If you’ve seen the Chris Rock film ‘Head of State’ you’ll know that the ‘small man’ on the presidential campaign trail has a light bulb moment where he stops trotting out the prepared corporate line and to the outrageous injustices staring him in the face, shouts loud and clear “that aint right!” Of course with the magic of Hollywood a triumphant election campaign ensues, you can guess the rest.

We’re having our own “that aint right” moment. Trawling back through the wellbeing section on our website we have written about stress, toxic behaviour, messy management and a plethora of factors that contribute to ill health, lost productivity, excessive costs and damaged performance on numerous occasions.

Today we feature a post by Suzy Dale, on the subject of ‘Workplace stress.’

Suzy is a highly effective Business Psychologist, and Owner of a new business psychology consultancy, Dale & Associates.  For more than 15 years Suzy worked as an Occupational Psychologist for Civil Service departments.  During this time she supported leaders by devising and implementing coaching and mentoring schemes, and providing evidence-based advice relating to employee engagement, stress and absenteeism and cultural change management. 

You can follow Suzy on Twitter. 

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There’s been a plethora of commentary about workplace stress recently, mainly as a result of the CIPD and Simplyhealth survey which showed that stress is now the top cause of sickness absence in theUK.  This has been on the horizon for some time, and now with the compounding influence of rising living costs, wage freezes and fears over job security, it’s hit the number one spot. 

The ideal of course for organisations is that staff are happy, healthy and here (ie in the workplace!),

The financial cost to the nation as a result of stress-related sickness absence runs into billions of pounds a year according to HSE.  However, I believe that behind this figure lies three hidden truths.

A week or so ago I had the opportunity to attend the Health and Wellbeing conference inWhitehall. An eminent panel of speakers gathered including Lord Freud, Dr Steve Boorman, Dame Carol Black to name a few.

 

Whilst the focus of the agenda was on longer term strategies to end “worklessness” in people with long term conditions and/or disability, especially where this is nonsensical because there is capacity to continue working, what interested me most about the day was the opportunity to speak with other delegates and hear speakers, for example from Health and Safety Executive on insights into stress and stress related conditions and its impact in the workplace.

 

My interest was piqued for a number of reasons, I often find myself face to face with people unwell with stress, they are either going off sick, trying to come back to work or discussing their perception of how work has contributed to their illness.

The news yesterday that CIPD/Simplyhealth survey findings that the incidents of stress related illness in the workplace is on the increase came as no surprise at all, nor was it any surprise to hear that the findings make a direct link to the current economic downturn.  I was saddened to hear in news reports that this trend is particularly prevalent in the Public Sector, as is an increasing trend of mental health conditions.

I say I was sad, because unfortunately none of this was news to me and I would hazard a guess nor to anyone else.  Why then do we seem to just accept it? Apart from a half hearted suggestion that employers make use of counselling services none of the news items I encountered had any suggestions about how to address this problem.

Counselling can be enormously helpful to identify the root causes of stress and provide individuals with a range of coping strategies but it is only one small part of the picture.

I have been moved to write this after reading a very open blog by Glyn Lumley about his personal experience of stress. It must have taken Glyn a great deal of courage to put down for all to see the effect that stress had on him.

(Glyn’s blog)

In recognition of his courage and in a desire to get this subject out of the ‘Dark Realm’ it lurks in, I wanted to share something of my own experience of stress.

My last corporate job was as a Senior Manager in the Prison Service. Along with a strategic role I also had an Operational role, that of Duty Governor. This involved taking responsibility for the day to day running of the establishment, ensuring the regime ran smoothly, managing any incidents that occurred and being a point of advice and guidance to all the staff and departments within the prison.

It is fair to say that it was a high pressure, fast paced job and I loved it.

Over the past few weeks I have had particular reason to reflect on the very great impact that people in the wrong job have on their workplace. Over the years I have worked in close quarters with colleagues, who for various reasons have clearly been a ‘square peg in a round hole’. 

There are all manner of reasons why people end up in the wrong job, fortunately some people recognise this for themselves or are helped to see the truth and do something about it, but others for a variety of reasons do nothing. This doing nothing is what interests me.

