.

Ok, so it’s not setting the best example, but we have to remember the context – Wenger had just seen his team dominate an important game, go ahead with a stunning goal and then fall behind as a result of a disputed penalty and an own-goal. In this situation, when a goal was disallowed in the dying moments of the match, how many of us would have kept our cool? The Arsenal manager’s frustration was understandable and yet the referee, who otherwise had a good game in difficult circumstances, immediately decided that he had to be sent off.

There are parallels with the workplace here because we can’t always see or feel the pressure that others are under. When we witness a stress reaction or extreme behaviour it’s important to take a moment to think about what might be causing it. Think about your own behaviour – imagine being massively overloaded at work at a time when you are also buying a new house outside of work or your wife / partner is due to have a baby. If you over-react to something or someone at work and end up with a formal warning (or another outcome equivalent to a sending off in football) you would be unlikely to see this as just. You would want the opportunity to explain your reaction in the hope that your manager would understand that, while not ideal, it was an understandable one-off in the circumstances.

Interestingly the referee has since apologised to Wenger, thereby acknowledging that a mistake was made. This is a good thing, but it would have been a far more proportionate reaction to recognise the pressure of the situation in real-time by simply asking him to pick the bottle up and sit down for the remaining 30 seconds of the game!

The subject of pay is an interesting one though, because it is the most explicit and obvious way for employees to measure how their contribution is valued by their employer. Salary is such a big part of our language and culture that many employees will see the amount they get paid as the key, maybe only, indicator that matters.

However, research shows that this is only one aspect of the work arena that determines an individual’s overall job satisfaction, motivation and general well-being. Many happiness surveys and well-being audits have shown that having good work relationships, a good work-life balance, being trusted and having a manageable workload are all considered higher up the scale than cold, hard cash in the bank. So it seems that money really isn’t everything when it comes to work.

A company can pay an employee thousands of pounds per month, but if he/she is unsupported, works 7am – 8pm every day and has an overwhelming workload no amount of pay is going to make him/her engaged, productive and happy at work. I’m sure the majority of employees and employers simply wouldn’t be willing to work this way, but my point is that it’s important to think about the benefits that aren’t in our contracts. Not everything needs to have a pound sign next to it to be valuable and softer benefits like working somewhere fun where you can control your hours and workload carries real value. Try working somewhere with these benefits and then moving to a new job where they are absent – you’ll soon be reminded of the value!

I’d be interested to know what you think, is pay the most important factor, especially during a recession or is enjoying your job and not dreading Monday morning your driver? Think really carefully before you answer that!!

Just as in your home-life, work-based friends with whom you share space and challenges can be a valuable source of practical and emotional support. You may harbour the same frustrations with a difficult boss or if you don’t, your neighbours may be able to provide you with some perspective on the situation – from an informed position that friends and family can’t take. My university spin-off company, Robertson Cooper, recently published research in their annual well-being report showing that ‘Work Relationships’ was the only factor that drove both ‘sense of purpose’ and ‘psychological well-being’ at work; both of which underlie employee engagement. With times tough and set to get tougher we need to focus on things that we can partially control at work like our relationships. By nurturing good ones we are investing in support mechanisms for the future in case things get worse before they get better.

The benefits of work neighbours go broader than fellow employees though. Many SME’s are part of thriving communities of companies who share space on business parks and the like. Often, those that manage these communal spaces host intranets and seminars where information and skills can be exchanged. Those companies that participate in such activities differentiate themselves in the marketplace from those who don’t have this network to draw upon– not least because they often don’t have to pay for knowledge and insights that non-members have to.

Even if you don’t have the luxury of this kind of network you can create your own mini-network. Get to know your immediate neighbours – no matter how disconnected / irrelevant you think their business is to yours! You might just need to borrow some teabags if you run out when an important visitor is onsite or there might be deeper potential of which you are currently unaware. By having the odd conversation with your neighbours you may well gain new intelligence and find new opportunities.

And finally, it’s not just SMEs to whom this applies – in large public and private sector organisations good neighbour relationships are critical – even if your neighbours end up being virtual ones who are miles away geographically. External perspectives add value to what you can obtain internally and it is not a waste of time spending time on them just because it isn’t mentioned in your job description. In the private sector they talk about ‘Co-opetition’ where companies who normally compete come together to create new knowledge or services that in the long-term will benefit the whole industry. This is the world we live in now – ignore it and retreat to the comfort and safety of your own office at your peril.

So, the purpose of this post is to share the paper with you. The paper is called ‘Improving organisational outcomes by making people feel good’ and you can download it here. white-paper-final.doc

For more information about Ivan’s work at Robertson Cooper go to www.robertsoncooper.com

I guess this isn’t that surprising given the uncertain nature of the economy and also the current climate where getting more results for less money has become a mantra – a way of working life even. But it worries me because it raises the question of how sustainable this approach is ever likely to be. Last week I was talking about the importance of making workplaces motivating and energising in relation to attracting and retaining the best staff. Another way of looking at this is that you can design sustainable success and competitive advantage into your business. But if you keep increasing the pressure in an effort to squeeze every last drop of productivity out of the workforce it won’t be long before the wheels come off.

Sometimes you have to take a step back to look for the right source of competitive advantage. By getting the balance of challenge and support right and creating a culture of well-being you can, in fact, still improve productivity. This might sound woolly or unrealistic or just a crazy way to come at the problem, but the research backs it up. Work by Harter, Schmidt and Hayes has shown that well-being and engagement are very definitely associated with improving productivity.

Data from nearly 8,000 separate business units in 36 companies were analysed and the results clearly showed that engagement/well-being was linked to business unit performance – predicting not just productivity but also customer satisfaction, profitability, employee turnover and sickness absence levels. Using a sample of business units this large offers conclusive evidence that if you provide a sense of well-being and engagement to staff the positive outcomes will follow.

Another survey reported by Personnel Today in the same article informs us that 75% of the136 HR directors recently surveyed by Northgate HR also reported that employee productivity was the top HR concern. But workforce morale and reward & recognition strategies were not very far behind. Based on the Harter et al research evidence it seems that employers could make significant progress on all of these fronts just by getting well-being right – but I wonder what proportion the HR Directors responding to these surveys have actually invested in business-wide well-being improvement programmes?

For anyone who wants to seek out the research, the reference is below:

Harter, Schmidt and Hayes, (2002). Business unit level outcomes between employee satisfaction, employee engagement and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 268-279.