Welcome to our wellbeing issue.

When we work with emerging leaders in a coaching and training context our focus is usually helping them to develop their own leadership style. As the leader becomes more experienced and comfortable with the demands of leadership, areas of personal and staff wellbeing often become an area of attention.

Your state of wellbeing impacts your business decisions, the quality of your business and personal relationships and your business results. Wellbeing is so intertwined with your performance that it cannot be ignored. As you’ll read in our feature article, it also impacts the bottom line.

For leaders, focusing on the wellbeing of your staff is no longer just a nice thing to do! Read our article on Promoting Mental Wellbeing for practical tips on ensuring your staff remain well and engaged.

In Are We Winning, Fitness and Lifestyle Coach Nadene King explores why wellbeing is about more than just getting to the gym.

We hope you enjoy reading our April edition of Brave New World, we’ve loved putting it together.

Wishing you an April full of smiles,

Best of life,

 

 

 

Promoting mental wellbeing involves more than offering staff the occasional yoga class. As a leader, there are a number of things you can do on a regular basis to help reduce the causes of stress and enhance the mental wellbeing of your team.

1. Set goals that can be achieved – Big Hairy Audacious Goals can, by virtue of their name cause undue tension for your team if they are not realistically achievable. Setting challenging but achievable goals regularly is more likely to motivate rather than intimidate.
2. Ensure your team have the tools they need to achieve their goals – Ensure goals you set with your staff are not conflicting and respond positively if new resources are required to achieve goals you have set.
3. Give people control – Feeling like they’re not controlling the outcome can become a source of stress for people. Help your employee to understand where their control and influence lies and to focus their energy here.
4. Ask for input – Involve your employees in decision making. Demonstrate integrity by requesting their input on decisions that affect them.
   
5. Regularly review progress towards goals – Help your team to feel progress towards their goals or re-focus where necessary by regularly reviewing their performance and feelings. Focus on removing barriers and designing solutions together.
6. Recognise the signals of stress – Be prepared to intervene when you notice the signals and focus on providing the appropriate release valve for your staff.
7. Give regular feedback – Let your team know where they stand. Give regular (sincere!) positive feedback and encouragement, and be prepared to give constructive feedback in a timely manner.
8. Help staff balance personal and work commitments – Focus on delivery of objectives and output, not on the hours spent in the office. Be flexible and consistent in your approach.

“As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
- Marianne Williamson

By Belinda Cordina

It’s pretty hard to be consistently engaged at work without a sense of personal wellbeing.

Regardless of how smart or well designed the underlying business model is, without actively promoting the wellbeing of employees, a business is likely to fall short in delivering it’s true potential. A 2004 study* by the Gallup organisation estimated the cost to Australian businesses of ‘active disengagement’ at work at $31.5 billion, indicating that this represents 20% of employees.

Are you convinced that wellbeing should be part of every board level discussion? In my experience working with emerging and experienced leaders from a coaching and training perspective, wellbeing consistently comes up as an area of concern or neglect and once achieved is often the catalyst for a positive step change in leadership and business performance.

If you’re not well, you’re business results will ultimately reflect this. Studies also reveal that workplaces whose employees feel a sense of passion and connection to their work and/or employer deliver higher levels of productivity, customer service, staff retention and profitability.

Many large companies have responded to this evidence by implementing top-down corporate wellness programs. Many of these programs focus on mental, emotional physical and financial wellbeing and are driving improvements in absenteeism, productivity, motivation and retention – all of which positively impact profitability.

At the core of any wellbeing program’s success however is what happens at the team leader and the individual employee level. As managers and employees we have a responsibility and a role to play in improving our own wellbeing and that of our team members.

Kathryn O’Riordan is a cellular health specialist who also specialises in reflexology and remedial massage. According to O’Riordan, the three key challenges facing her clients today are lack of energy, weight loss and stress.

Wellbeing will mean different things to different people, so it’s important to understand what wellbeing looks like for you, and for those around you. Take two minutes to jot down the core components that make up wellbeing for you. What does wellbeing mean to your staff? Does their job currently contribute to, or move them further away from achieving wellbeing?

O’Riordan highlights the importance of a change in mindset in achieving wellbeing. She educates that there is not a “quick fix” and that often the same issues crop up more than once because of a lack of responsibility on the part of the individual. Whether the mindset belongs to the individual or the company, a commitment to wellbeing needs to be long term. One of the reasons coaching plays a key role in driving organisational wellbeing is it’s action orientation and long term focus.

Improving wellbeing doesn’t have to mean a total overhaul. It is possible to take small steps towards wellbeing whilst still achieving your business commitments. One of the areas O’Riordan works with her clients on is adjustments to their diet in order to improve energy levels. “It’s amazing how a tweak in your diet can make a huge difference”. In a coaching situation, discussions around wellbeing are often teamed with discussions on time management as improvements in time management and effectiveness can often make space for wellbeing activities… and this in turn helps further improve productivity and fulfillment.