The colleagues I’ve known have all, in their own way been in ten different kinds of pain on a daily basis. Sure enough this is terrible for them, to watch it etched on their faces, to see it in their reactions to the day to day challenges of work but also the normal mundane stuff, and this is where the impact on colleagues really takes it’s toll.

Some years ago, whilst a bright eyed trainee auditor, I recall some lively debate at “audit school” regarding the items that could and couldn’t go on a Balance Sheet. In particular the discussion was fairly heated around the concept of goodwill and intangible assets. 

Now, years later, battle scarred in the fields of both Internal Audit and HR, if I have learned anything at all, it is the significant impact both positive and negative that people have on results. Aside from the very great advantages that enormous sums of money can buy, the one real differentiating factor in organisations, large and small is the knowledge, skills and experience, the very great talent that people bring. To quote the often over quoted “People really are our greatest asset”, but they really are.

Interesting then isn’t it that whilst we have gone some way to resolving the question of Goodwill on the balance sheet, there is still no meaningful way of accounting for the value added to an organisation’s capability by its people, or indeed the damage that they inflict through negative behaviours. The debate about intangible assets has variously been off and on the agenda.

The Combined Code requires Directors and Senior Managers to have in place a clear system for the identification, assessment and reporting on the various risks that impact the achievement of the objectives of the business, and to comment on the adequacy of the internal control mechanisms that they have in place to address these risks. In all the years since CoSo, Turnbull and statements on internal control, have we really got our heads around the real impact of people?

I’m willing to bet not. I can imagine the risk registers now in my minds eye, “Loss of key personnel” stated and some bland statement about HR Planning, Recruitment strategy, possibly mentions Reward Strategy and Talent Management framework.

Having been there – lost some key personnel I mean, I can say with certainty that it was incredibly painful, and it wasn’t just the cost of the recruitment bill;

• Ever increasing overtime bill
• Domino effect of people leaving
• Impact on service users, complaints
• Impact on remaining staff resources stretched to breaking point and on morale
• The services that got cut to deliver the essential stuff
• The staff relations that went downward

The costs to the organisation over a year were immense, but we didn’t put a price tag on all of this. So now, in the aftermath of the recession, we’re beginning to see a response both from business and Government on how to prevent anything so awful happening again, including the publication of the latest Governance Code. Although well meant, the responses so far are limited to process and procedure, no one yet has tackled the bad behaviour, the strange behaviour of target chasing that brought so many financial businesses and countless others to the brink.

There has been much comment on the likely impact of making the UK financial industry too regulated and “constrained”, a brain drain of the best talent to more friendly shores. We clearly understand the real value of our people, especially the benefits they bring when they’re engaged and working for our best interest, we also understand in our gut, if not in numbers the unthinkable impact when they leave us. So surely now is the right time to design a more meaningful grasp on measuring the real value of people to our business capability?

Jane Pound MCIPD, MIIA

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the IIA or CIPD.

This year’s Masterchef has been exciting viewing. As ever the food has been the star, but in a close second the various contestants. The really striking point has been the sheer number of contestants from all walks of life, Company Directors, Plumbers, Doctors, Solicitors, stay at home mums and unemployed have all wanted to be this years Masterchef.

I understand the people who say that they want to change direction after redundancy or make a new start for themselves moving out of unemployment, but what has gone so wrong in the world of work that makes people in occupations traditionally viewed as high value, highly vocational “made it” occupations like Doctor, Solicitor, Director, to want change their lives so completely for the tough world of a busy, fast paced, perfectionist kitchen?

The other interesting feature of the contestants has been the two tribes that they can be divided into, the cool, calm focussed tribe, and the “donkey on the edge” tribe. This second tribe are recognisable by their facial tics, profuse sweating and in some cases, slightly scary glint in their eye that makes me fear a little for John Torode’s safety.

Has the workplace become such a rotten place for people from all walks of life that pushed to their limit, rather than fall into the abyss, they stick two metaphorical fingers up to all that has made them miserable in work and aim for their dream job that has the three critical ingredients, a) doing something that they love b) a generous helping of creativity and innovation c) being their own boss where they control the work.

