The Rules of the Game are changing
There is broad and growing consensus that in the 21st Century ‘VUCA’ workplace, staff who are cared for in a humane way are likely to be better at delivering results and weathering organizational adversity than ever before. If you are in doubt click here. What is a big challenge is where to start and how to sustain a cultural shift that will deliver on this end state. The pursuit of Wellness which leads to well-being should not be limited to two things:
1. Focused on physical and mental health alone
2. Be the exclusive preserve of organizations linked with healthcare such as hospitals. Baptist Health, MD Anderson etc. are examples
Its great to see that taking shape. Reality is that employees everywhere are equally if not more stressed and pressured than healthcare workers.
‘Great Place to Work’ is doing a great job in fostering better workplaces and bench-marking them. The challenge and opportunity is that there are multiple ways/formulae to getting there.
Current state of the art is to measure the outcome of interventions or policies that promote well-being and then decide if the interventions or policies are making sense. This approach provides a post facto way of measuring success. Its too late and its a gamble. In a Feb 2014 study by Gallup they found Many large companies already have engagement programs but most fail to engage employees. So rather than measure it in a round about fashion. i.e. degree of empowerment, quality of management, etc. what if we could find out exactly what’s stopping people, from living their work-life and family/private lives in a holistically well and full way? and then providing support to overcome these barriers.
A New Gestalt Approach
Since the recent publication of the the book “The 6 Dimensions, Overcome Presenteeism: Excel in work and Life” initial results and feedback from the workshops run at two global companies, based on the book are promising. The hypothesis is: the most sustainable way to maintaining a level of outcome is getting staff to do something you want done because he/she wants to do it. Not just because the company wants it done and they don’t/can’t resonate with it. This is also how Dwight Eisenhower defined leadership.
The workshop is conducted in 3 parts. The first part looks at a self-evaluation of producivity level and barriers if any. The second part allows staff to assess their holistic wellness on each of 6 Dimensions resulting in a HolisticWellness Map(TM) and a Holistic Wellness Index(TM). The third part which seems to be the hardest part for some involves uncovering or validating one’s purpose in life that the book refers to as Grand Central Purpose(TM). Participants’ feedback for satisfaction and NPS is around 7.5 (N=90). Textual feedback included comments like:
“Now I am aware how to improve my wellness”.
“Set me to think and how to plot my purpose in both work life and family life”.
“Its about learning about myself in the 6 Dimensions. In fact it gives me the opportunity to know myself even more. With it, leverage on my strengths to help build on the ‘weakers’ “.
“It makes me start to think in a different way. Tried to look inside of myself. It also let me know how important it is to open your mind”.
“We always take things we know for granted if not we are always in a denial that there are elements that do somehow or other play an impact in our lives. With this workshop it not only make me realize that I have things to work on, address things to make me a better person. Other people around me will and can benefit as well.”
Way Forward
Results from the workshop deliver insights that are unique in workforce history. Most CEOs know that for positive organizational transformation to happen it has to start with every individual doing her/his part. Collating the individual results provides amazing and actionable insights. These include:
- What are the barriers of each individual (Assess the extent of or absence of Presenteeism)
- What is the individual’s on-the-job productivity/engagement (or potential to reduce Presenteeism)
- What is the individual’s, team’s, countries Holistic WellnessStrengths™ and HolisticWellnessIndex™ and what potential interventions could we strategically employ.
- How many and how strongly can individuals connect their GCP™ to their Work Goals
After Action learning review and next steps. These include essential manager training and manager-employee communication framework. As Prof. Gary Johns Professor, Management, Concordia University Research Chair, Management stated, “When you are managing absenteeism, who is more likely to know about what is really going on with every individual employee? It is probably the manager, and if they are not involved in trainings and awareness, a critical source of information will be missing.”
In Conclusion
Every CEO is concerned about her/his ability to steer their organizations towards a sustainable path to progress. A progress that satisfies customers, employees and Wall street. There is broad and growing consensus that in the 21st Century
workplace, staff who are cared for in a humane way are likely to be better at delivering results and weathering organizational adversity than ever before. If you are in doubt click here. The big challenge about where to start and how to sustain a cultural shift that will deliver on this end state can be overcome if staff do the things you want done because he/she wants to do it. Not if they don’t/can’t resonate with it. The new more direct gestaltic approach to workplace well-being could hold the key to that end result. As with any worthwhile initiative, creating a culture of well-being takes passionate, persistent, and persuasive leadership. Start fast, start small, fail fast, fail cheap and WIN your pursuit of enabling your employees’ true and sustainable Well-being!
Gurunath Hari is the author of “The 6 Dimensions, Overcome Presenteeism: Excel in work and Life”. He has over 25 years of corporate experience, including leadership and management roles. His working life started at the end of the pre-computer era and
continues to the present ‘everything-mobile’ era.
The 6 Dimensions book will soon be available on kindle !!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SCRMWCC
(Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s own and are not endorsed by his employer or any other company)
#PEAKISM