The benefits of focusing on wellbeing are clear. Both employees and businesses have an important role to play and responsibility must be shared if wellbeing efforts are to work. With an understanding of what wellbeing means on an individual level, the support of experts like coaches and health specialists and a step by step plan with a longer term focus, smart business will continue to realise the cultural and financial benefits of a true investment in people.

Kathryn O'Riordan is founder of Coretherapies. Kathryn has trained as a Reflexologist and Remedial Massage Therapist and has now teamed up with leading nutritional company USANA Health Sciences. Kathryn is passionate about promoting healthy lifestyles through proper nutrition, exercise and the role of high-quality supplementation in the prevention of degenerative diseases.

For a free health assessment contact Kathryn on 0422480163, kathryn@coretherapies.com.au, www.coretherapies.com.au

* Australian Engagement Study, 2004 – The Gallup Organisation. Sample of 1,500 working Australians aged 18+"

Find out more about Belinda Cordina here.

By Nadene King

Expanding on the “Work-Life Balance” movement has come the more robust and holistic approach of Workplace Wellness Programs. These programs include resources, services and policies available to employees to help improve their own wellbeing. Whilst these programs are holistic, their image has been dominated by our need to increase our physical activity - thanks to our expanding waistlines and increased occurrence of weight related disease.

Now as a fitness and lifestyle coach it has been great to see an obvious increase in people getting out there and signing up for boot camps and personal training. Outstanding fitness and weight loss achievement is not only reserved for contestants of the Biggest Loser. But there are a few points that haven’t been highlighted in fitness and weight loss’ rise to the top as the pin-up girl for wellbeing.

Firstly, are fitness and weight loss the only answers to wellbeing? Well, for some it may be, but we are physical, mental, emotional and spiritual beings who all need different buttons pushed. Your wellness, in the workplace or otherwise, can only be defined by you. What does wellbeing mean to you? What makes or would make you happy? What does or will fulfill you? Fitness is important and I believe, should be a priority for everyone, but sometimes it can’t always be number one. Sometimes other aspects of life may get out of control, require greater attention or even be the underlying cause of an unhealthy lifestyle.

Getting fit may be the first and easiest action that comes to mind, but this should not be at the expense of other matters that require your attention and affect your wellbeing. That is not to say that two goals can’t be pursued at once but prioritising will help with your allocation of time and effort!

Secondly, if you have determined that health and fitness is important to your wellbeing and you would like to pursue a goal in this area you need to consider your approach. Put plainly, most of what we consider “exercise” e.g. running, jumping etc places a degree of stress on the body and it’s systems. This stress is usually outweighed by the well-known benefits of exercise. But when we are adding exercise on top of our other life stresses of work, relationships, money, bad diets and smoking, it is reasonable to conclude that the cumulated stress can be so great that the benefits of exercise go unrecognised. This does not give a green flag to forgetting about exercise, it simply highlights that it needs to be prescribed properly. Activities such as yoga, meditation, breathing and tai-chi can help reduce stress levels and you may need to adopt other strategies like this to reduce stress in order to make room for exercise. Always consult with your doctor and a qualified exercise therapist/fitness trainer about your approach.

Thirdly, health and fitness is not all about hard work. Shared health and fitness goals can be fun with benefits reaching far beyond the physiological realm. Why not organise team building fitness session or determine healthier options for office morning teas and lunches? You might share health tips, cook for each other or get together and order a fruit box for the office. If everyone in the office has a fitness goal you may organise a challenge timeframe at the end of which you hold a rewards lunch? All of these suggestions have the added bonus of improving or maintaining team camaraderie as the synergy of combined motivation and achievement are realised.

Finally, in approaching workplace wellbeing, think of yourself as an athlete and your employer the coach. No coach has ever been solely responsible for a successful athlete. A coach and athlete bring their own contributions of knowledge, experience, guidance, desire and motivation to the performance table. Together they determine their goals and winning strategies, where either’s performance in their role is equally dependant on the other. So why not sit down with your employer or employees today and ask “Are we winning?”

Nadene King is the founder of Healthify Fitness and Lifestyle Coaching. By definition Healthify means to make or become healthy, to "makeover" one's lifestyle by removing or reducing unhealthy practices and replacing them with health-y/ier practices so as to improve one's vitality and enjoyment of life. If you are ready to "Healthify" your life why not contact Nadene and her team today to discuss how they can help you. Healthify's programs and services are tailored to meet and support your needs, desires and availability. Healthify contact details: 0419190378 or healthify@gmail.com

“…The phenomenal results of the last 12 months are absolutely attributable to the guidance, facilitation of planning and assistance in execution of Brave Coaching & Consulting on multiple levels within our organisation. Within a few weeks of Brave coaching one of our senior executives we saw tangible positive results and a movement towards long term change in the right direction.” - Managing Director – Big Gig Event Company.
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