Surviving the chaos
Shortlister recently released their Well-being Industry Prospectus 2017, a report on employee wellness trends. They surveyed well-being subject-matter experts at top employee benefits service providers to get their take on the state of the wellness industry.
The entire report is certainly worth reviewing as it provides some interesting insights into the trends of the must haves vs the growing demands when it comes to employee well-being programs.Interesting to note is that financial wellness and health coaching are now ranking higher up on the scale. If you are short on time, you can download the report here.
However in the midst of the recent chaos there is a bigger sense of well-being that needs to start happening in order for real change to take place.
We need to start having real conversations and putting realistic options on the table.
We need to start addressing the ‘elephants in the room’ and in order to do that we need to remove the labels that society places on us as well as the labels we place on ourselves. Otherwise we will just be stuck in the same place we have been for the past 20odd years.
These tough dialogues include topics such as:
- Racism
- Gender Imbalance
- Insularism
- Toxic Teams
- Ageism
- Bullying
The sensitivities that embody these Tough Dialogues often result in them being ignored, and in most cases, the expertise to successfully deal with such ‘tough’ issues does not necessarily reside within the organisation.
Ignoring these tough dialogues leads to missed opportunities and can even incur huge losses to the organisation and bottom line.
In order to have these Tough Dialogues, we need to be willing to put our prejudices aside and bring humanity to the forefront of everything we do.
We can do that by applying the S.M.A.R.T principles to our relationships:
S = Solution orientated (find a win-win for your challenges and obstacles)
M = Mindful (be mindful of your thoughts, actions and behaviours)
A = Accountable (you are equally accountable for keeping your relationship healthy)
R = Respectful (to each other and of the relationship)
T = Time (make time for each other to connect, to get to know each other on a human level)
Albert Camus famously said that our lives are the sum of the choices we make. The same holds true for organisations. Executives and their teams are charged with making momentous decisions that will shape the destiny of their organisations and impact, in some cases, thousands or even millions of people.