Many workplace mental health initiatives focus on the individual - massages and yoga....but neglect to consider the role of the workplace itself. 

I've been fortunate to be working with the FOW Institute to implement the Thrive at Work framework, a holistic approach to mental health at work. The three pillars of the framework are Mitigate Illness, Prevent Harm and Promote Thriving.

An interesting article about creating strategic value through learning. The article talks about the idea of 'targeted learning', which to me reflects the idea of diagnosing and evolving the system (culture) in order to build the capacity of the organisation to deliver, adapt and grow.

The example of the bank that responded to a review by making employees do 60 hours of risk training is a classic and it should be no surprise that it did not improve risk related outcomes. The article suggests four actions for CEOs:

1. Develop a holistic view of strategy execution challenges.
2. Use targeted learning to intervene in the places that matter most for the CEO’s agenda.
3. Measure impact through leading metrics linked to execution.
4. Position the learning function to address strategic problems from the outset.

Male Champions of Change aim to achieve gender equality and accelerate the advancement of more women into leadership positions. We strive for gender balance – 40:40:20 (40% men, 40% women and 20% open) – at all levels of our organisations. This commitment is grounded in a core belief: to attract, recruit, retain and promote the best candidates, and to reap the diversity dividend, we must tap into the full talent pool. ‘Targets with teeth’ are essential to deliver results. But even with targets we risk missing out on the best candidates unless we understand and remove the biases that may be hidden in the way we recruit and develop talent.

A wonderful and flexible (quick or deep dive) resource for exploring Psychological Safety.

Work from Home - Applying lessons from the COVID experience to create a future ready workforce

I've recently signed up for this free online resource created by Dr. Richard Claydon that explores flexible and remote working. I'm in the early stages of exploring, but it is chunked nicely and easily digestible, research based and highly relevant.

The simple concept of the 'availability and perception gap' is an important one for HR functions to explore, so they can develop mindsets and policy required to realise the potential.

Some thoughts on evolution of the Ulrich Model for HR

Instead of the mythical 'one-stop shop' people portal, create the front-end(s) that help people to more easily connect with the network of systems, people and resources available to them in the flow of their daily work. 

Ulrich provides an update to the original 1997 HR business partnering model. 13 elements an supporting questions can help shape/review the purpose, focus and value created by HR

Three aspects of Psychological Safety and the ways to develop them. I like the use of the SCARF Model, to understand motivations and threats.

Every business is deeply intertwined with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns. It makes sense, therefore, that a strong ESG proposition can create value—and this article provides a framework for understanding the five key ways it can do so. 

New technology, with the same old thinking won't deliver better outcomes or an improved employee experience. In this valuable article Dion Hinchcliffe, reflects on the impact of technology through the pandemic.

Although the article is written from the CIO perspective, I'm left thinking about it in terms of the evolution of culture:
- Structural Evolution, through new technologies will only be successful if it is enabled and supported through the evolution of relevant processes, AND
- Individual Evolution of mindsets, skills and behaviours (including those of leaders), AND
- Social Evolution of operating rhythms, ways of working, ways of communicating and rituals.

It might be easy to blame IT, but I'd encourage People & Culture functions to reflect on the role they have played and the role they need to play if they are to help organisations continue the shift and resist the pull of the culture bungee to return to traditional ways.

Amy Edmondson talks about simple and practical examples of what psychological safety sounds like in practice - the behaviours that nurture it. She also reinforces that PS is about creating a fearless environment, where team members feel they can speak up with concerns, bad news, or ideas without fear of being shut down, blamed, or humiliated. Conflict exists, but is is managed constructively.

Three things leaders and team members must continue to do:

1. Frame the challenge. This creates room for questions and concerns, but also for creativity. What you’re really doing is giving permission to experiment, possibly mess up in myriad small ways, and thus to learn. After all, we live in a VUCA world (a military term for variable, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous). There’s always a challenge to frame.
2. Invite participation. Make it 100 percent clear that all voices are welcome. Be continuously on the lookout for the unspoken concern or idea. It remains a stubborn fact that we don’t know what we don’t know. I’ve seen companies do creative things like developing their own insider-speak, almost a set of cues for speaking up. These can be anything—a catchphrase, a line from a movie. And depending on the context, they can be odd or goofy or profound. 
3. Respond appropriately. Make speaking up a positive experience, even when you don’t like what you've heard. This is incredibly hard sometimes, but absolutely necessary. When you get bad news, you might be angry or disappointed. You may be worried about the project or how the news reflects on you. But in the moment, you must put all that to the side. Thank the messenger enthusiastically, sincerely, and publicly, if appropriate. Then move forward constructively.  

A useful and well referenced article on learning theory.

This brief written case study explores how a performance support philosophy was used to implement the Mind Tools resource in my previous role/organisation. 

You can also view a 30 minute recorded presentation of the case study from the 2020 HR Tech Fest here. 

The role of the resource in supporting business performance AND the language used to position Mind Tools have been critical. Instead of learners and learning, the focus was on workers and working. We referred to Mind Tools as a 'toolkit' to reinforce the idea of helping people perform their role/tasks, respond to challenges they face and continuously develop. 

The initial focus was to integrate selected Mind Tools content within the company intranet and in support of key business processes. This performance support approach was about helping people refresh, prepare, perform and respond in the context of their work and at the point of need. The approach was also aligned to key business priorities and processes,, so the purpose of the resource and the value it was creating were clearly defined. I think this has much greater impact than trying to sell a huge library of 'self-directed learning', which sounds nice, but is vague and leads to questions about  activity/usage...

I hope you find the case study useful. You might use it to trigger a discussion with your HR/L&D team. For example:

What language do we use and does it help or hinder? Are we creating learning or performance solutions? What is the difference? What mindsets, capabilities and guiding principles might we develop to maximise our impact (i.e. performance consulting)?

Are we creating and maintaining content or curating it?  How much time do we spend working on content for general capabilities versus business specific/critical capabilities? How might a resource like Mind Tools help to shift this balance? How could we engage L&D, HRBPs and other specialists (i.e. Change Managers, Project Managers) to utilise MindTools resources as part of their role in enabling and developing others?

A useful overview of how to implement OKRs and the difference between them and KPIs

This manifesto tries to fix a hole in the system that we have come to accept over time: the fact that 70% of the changes fails. Let’s get out of the analysis paralysis and focus on what we leave behind at the end of a project. The thing that teaches people how to fish so they can eat forever. The new Organizational Change Management is called Social Architecture.

Learning is the top-rated challenge among 2019’s Global Human Capital Trends. People now rate the “opportunity to learn” as among their top reasons for taking a job, and business leaders know that changes in technology, longevity, work practices, and business models have created a tremendous demand for continuous, lifelong development. Leading organizations are taking steps to deliver learning to their people in a more personal way, integrating work and learning more tightly with each other, extending ownership for learning beyond the HR organization, and looking for ways to bring solutions we use in our daily lives into the learning environment at work.