We understand that workplaces, leaders and employees are under a great deal of stress and feeling very uncertain about what immediate steps to take as we face COVID-19 and the associated health, employment, and economical adjustments.
People are scared for their immediate health and safety. People are anxious about the future. People are confused about what choices to make and what actions to take. Leaders are people, too.
This post is not to strike fear or amplify drama. It is to help leaders choose where to focus attention and effort. Leaders have the opportunity to navigate current complexities and come out the other side having exercised strong leadership, and having strengthened organisational resilience.
Make no mistake about it, a focus on employees health and wellbeing MUST BE part of your business continuity response.
We take very seriously the fact that we are well-positioned to help leaders and employees at this time given how important work-life wellbeing has become, and the impact this focus will have on levels of engagement and performance through the uncertain, confusing, stressful and complex times ahead.
A PROACTIVE FOCUS ON WELLBEING & RESILIENCE
The current message that health and wellbeing is front and centre right now is for good reason. Let's face it, it should always be, but often gets neglected until a crisis. So, it’s a needed focus now.
The messages about mitigating the risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19 are also for good reason. Finally, building a strong immune system for resilience is another critical message right now. Again, for very good reason.
Taken together, organisations MUST decisively ramp up the focus on employee safety, health and wellbeing over the next weeks and months ahead. This is not the time to stick your head in the sand waiting for things to blow over. This is not the time to react based on fear, either.
Now is the critical time that we ALL invest in strengthening health, wellbeing and immunity on all levels - as leaders, as people, and for our broader communities.
Let's focus our attention on answering some key questions:
- How strong is our health, wellbeing, immunity and resilience right now?
- What does this mean at team and organisational levels?
- What are the current challenges, deficiencies, or weaknesses we need to invest in to strengthen resilience, health, and wellbeing?
- What strengths and resources do we have that we can draw on right now?
- What are the unique challenges certain types of people, teams, business functions, geographies are facing?
These are important questions, and we can obtain answers that give us clarity around choices we can make and actions we can take to invest in what matters most - the wellbeing of our people.
Read on to know more about what you can do for yourself, as a leader, and for your workplace and community...
WELLBEING & RESILIENCE - FOR YOU & YOUR WORKPLACE
Now is the ideal time to show leadership by getting a better understanding of employee and organisational wellbeing, and what it will take to strengthen health, immunity and resilience at all levels. Set yourself and your organisation up to live well and have a positive impact now and into the future.
To help with this, the Benny Button Profiler is a tool that gives people and leaders a clear and no-nonsense understanding of strengths and challenges when it comes to wellbeing factors and resources that help to strengthen our immunity and resilience. Here’s what it covers:
- Stress Mastery & Resilience
- Mindfulness & Headspace
- Life at Work
- Rest & Restorative/Recovery Time
- Physical Strength, Fitness & Activity Level
- Nutrition, Hydration & Digestive Functioning
- Relationships & Connectedness
- Growth & Development
Organisations that navigate the complexity of what’s ahead skillfully, mindfully and resiliently will realise many benefits including, but well beyond the following:
- Increased levels of trust
- Risk mitigation in spreading infection
- Increased awareness in the importance of wellbeing
- Business continuity
- A more resilient workforce for when things are back to ‘normality’
HOW THE BENNY TEAM WILL BE CHANGING THE WAY THEY WORK
Every workplace is in the process of adaptation right now, and here at Benny, we are taking this on proactively.
Beyond meeting criteria for 'physical' distancing (aka social distancing), we are working our way through the current challenges to innovate and evolve how we offer support to leaders and employees through this unchartered path.
It's so important that we help people focus on and strengthen their wellbeing levels and resources right now. We see it as our duty to support our network of organisations, leaders, and employees in order to enable people to live well and continue functioning, performing and contributing in life and work at the best possible level.
In practical terms, we will be conducting meetings and hosting important wellbeing events online and some upcoming conference keynotes will be moving to an online delivery format (lookout for updates on our event page). We will be adapting the way we deliver learning and development experiences by using technology to can reach leaders and employees wherever they are, and at a large scale if required.
Expect to see more information on the series of workshops and experiences we are hosting that aim to directly and proactively respond to challenges leaders are facing right now when it comes to current health, wellbeing, and performance challenges.
We will be prioritising the following experiences with our clients and networks because they fit the times we are facing:
- Stress Mastery - Mindsets Coaching. Starting with practical upgrades to our mindset and responses we can improve our relationship to stress and reactions to the omnipresent challenges we are facing
- Work-Life Agility - Key Wellbeing & Performance Resources. This session will help everyone recognise the interdependencies between wellbeing and performance across our work and life experiences so we focus on having the resources we need, when we most need them
- Leading Wellbeing - Innovation Workshops. These 'hands on' sessions are to bring teams or focus groups together to generate innovative ideas for strengthening and sustaining wellbeing and performance
- Leading Wellbeing - Routines for leading telecommuting teams. Simple, regular check-in leaders can roll out to understand and support team wellbeing and performance priorities and actions
- Wellbeing Routines for Telecommuting. Relevant, rewarding, and realistic routines we can integrate into the flow of a new telecommuting work and life schedule
- Resilience - It's both a capability AND a process. Science-backed principles and practices for engaging with challenge, responding to adversity, bouncing back from setbacks, and learning and growing the whole way through.
- Mindful Action - Navigating a path of Growth (& Relapse). Strategies for optimising productivity, addressing distractions, and overcoming defaults and biases that can hinder our performance
We encourage you to contact us for more information if any of the above sound like they fit and will be of value to your organisation over the weeks and months ahead. Otherwise, stay tuned for announcements on open-to-public experiences we will be holding via teleconferencing technology. Finally, if you have unique needs and you're scratching your head and hoping we can help, touch base and we'll see what we might be able to do to support you.
Contact Benny to discuss how we can help because right now we are stepping up to support leaders, organisations and their people during the challenging times ahead. We will all grow through this.
Troy Mansell
Dr Adrian Medhurst