The frequency of contestants expressing these sentiments should in my opinion be a cause for concern for those in charge of organisations. These feelings of disengagement are backed up further by recent news items, the first that the rate of resignations particularly in management positions has remained at a constant rate despite the recession, and in the past week appalling rates of engagement and satisfaction reported by the HMRC Employee Opinion Survey.

Has the pursuit of “efficiency” and “performance” driven all that was challenging and engaging about the work that these people have chosen, to humdrum, empty existence where they are prepared to risk it all for their dream?

What a lot of frustrated, disappointed people we have created in the workplace. We know that more often than not those efficiency/ performance drives have delivered neither. Yet we also know that there can only be so many great Bistros too.

When confronted with such a diverse group of people, showing such enthusiasm for something they love to do, we should channel this in the work place. So why don’t organisations do it?! As an economy we are at very great risk of sliding backwards due to apathy on the part of business who simply don’t believe that the talent will walk out the door.

A personal anecdote if I may, although cooking wasn’t my dream, when I followed my dream the people I worked with, including my superiors openly refused to believe that when the date came I would walk out of the door. The look of shock on their faces on that last morning was something to behold, it was even said “so you’re really going to do this then?”

Its no secret what people value about work; needing to feel that their contribution matters, that what they do links in some way to the overall achievement of the business, just some control over the work and the opportunity to be even a little creative without fear of punishment if the outcome isn’t quite what we all expected.

I guess what I’m saying is have we gone so far down the control route, we’ve forgotten that it’s all about managing risk?

Jane Pound, MCIPD.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the CIPD.

An allegorical tale about being happy in your work

I have been thinking a lot recently about shoes. Not least because as a big shoe fan, I have been remarkably well behaved and not bought any since August, when confronted with the real deal in Italy. Well what’s a dedicated shoe fan to do?

I have not even indulged in one of my favourite pastimes (since August) of trying on fabulous shoes to avoid the temptation. The reason for my shoe sobriety? Last year, at the height of recession, I quit my full time, safe, secure, well salaried job to launch headlong into the unknown, starting my own business.

Do I miss them? –the new shoes I mean, well no. Not even a glimmer of regret. How many shoes can a person need anyway? I have even sold some shoes on e-bay (shock, horror!) some silly, sparkly, strappy affairs. Looked fabulous, were incredibly uncomfortable, bar stool shoes, and hardly ever got an outing. I hope that their new owners are having lots of fun in them.

My mum always says that you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes. However, in these days of credit cards and mass consumerism I’m not so sure that is true anymore. What I do believe is that you can never really know a person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.

On arriving home on the day I left my last job my first act was to ditch my shoes into the dustbin. They had somehow come to epitomise everything I had grown to dislike so much about it. Not too high, not too flat, safe, sensible, but surprisingly uncomfortable in the end. Being the owner of quite long, skinny feet, certain styles should have “Beware collapsed arches” written all over them. However, initial appearances can be deceptive, suitable, sensible but slightly stylish shoes turn out to be agony, but by the time the crippling pain kicks in its too late, you’ve worn them in, they go with your suit, you’ve already damaged the heels a little on the metal grilled staircase leading to your office.

Who would have thought that this rather dull, safe, not too high or too low, reasonably priced, black, go with everything in the wardrobe pair of shoes could inflict such discomfort? Foot pain was the least of my worries; they even contributed to a broken toe and months of tear inducing pain.

Being neither too high nor too low, the heel was optimum height for getting caught in the hem of my smartest trouser suit. One day, when trying to make a graceful exit from a meeting that was clearly a waste of my time, the heel caught when I was stepping out to descend a flight of stairs. With my other foot forward, already in oblivion there was nothing left to do but fall from top to bottom, breaking my toe on landing. I should have realised then, but held on in there in discomfort for another 14 months.

I knew these shoes weren’t right but despite this knowledge, kept wearing them. Unable to find anything more suitable, they went with everything and were inoffensive to the scores of colleagues around me who, bound by a strict dress code, a non uniform wearing member of staff wearing the wrong shoes could result in anything from general derision to outright rudeness.

I wore those shoes day in, day out. Never once stopping to ask, would my poor bruised feet feel happier in some other kind of shoes?

