Of course it is about meaning

Of course it is about meaning

by | Sep 22, 2024 | Change, Coaching, Employee Engagement, PERMAH, Positive duty, Psychological safety, Purpose, Strategic Narrative, Wellbeing

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Of course it is about meaning

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To us, the findings from SEEK’s inaugural Workplace Happiness Index survey are no surprise – study after study has shown much the same findings about the factors that are most important to people feeling happy at work. Let’s have a look at them.  

According to SEEK’s Head of Customer Insights and Strategy, Aimee Hutton: “The aim of this inaugural Workplace Index is to spotlight the strongest opportunities to improve happiness at work for both employees and employers and, ultimately, drive a happier workforce in Australia”.

You might think that pay and promotional opportunities and flexible working would be among the key factors that people reported as the things that make for a happy life at work. Not according to this study which found that the top 5 factors ranked as the most important for happiness at work were:

  1. Purpose
  2. Their manager
  3. Day to day responsibilities
  4. Company culture
  5. Stress levels

Salary came in at a distant #9.

So why are we not surprised?

Because we have known it for years, for example:

  1. In 2009, “Engage for success”, the report on employee engagement commissioned by the UK Government and created by Robert Macleod and Nita Clarke was published. We use their 4 pillars of engagement in our Better Workplace Projects and the first of those pillars is “Strong strategic narrative”, the centrepiece of which is “Purpose”
  2. Again in 2009, the famous Simon Sinek published his celebrated work “Start with Why” which is all about purpose being at the heart of successful organisations.
  3. Then in 2011, Professor Martin Seligman’s masterpiece “Flourish” was published. It sets out the 5 pillars of wellbeing that are necessary for living a flourishing life – the PERMA model in which the “M” stands for “meaning”. It is on his work that the PERMAH workplace wellbeing survey that we use in our Better coaching process is based.

That’s why we aren’t surprised that “purpose” has come out as the #1 factor for happiness at work. There is a huge body of evidence that has been telling us that for years.

Looking at #2, the second pillar in the Engage for Success framework is “Engaging management” which is about providing people with clarity of role and expectations, equipping them to be successful and coaching them to be the best that they can be. That is, it is about THEIR MANAGER enabling and supporting their people to be successful in managing their DAY TO DAY RESPONSIBILITIES.

Additionally, Gallup has been telling us for decades that the first line manager is the most dominant causal factor in whether an employee decides to stay or to go. They also preach a coaching model where there are regular catchups between an employee and THEIR MANAGER and they feel trusted and supported in undertaking their DAY TO DAY RESPONSIBILITIES.

So there isn’t really anything new in these latest findings from SEEK, is there?

Our “EngageMentality Coaching” model has been specifically designed to help managers to become coaches and be a reason why people want to stay because they feel trusted, supported and appreciated.

Perks are nice but…….

Over the last couple of years, we have seen new positive duties being introduced to prevent sexual harassment and gender-based behaviour and to eliminate or control psychosocial hazards. That is because, in too many workplaces, people aren’t enjoying work – the SEEK study showed that nearly half of the people surveyed said they were not happy at work.

The COVID experience has had the effect of causing people to reevaluate their priorities in life and what they want to do in a work sense, who they want to do it with and where they want to do it.

The value of the SEEK news is that it brings us back to what really matters when it comes to how we help people to enjoy work and be productive so that business and employees flourish together.

That is what PosWork is about – we have the tools and programs to help your workplace to flourish by design.

If you would like to explore the ways that we might be able to help you to make yours a great workplace, please call us on 0438 533 311 or email info@poswork.com.au.

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A Division of Ridgeline Human Resources Pty Ltd
ABN : 24 091 644 094

info@poswork.com.au

0438 533 311

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Do you have psychosocial strengths?

Do you have psychosocial strengths?

by | Sep 17, 2024 | PERMAH, Positive duty, Psychological safety, Psychosocial hazards, Strategic Narrative, Strengths, Wellbeing

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Do you have psychosocial strengths?

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What a difference it makes if you look at challenges in life and business through the lens of positive psychology!  What would happen if you looked at psychosocial hazards that way?  

This morning, PosWork’s Lee-Anne Hunt and Peter Maguire presented at a Whitehorse Business Group breakfast where they spoke about the new positive duties to eliminate or control psychosocial hazards and to prevent sexual harassment and gender-based behaviours.

