This Essential rests on the human needs of learning and accomplishment.

Learning is the process of acquiring new knowledge and skills in the workplace, which provides opportunities for individual intellectual, social, professional, and emotional growth.

Accomplishment confers a sense of competence that reduces stress, anxiety, and self-doubt. When organizations create more opportunities for learning, accomplishment, and growth, workers become more optimistic about their abilities and more enthusiastic about contributing to the organization.

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Employees want to know that they matter. They want to know that they are valued, heard, and respected. They want to know that what they do makes a difference in the lives of others.

Knowing that you matter can lower stress while feeling that you do not can raise the risk of depression.[2] [3]

This Essential rests on the human need for dignity and meaning.

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Every employee must be provided with both flexibility and autonomy to choose where they work, when they work and how they work. Employees will be more motivated, engaged, and productive. Organisations must treat their employees as people first and foremost. They have many needs, roles, and responsibilities outside of work and must be able to choreograph work around those and not the other way around.

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Organisations that create opportunities for social connection and community can help improve health and well-being. The Essential rests on two human needs: social support and belonging. Social support networks can mitigate feelings of loneliness and isolation. Fostering a sense of belonging has the potential to improve the health and well-being of employees and communities and the prosperity of the organisation itself.

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The Surgeon General’s Framework for Workplace Mental Health & Well-Being is intended to spark organizational dialogue and change in the workplace. It can also catalyze areas for further research, strategic investment, and broader policy advancements.

It is intended as a framework to support workplaces and enable them to create a plan with all employees to enact the components within the framework and reimagine workplaces as engines of well-being. It shows how to begin the journey.

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Last week, you may have noticed that there was very little activity from me on LinkedIn. There were no daily videos, and the weekly Leading Change newsletter was nowhere to be seen. As Björk sang, “It’s Oh So Quiet.”

The following is the explanation, and the reason this week’s newsletter is a little smaller than usual.

Two years and 9 months in and COVID finally got me!

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According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2022 Report, employees have never been more stressed.

The scary thing is that rather than trying to alleviate the causes of stress in the workplace such as excessive workload, lack of control, lack of support, poor leadership, lack of training and development, and work/life balance, employers are adding to the stress by not being clear about the future of work in their organisation.

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One of the greatest songs to come out of the 1960s was “See Me, Feel Me” (aka. See Me, Feel Me/Listening to You) by The Who.

It came on the radio recently and it said something to me it had not before, “This is what employees are demanding today and most employers are not listening.”

• See me

• Feel me

• Touch me

• Heal me

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“It takes curiosity to learn. It takes courage to unlearn. Learning requires the humility to admit what you don't know today. Unlearning requires the integrity to admit that you were wrong yesterday. Learning is how you evolve. Unlearning is how you keep up as the world evolves.” ~ Adam Grant

If you do not have the courage, expect to be left behind.

If you do not have the courage, expect to become irrelevant.

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It is time to unlearn and relearn.

“If you’re thinking in terms of ‘returning’—returning to the old way, returning to the way the office used to be, returning to what worked for you—then it’s time to rethink that direction. We need to move forward to a new path, and that requires engaging your employees to establish new ways of working together.”

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According to Harvard-based child psychologist Paul Harris, a child asks around 40,000 questions between the ages of two and five. But they are not doing it just to drive you crazy. They want an explanation.

Right now, we must model this behaviour not because we need to relive our early years but because we have a right to demand an explanation regarding the mandate to return to the office.

I have spoken to many employees who have been told they must attend the office so many days each week. or they must attend the office on specific days of the week. Every one of them, without exception, cannot explain the reasoning behind the decision.

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The demand for employees to return to the office because it will impact the culture is just an attempt to return to how it was before the pandemic. The fact is there is no going back.

I would suggest that if you believe that you need everyone to return to the office for organisational culture reasons, you did not have a good culture in the first place. Culture is not bound by physical enclosures. A great culture permeates an organisation and its workforce without limitation.

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In this eBook I reveal the indicators that most leaders are not ready to lead the distributed team.

I dispel the myths around a distributed working model and show you how to rethink - reimagine - reinvent.

I share my Distributed Leadership Model which contains the competencies needed by all leaders to effectively lead the distributed team.

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The recent Microsoft Work Trends Index: Pulse Report is a testament to the growing divide between employers and employees. I wrote about The Great Divide In The Workplace back in October 2021

Microsoft surveyed 20,000 people in 11 countries, and analysed trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals, along with LinkedIn labour trends and Glint People Science findings.

The report had three key findings and for each the need for better leadership is the answer.

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“Improving life at work isn’t rocket science, but the world is closer to colonising Mars than it is to fixing the world’s broken workplaces.

The real fix is this simple: better leaders in the workplace. Managers need to be better listeners, coaches, and collaborators. Great managers help colleagues learn and grow, recognise their colleagues for doing great work, and make them truly feel cared about. In environments like this, workers thrive.” (Gallup 2022)

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In this article I describe a working work as it should be with myself in the role of employee. We explore each day of the week, my relationship with my team and my boss. We describe the working model “Preference First.”

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We are getting the future of work wrong because we are using the wrong language.

The language we are using is wrong. We all need to speak the same language and understand what it really means. We all need to be on the same page. What remote-first means to one person will be totally different to what it means for another person. We need clarity.

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HBR research determined the capabilities now in demand, how they have changed over time, and what adjustments organisations need to make to ensure they have the right social skills in place for success.

The social skills needed include:

· High levels of self-awareness

· Ability to communicate and listen effectively

· Facility for working with a diverse workforce

· Theory of mind – the capacity to infer how others are thinking and feeling

In this newsletter I will look at the last two social skills as well as three fundamental characteristics that I believe must be in place if these other social skills are to be built.

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A recent article from Harvard Business Review caught my attention. It reaffirmed what many of us already know which that is being a good CEO is no longer just about having industry expertise and financial savvy but more about having strong social skills.

Whilst the article focuses on the C-suite, I believe that the social skills apply at every level of the organisation. You don’t know where your next executive may come from but home-grown is best. That approach allows internal up-and-comers to hone and demonstrate a range of strong social skills.

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A recent newsletter explored the findings of Gallup survey and the resultant report entitled Transforming Workplaces Through Recognition.

The report recognised that employers must create an environment in which employees want to work and can be their best. It is much more than just offering a job if employers want to attract and retain talent. It starts with showing employees that they are valued and this is achieved through recognition of their contribution or what I call positive reinforcement.

The report suggested that leaders can unleash the human element at work by taking five steps to build a better recognition strategy, and I wanted to explore them in this newsletter.

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