When finally I had resigned, I worked out my notice in a succession of fabulous sandals. They were extremely inappropriate for the environment, certainly didn’t meet with the uniform/dress policy, but I felt liberated in them. I felt a bit more like me again.

My fabulous sandals drew lots of longing gazes from both male and female colleagues. No one complained, I guess they couldn’t be bothered, knowing that I was leaving anyway, they even drew a few polite compliments from some of the previously nastiest people I’d had the misfortune to have to work with, along with a bold statement. “Loved the black sandals yesterday Jane, you looked really happy in them” strange thing to say I thought, maybe not.

I wore “the shoes” on the last day, I quite like symbolism, it seemed to me a little poetic, plus they went well with the suit I was wearing. I am normally a shoe hoarder, but I was very happy to see them go sailing into the bin that day.

These days I mostly wear the comfiest thing on my feet. My pink, fluffy slippers. They’re great. I love their fluffiness, their pinkness and the fact that my daughter chose them for me! The flexibility of my new role means that on days when not working on client sites, I work from home (and some days I don’t work, being a bit of a night owl, I work late into the night instead). My slippers are warm, comfortable, the heel doesn’t cause eye watering toe breakages, my co-Director seems to find them somewhere between amusing and mildly endearing. No grievances about colleague footwear these days!

When I am working on client sites, of course the pink slippers are left at home; I get to wear my fabulous shoes that have sat patiently in the wardrobe, in some cases for years, knowing that eventually their day would come. They say “we are special, our owner chose us for our special qualities of style and attitude, she saved up for us, admired us from afar, tried us on several times before coming in to buy us. When she bought us, it felt like a special occasion”.

So much for knowing another person when you walk a mile in their shoes, there is a lot to be said for listening to your own shoes too.

Bizarrely these slightly off the wall thoughts about one of my favourite subjects were inspired by something completely non shoe related. The Institute of Directors published an article on the benefits of flexible working and the need to support it in a labour market that is itself demanding more flexibility

“As businesses look for more innovative ways to respond quickly in 2010, flexible working practices can offer strong organisational benefits, whatever your business size. Adopting new ways of working that challenge the traditional long hour’s culture can not only help you reduce costs, it can help improve employee motivation and lower stress-related illness.

• Less stress-related absenteeism
• Reduced commuting time
• Improved staff retention
• A more, loyal, motivated workforce
• Greater overall responsiveness from workforce
• A flexible resource base
• Improved service delivery and higher productivity”

I’m re acquainted with my daughter, more involved in school and child care than ever before. Fitter, healthier, have more energy, am more productive, am happier and more excited by work than ever before.

Well, if the shoe fits.

Jane Pound MCIPD

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of the CIPD.

I was intrigued to read an article that appeared recently in Personnel Today, the item was also discussed on the BBC Breakfast news programme.

“Women’s careers damaged by having babies despite equality laws” Personnel Today 30^th November 2009

My initial response- “well no surprises there then”. Having taken up to a year out for each new arrival, it is inevitable that the world of work will have moved on, time is needed to re-adjust, learn new skills, and get up to speed with new ways of working, new projects and so on. It all takes time.

Then the reality creeps in, your already decimated finances take an even greater hit, you’ve slipped backwards in the salary stakes as others who didn’t have maternity leave move onwards and upwards. I needn’t go on; it’s well documented.

What I really wanted to write about here are the hidden horrors of returning to work after maternity leave, much harder to quantify, but I am willing to bet have a greater contributory effect to many mothers decisions to give up work altogether, or to take on less well paid and less skilled, less stressful work, resulting in huge opportunity cost to the economy.

The article refers to mothers surveyed stating that they found returning to work “hard” or “very hard”, and the interview on the BBC looked at cases of discrimination taken to Employment Tribunal, but the inevitable focus was on calculated lost earnings. I’ll bet that those mums who said it was hard were referring to something else altogether. Toxic Management.

Let me share with you the experiences of a good friend of mine, Jenny.