It was a highly interactive session with people engaging in groups to explore psychosocial hazards and how they can present in practice and discussing ways to deal with them.

Lee-Anne and Peter also spoke about psychosocial strengths – looking at the hazards in the context of the things you do well in each particular area of hazard and how you can leverage and build on those strengths to recognise what you do well and build on that in a positive way.

That totally changes the mindset and the conversations and the engagement and the outcomes…..and it is a lot more fun.

If you would like to explore how we can help you to deal with positive duties in a positive way for your people and organisation, please call us on 0438 533 311 or email info@poswork.com.au.

CONTACT US

PosWork

A Division of Ridgeline Human Resources Pty Ltd
ABN : 24 091 644 094

info@poswork.com.au

0438 533 311

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Ridgeline HR

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PERMAH

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Use PERMAH for your positive duty

Use PERMAH for your positive duty

by | Jan 20, 2024 | Change, Coaching, Employee Engagement, Leadership, PERMAH, Psychological safety, Wellbeing

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Use PERMAH for your positive duty

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The wonderful team at the Michelle McQuaid Group has done an update for the PERMAH workplace wellbeing survey adding a suite of questions specifically addressing the 14 psychosocial hazards in Safe Work Australia’s “Model code for the management of psychosocial hazards at work”. That means that you can address your positive duties to assess risks and consult your people while giving your business and your people a great platform for improving wellbeing at individual, team and organisational levels.

About PERMAH 

In his celebrated book “Flourish”, Professor Martin Seligman, a world leader in the field of positive psychology and wellbeing theory, set out the PERMA model for wellbeing as “a practical guide to using positive psychology to make you happier and healthier”. Other positive psychologists subsequently added an “H” for “Health” to his model with his endorsement.

The 6 pillars of wellbeing in PERMAH (as described by Dr Michelle McQuaid in the context of  workplace wellbeing) are:

POSITIVE EMOTIONS: such as joy and hope have been found to have a significant effect on our wellbeing. Researchers suggest that experiencing positive emotions broadens your outlook, helps you to build creativity and resourcefulness and to be more resilient and successful.

ENGAGEMENT: being able to use and develop your strengths at work – those things you are good at and enjoy doing – has been found to boost your confidence, engagement and energy at work.

RELATIONSHIPS: creating genuine connection with others at work can give you satisfaction and enrichment. Researchers suggest that it can also lower your levels of stress, improve your concentration and help advance your career.

MEANING: understanding how what you do at work makes a positive difference to others has been found to increase your wellbeing motivation, commitment and sense of satisfaction at work.

ACCOMPLISHMENT: cultivating grit has been found to give you the determination to pursue your goals and having a “growth mindset” can help you learn and grow from setbacks and challenges to achieve your true potential.

HEALTH: staying healthy by eating well, moving regularly and sleeping deeply has been found to build a solid foundation for your wellbeing.

Source: https://www.michellemcquaid.com/ 

PERMAH and psychosocial hazards

One of the central tenets of Professor Seligman’s work is the recognition that we all have our struggles in life but that doesn’t mean that we cannot flourish. If we work on our wellbeing with a positive mindset, we can equip ourselves to deal with our struggles more proactively and productively.

The positive duty that is being imposed through State and Territory legislation on Australian workplaces is also requiring “Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking” to be proactive in conducting risk assessments and putting in place appropriate measures to eliminate or mitigate/control any risks arising from psychosocial hazards. 

As noted in the preamble, part of the positive duty is also to consult your people about psychosocial hazards.

There are  clear links between the psychology underpinning PERMAH and the positive duty as well as between  the content of the PERMAH pillars and the prescribed psychosocial hazards.

The addition of the suite of survey questions on the psychosocial hazards just adds to the relevance and effectiveness of the PERMAH survey as a tool for measuring wellbeing and workplace risk and building cost effective risk controls based on real data provided by your own workforce.

The other bonus with the PERMAH workplace wellbeing survey is that every employee who does the survey gets their own personal report on where they sit against the 6 PERMAH pillars, a template for putting together their own personal wellbeing plan and access to a stack of resources that they can use to explore and improve their personal wellbeing. 

So there are lots of reasons why we use and recommend the PERMAH workplace wellbeing survey with the psychosocial panel add-on as a great place to start the process of meeting your positive duty to eliminate or control psychosocial hazards in your workplace.

