Experiencing happiness at work isn’t a matter of stumbling upon the profession that is ‘perfect’ for us and then riding that wave of joy into retirement.
Rather, like wellbeing, happiness is made up of a bunch of different components that can be experienced in many different jobs and workplaces.
So what are the key factors that we can apply to different jobs to have a better chance at finding happiness at work?
Workplaces can be the drivers of positive mental health outcomes.
We live in a world where a huge number of people suffer from mental ill health and access to help is poor. As employers, why not go a step further from just ‘not making things worse’ to actually making things better?
Creating social-connectedness at work is one opportunity for leaders to impact their people positively. Loneliness experienced at home can seep into the workplace and leaders have the power to not only prevent work-based loneliness, but combat loneliness overall.
Workplaces can be the engines that drive a socially connected world.
How can leaders create an environment that fosters social connection?
Whether it’s a restructure, a new senior hire, cost-cutting measures or a change in direction, organisations know change is a normal part of maintaining a successful business.
And yet organisations mess it up, creating disgruntled employees who fight them every step of the way - even when the new ideas are good and have the potential to help everyone.
Why is organisational change so hard?
And how can leaders do it well?
Circuit breakers are a simple solution to a potentially deadly and costly problem. When a circuit trips, we simply open the fuse box, flick a switch, and providing there is no deeper fault going on, we reset the system.
Now, imagine if we could do this with our brains. How much potential damage to our mental and physical health could we prevent if we had an automated switch that simply cut off the power to our unhelpful thought patterns before they escalated to breaking point?
In our last blog we covered how to identify burnout risks, and how to protect yourself at the recruitment stage by spotting which organisations or job roles might pose a high risk to individuals.
In this blog, we will cover some of the steps that individuals can take to lower their burnout risk and protect their mental health at work when they find themselves in a job role or organisation that may present a higher risk.
Perhaps the best thing an individual can do to avoid burn-out is to work for an organisation that has a robust Psychosocial Risk Management plan in place to support positive workplace mental health outcomes and protect their workers from chronic stress.
But how can you choose the right job? And what other practical steps can individuals take to protect themselves from burnout and feel good at work?
Worrying can impact our mental health at work significantly, and has been the subject of sage advice for centuries.
Inspirational quotes about improving your mental health by simply ‘not worrying’ are easy to find, but much more difficult to put into practise.
Can you control worrying by simply choosing not to worry? And if so, how?
In this blog we will explain in simple terms what worry is, how you can control worrying, and how you can work and live your life despite having things to worry about.
Burnout: a state of mental and physical exhaustion, characterised by feelings of cynicism, depletion and distance from our work.
AI: the simulation of human intelligence by machines, and used for everything from data analysis to customer service and even creating art and writing romance novels.
Can Artificial Intelligence help us to beat burnout, and regain our sense of humanity at work?
Developing strategies to increase opportunities for social connection is a major research concern that is impacting public health policy globally at multiple levels; from the design of community living spaces to employment regulations, public health campaigns and how we harness technology.
What can individuals do to ensure they are getting the social connection they need for mental and physical wellbeing?
Firstly, establish how much social connection you need.
Canada - that bastion of forward thinking - is currently working on developing public health guidelines for social connection to improve population mental health, and control mental and physical health risks. Bit like your five a day, but in chit-chats rather than fruit and veg.
Does that mean Friday night pizza parties are back on the work perks list, or should even form part of your Psychosocial Risk Management plan?. (TLDR: no. For more nuance, read on).
Burnout: the imagery in that word is evocative, and perhaps one reason why the term has become popular. Why? Because the picture that burnout conjures is so very much like the experience of it.
Burned out individuals keep going, like flames across a landscape, until they run out of fuel entirely and have absolutely nothing left to give. Not one spark remains. They are quite literally ‘burned out.’
How can we tell the difference, why does it matter, and what can we do about it?
During a panel discussion of women leaders that I recently attended, the panelists were asked ‘what do you consider to be your biggest achievement?’
Without exception, every panelist responded ‘just surviving.’ One added ‘just managing to get to where she was.’ They gave the sense of having managed to move forward and reach their goals, but of having to perpetually push through a current, whilst dragging a parachute, to do so.
What was holding them back and how can we recognise gender discrimination in the modern workplace?