Jenny worked in a Project Office of a Civil Service Department in a Junior Management position prior to the birth of her baby. Critical project dates coincided with expected date that Maternity Leave would begin, but a dedicated high performer, Jenny put in the hours to ensure that all was complete before she began her maternity leave, blissfully carrying on unaware of the true extent that having her baby would change her life. Colleagues were supportive and her line manager verbosely grateful for her achievements before going off on “her extended break”.

Jenny and her boss (male – although she never was sure if that was relevant or not) had worked well together, a good team, high achievers.

The only thing that Jenny didn’t deliver on time was her baby, arriving nearly two weeks late.

Like many new mums, her new arrival caused some fairly extensive soul searching about work life balance and the needs of her baby. She decided to request a return to work part time.

Until Jenny made the phone call to request a meeting to discuss her return, she had had no contact that had been instigated from work. No one had called her to check in with her, keep her up to date or just to say hi.

The response by her boss to her request was “ugh, I just knew that this would happen! Well I don’t know we’ll have to see if we can keep Karen (backfilling Jenny’s post for Maternity Cover) on to cover the load”.

Jenny’s confused feelings of anger, embarrassment, and bizarrely disloyalty led to the actual return being a very tumultuous time for her. In addition to the normal feelings of distress at leaving her baby, Jenny felt about as welcome as a gatecrasher at a wedding. Her new job title might be best described as “sweeping up” the tasks that the now Full Time Karen, couldn’t cover in a “normal” working week.

On her arrival at the office on the first day, having just left her baby with a virtual stranger, she found that her desk had been given over to Karen, as she was “the full timer”. Karen, a perfectly lovely person, through no fault of her own was suddenly potentially an object of resentment.

In fact, there was no desk at all for Jenny. By the end of the first day a desk that was found from storage somewhere was haphazardly bolted onto the existing desk configuration, a PC was cobbled together from various odd parts lying around the department. The desk, in its precarious, slightly on a limb position led all visitors to the office to think that Jenny was the office receptionist and experience high levels of interruptions to her work.

In the weeks that followed Jenny endured frequent remarks about part time workers; both with reference to the things that she clearly couldn’t have known about because they happened on the days she wasn’t there, but also when she left work at her correct finishing time, whereas in the past she would have worked on as long as needed into the evening to get tasks done.

It must be noted that the work of the office, whilst important to the organisation, was not going to stop the world turning if tasks were left to wait until the next day.

It also became apparent that the line manager was playing Jenny and Karen off against each other. They never did get to the root cause of this, but any desire to create a negative competitiveness backfired, once they realised what was happening it served only to cement a friendship that has lasted years.

After several weeks of feeling undermined, confused, and extremely frustrated, both Jenny and Karen supported each other to take action. They confronted the line manager together. It completely backfired, Senior Managers supported him, couldn’t believe that a well respected manager could be making two colleagues feel so very miserable, de-motivated, bullied.

Needless to say, they both found other jobs, leaving a huge hole in the department and those oh so important delivery deadlines weren’t met again for a very long time.

It must be said that Jenny did change her terms and conditions, by reducing her hours to part time the employer was under no obligation to return her to her original position, only to find like work of the same grade.

However its unimaginative, unsupportive attitude to someone who had been loyal and previously felt valued as a team member led to damage to the individual through their loss of confidence, and probably therefore an impact on the rate at which Jenny was able to progress in her career later, wasting much time rebuilding confidence and utilising the skills and capabilities she had acquired.

The ultimate loss though was to the organisation;

They lost their investment in a significant amount of training and development that they had made in Jenny, including a professional qualification which was achieved the year before her baby was born.

They lost the future hard work and commitment that she would have put into the job, and did indeed deliver – to another employer, when her child was just a little older.

Their reputation was tarnished in ways that they’ll never be able to calculate, so affected by her experience, for quite some time afterwards, Jenny was unable to smile and say “fine” to the polite enquiry from numerous friends, family and acquaintances– “so how’s the return to work been for you?”

At a time when new mums feel particularly vulnerable, keen to fit back into the adult world, and frankly hold it all together, what is supposed to be one of the best times of your life is undoubtedly for many, the worst.

Jane Pound MCIPD

This article is the view of the author and in no way represents the views or policy of the CIPD.