PosWork Practice leader Peter Maguire is accredited to debrief on the PERMAH Workplace Wellbeing Survey with the Psychosocial Panel add-on. If you would like to learn more about how we might be able to assist you in the areas of workplace wellbeing and management of psychosocial hazards, please call us on 0438 533 311 or email info@poswork.com.au.

CONTACT US

PosWork

A Division of Ridgeline Human Resources Pty Ltd
ABN : 24 091 644 094

info@poswork.com.au

0438 533 311

QUICK RESOURCE LINKS

Ridgeline HR

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PERMAH

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Gallup tells us how to engage employees in 2024

Gallup tells us how to engage employees in 2024

by | Jan 17, 2024 | Coaching, Employee Engagement, Employee Voice, Leadership, PERMAH, Psychological safety, Purpose, Strategic Narrative, Strengths, Wellbeing

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Gallup tells us how to engage employees in 2024

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Gallup has released a “2024 Employee Engagement Strategy Checklist” in which it tells us that 44% of employees worldwide say they are stressed and proposes some things that organisations can do to get people more engaged and less stressed. 

Here is Gallup’s list:

  1. Check in on your managers because they are more likely to be feeling burned out and stressed and you need them to feel supported and capable of leading their people effectively.
  2. Prepare managers to have meaningful conversations with employees in which they recognise strengths and achievements, set and refine goals and priorities and support then in relationships and collaboration.
  3. Prioritise promoting vision and purpose, especially among remote workers for whom Gallup’s research says that only 28% feel connected to their organisation’s mission and purpose.
  4. Measure engagement to show employees that you care about their feedback and want to know how they are doing.
  5. Take action on survey results – nothing builds positive momentum for an engagement initiative more than asking for feedback, doing something about it and sharing and celebrating positive results.

They say that their research shows that 80% of employees who say they have received meaningful feedback in the past week are fully engaged, regardless of how many days they worked in the office.

When it comes to having meaningful conversations with employees, Gallup said that they should include:

  1. Recognition or appreciation of recent work
  2. Collaboration and relationships
  3. Current goals and priorities at work
  4. Employee strengths and the things that they do well

How long should these conversations be? If they are done regularly (ie weekly), they should take no longer than 15 to 30 minutes.

Our EngageMentality Model

This is a continuous coaching model which incorporates all of the features that Gallup recommends plus more.

We did our own research on the things that we believe impact on an employment experience and by extension employee engagement and wellbeing – these “coaching lenses” are:

  1. Roles  – the job that I do plus any of those other responsibilities that I might take on as a leader or an employee or safety representative or first aider, etc
  2. Relationships – I rely on certain people for certain things and others rely on me for certain things
  3. Values and behaviours – the behavioural attributes that we want to see practised in our organisation to make it respectful, inclusive and high performing
  4. Strengths – using the VIA Character Strengths framework to use a strengths-based approach which optimises opportunities for me to use my signature strengths and to work on and be supported with my lesser strengths
  5. Wellbeing – using the PERMAH workplace wellbeing survey, build on my psychological safety, life balance and overall wellbeing. 

We explore and address each of those items through a process of:

  1. Positioning – doing a stocktake of where I sit in each of those areas
  2. Planning – identifying the actions that I want to take for my performance and development, timelines for doing that and supports that I need and any people who are involved
  3. Performing – implementing my plan and catching up with my manager each week for a coaching session
  4. Presenting – providing me with the opportunity to showcase my achievements in performance and development and areas for further development 

The coaching conversations simply involve asking and answering these 4 questions in the context of each of the 5 coaching lenses:

  1. What has worked well (celebrate)?
  2. What has been a struggle (recalibrate)?
  3. What has changed (update)?
  4. What are we going to do about all of that (activate)?

If you would like to explore our EngageMentality process or any other of our PosWork programs for your workplace, please call us on 0438 533 311 or email info@poswork.com.au.

CONTACT US

PosWork

A Division of Ridgeline Human Resources Pty Ltd
ABN : 24 091 644 094

info@poswork.com.au

0438 533 311

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Ridgeline HR

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PERMAH

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Turning positive duties into positives

Turning positive duties into positives

by | Jan 7, 2024 | Change, Coaching, Compassion, Employee Engagement, PERMAH, Psychological safety, Wellbeing

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Turning positive duties into positives

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The introduction of positive duties for the elimination of sexual harassment and psychosocial hazards does represent a step up in employer’s obligations and, if you just look at such things from a risk management perspective, you will see them that way.

