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A call to management

You are in a greater position of power and influence than the employees you manage. You’re responsible for the well-being of your staff, the mood and motivation of your team, employee retention, the impact of training and development, and of course, what we all focus on most, how well we do our job - our output. All of these are proven to be better with employees who are able to manage stress - to know when they’re reaching their limit and how to rebalance, thereby consistently maintaining their best mental health.


Part of managing is of course managing down but it’s also managing up - you are there to shape the direction and strategy of your organisation and represent your team. If you decide that truly supporting employee wellbeing and fully understanding its benefits is something you’re committed to, you’re more likely to be heard than us. 


Lead from the front – don’t just attend the course on wellbeing or mindfulness and agree emphatically with its benefits at the time. Create that meditation room and walk into it regularly. Take a proper lunch break and make a show of doing so. Let staying late to get work done be the exception not the rule. Talk about the exercise you’re doing and how you’re fitting it in. Make sure you’re having the weekly/monthly meeting with your employee (that typically gets moved so many times it doesn’t happen) and really listen to them. Make mental health a regular part of your work conversations. Tell your team how your mental health is and what other techniques you use, or plan to use, to manage it best. Statistically, you have 400 touch points with employees a day- how are you behaving in those moments? Are you mindful of the impact they might have? This is your opportunity to be part of the solution, not the problem.


I know you’ll probably worry about getting push back; that your management might say that ultimately these techniques take time ‘out’ from typical business activity. Push back to them. Do your research - tell them about countries working less hours, have a stronger work/life balance and the better results they get in comparison (Germany and France for example). Tell them about the benefits to their business of healthier staff (this could be a separate blog! - less sick leave, less people leaving so less money spent on recruitment and retraining, better productivity, better culture, brand enhancement etc). Tell them you want to work strategically and are looking at the bigger, slightly longer-term picture than that months KPI’s. Be forward thinking and differentiate yourself from your peers and competitors. Get in front of this change in thinking that will hopefully be taken seriously by everyone sooner than later.


It can take just one noisy manager to make real change in a company. Your role is crucial; statistically you are the main reason we stay or leave jobs. Please live up to your job title and take your responsibility seriously. 




 
 
 
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