How to keep your leaders focused on what matters
How can HR inject energy and help focus the leadership team as organisations return to hybrid working? The HRD/DPLA webinar on August 31, will offer HR professionals practical tips and strategies for how to positively energise the workforce, equip leaders to thrive in uncertainty and build structures for high performance.
There is a real sense of fatigue across many organisations. It has been a long, few years where almost every key assumption has been shown to be false in some way, giving rise to stress and uncertainty. In that environment, it has been difficult for people to stay motivated, engaged and focused in their work. This fatigue is generating a lot of talent movement and causing people to reflect on what role they want work to play in their lives.
Stepping up to support employees, HR has a big role to play. The webinar will show how HR can influence staff using techniques in positive psychology. For example, if someone is dwelling on a negative situation, there are methods that can be applied to help people from rushing to judgments, arrive at acceptance and reset engagement. By encouraging staff to adopt certain habits, HR will strengthen their mental health and make them more resilient to change. These may include habits such as expressing gratitude, cognitive exercises and calming techniques such as regulating breathing and introducing exercise.
It's about teaching people to be smart about how they expend mental and emotional energy. If you equip leaders with these skills, they tend to model them to others downstream and that can permeate through a whole organisation.
People also need to understand the purpose of their role. People who don’t will be much more fatigued by, and less engaged with work that they think is pointless or menial. Organisations need to get quite strategic in how they use the resources available to them and put structure and effort into keeping them engaged.
The power of the reset shouldn’t be underestimated. DLPA has been working with a lot of organisations where simply taking a moment to acknowledge the challenges of the last year, talk about the future, and make an active plan that people can get onboard with, has reinvigorated the entire team.
Be wary also of over-communication. It’s a trap which many businesses have fallen into as a result of remote working and is a primary cause of organisational fatigue.
Too many unnecessary meetings and too much granular detail being shared when people really just need high level information. For example, sending out a three-page memo on COVID-19 protocols for entering a workplace when a simple summary would suffice: ‘If you’re unwell you are not to come to work. If you do come to work, wash your hands often and observe good hygiene.’
Keep communication simple and focused on the action required. Put yourself in the shoes of the people receiving the information to consider what it means for them and how they receive it. Remember less is more.
Register for the webinar here.