And one of the problems that that traditional approach to risk management creates is that it is just about fixing problems rather than optimising solutions.

But what happens if you flip the narrative from just a deficit approach (what risks do we have?) to a strengths-based approach ( what are we doing well and what can we do better?)?

For example, try swapping:

  • “Unreasonable job demands” for “What do reasonable job demands look like for us, what are we doing well here and how can we get better?” and
  • “Inadequate reward and recognition” for “What are the ways that we recognise and reward our people, what’s working well and what can we do better?” and
  • “Violence and aggressive behaviour” for “We know our people encounter violent and aggressive behaviours in the course of their work – what are we doing to prepare them for that and to support them in dealing with that hazard, what is working well and what can we do better?”

Taking that balanced approach really changes the mindset and the conversation as well as being a much more effective way to build a psychologically safe work culture built on open communication, a shared commitment to continuous improvement and trust.

That’s what our Better Workplace Projects are all about and it is one way how we can help your workplace to deal with your positive duty in a positive way.

If that has you interested, call us on 0438 533 311 or email info@poswork.com.au to book your free first consultation.

 

 

CONTACT US

PosWork

A Division of Ridgeline Human Resources Pty Ltd
ABN : 24 091 644 094

info@poswork.com.au

0438 533 311

QUICK RESOURCE LINKS

Ridgeline HR

Engage for Success

Appreciative Inquiry

PERMAH

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Pondering the Strength of Spirituality

Pondering the Strength of Spirituality

by | Nov 3, 2023 | Coaching, Employee Engagement, Integrity, PERMAH, Psychological safety, Purpose, Strategic Narrative, Strengths, Wellbeing

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Pondering the Strength of Spirituality

chalk writing choose direction

Spirituality is one of the five character strengths that comprise the Virtue of Transcendence.

Transcendence describes strengths that help you connect to the larger universe and provide meaning.

What is spirituality?

As a character strength, spirituality involves the belief that there is a dimension to life that is beyond human understanding. Some people don’t connect this belief with the concept of a divinity and prefer to think of it in terms of a sense of meaning rather than spirituality, but in the VIA Classification the terms are considered closely related. 

Spirituality is believed to describe both the private, intimate relationship between humans and the divine, and the range of virtues that result from the relationships. Spirituality is universal. 

Although the specific content of spiritual beliefs varies, all cultures have a concept of an ultimate, transcendent, sacred force.

Some of these include meaning, purpose, life calling, beliefs about the universe, the expression of virtue/goodness, and practices that connect with the transcendent. Some of these include meaning, purpose, life calling, beliefs about the universe, the expression of virtue/goodness, and practices that connect with the transcendent. 

Why is spirituality of value?

  • Spirituality, through the expression of religiousness or sense of meaning, provides a sense of being grounded, increases optimism and helps to provide a sense of purpose in life.
  • People who are spiritual often experience benefits in their physical and psychological health and are resilient in the face of challenges.
  • Spirituality is connected to compassion, altruism, volunteering and philanthropy.

A couple of questions to consider

  • How do you define spirituality for yourself?
  • How does spirituality affect your relationships with others?

Some things that you can do to practise spirituality

  • Think of a spiritual role model in your community. Even if there are important differences between their beliefs and yours, consider their best qualities and one way that you might learn from them.
  • Find meaning at work – consider what matters most in the work that you do and the impact it has upon others. Pause to appreciate this.
  • Pause to connect with your inner spirit. Return to this solitude that resides within throughout the day. Breathe deeply and be at peace with yourself. 

For more information on the strength of hope, go to https://www.viacharacter.org/character…/spirituality

If you are interested in exploring how the practice of Character Strengths might be of benefit to your business and culture, contact Peter Maguire on 0438 533 311 or at info@poswork.com.au.

Acknowledgement: the primary reference for this post is “The Power of Character Strengths: Appreciate And Ignite Your Positive Personality” by Ryan M. Niemiec & Robert E. McGrath (An Official Guide From The VIA Institute on Character)

CONTACT US

PosWork

A Division of Ridgeline Human Resources Pty Ltd
ABN : 24 091 644 094

info@poswork.com.au

0438 533 311

QUICK RESOURCE LINKS

Ridgeline HR

Engage for Success

Appreciative Inquiry

PERMAH

ShareTree

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