People are the backbone to any business and I have made it my life’s mission to empower organisations to create a positive workplace culture and an environment for their people to thrive.

In the world of Human Resources (HR), each new year comes with a new innovation or trend and I’m always excited to welcome positive change if it’s going to improve the employee experience. One of my personal goals is to always keep learning and an area that is becoming extremely important is positive psychology and wellbeing. In March, I will embark on completing a Diploma of Positive Psychology and Wellbeing with the Langley Group Institute.

What is positive psychology and how does it benefit a workplace?

 According to Psychology Today Australia, “positive psychology is a branch of psychology focused on the character strengths and behaviours that allow individuals to build a life of meaning and purpose—to move beyond surviving to flourishing.”

One thing that became clear to me as we all went through the difficulties and challenges of the pandemic and workplace stress continues to increase, focusing on the positives for both an individual and business wellbeing is essential. According to a recent study, ‘Resetting Normal: Defining the New Era of Work,’ by The Adecco Group, found, “28% of respondents said their mental wellbeing had worsened due to the pandemic, with only 1 in 10 rating their managers highly on their ability to support their emotional health.”

To increase individual, business and collective wellbeing

By completing this course, I will be able to support my clients with a range of positive psychology activities, tools, and strategies to help their people and business flourish.

Workplaces that look for ways to maximise and apply an individual employee’s key strengths and abilities will see higher rates of retention and productivity. Leaders who invest time in getting to know their people, value their contribution and their overall wellbeing will foster a culture of innovation and engagement.

Work plays a significant role in our everyday life and our overall wellbeing. We want our people to feel like they want to come to work. Making work purposeful and meaningful and they feel satisfied they are accomplishing something, will build teams that are highly motivated and driven to achieve positive outcomes for not only themselves but for the business.

My learning journey begins

Over the next few weeks, I’m incredibly excited about taking these next steps in my learning journey and hearing about the latest research of positive psychology, wellbeing and neuroscience. Creating workplaces for people to grow, ensuring diversity and fairness and an overall positive workplace culture is something I’m passionate about and I’m looking forward to sharing with you some of the key learnings.

My aim is for leaders to see their employees as ‘people’ who all have their own strengths and abilities and interests.

Over the coming weeks, I look forward to sharing with you more of my key learnings from my course.

I was recently invited onto Ticker TVs new show Blackbelt Leadership with Karen Gately, where I discussed the steps leaders can take to reengage a checked-out team.

I had such a wonderful time chatting to Karen and am very excited to share the segment with you.

Click the link below to watch.

https://www.tickertv.com.au/news/black-belt-leader-re-engaging-a-checked-out-team/

Just as the title suggests, Human Resources should be a very “human” prospect although in this industry we often find ourselves navigating an increasingly digitised workplace and world. Technology can be implemented to benefit many areas of an organisation, and HR departments are no exception.

Digital competency is essential for every HR practitioner to be able to deliver on their day-to-day tasks as well as the delivery of more complex projects. Many of our current skills will only be relevant for the next 2.5 – 5 years so it is important to remain abreast of changing technology to ensure your skills are relevant well into the future. Engaging with all things digital now will help you and your staff to integrate with the upcoming essential new technologies such as artificial intelligence and ‘bots’.

If your team is reluctant to go digital, here are 5 ways to empower your team to embrace technology.  

1. Use it Yourself

Changes in business culture are most effective when they are supported from the top down. As a HR manager you can’t demand that your team use the latest technologies if you are slow to embrace it – at the very least you will need to have a good understanding of them. Aim to keep on top of the latest developments. Set aside time to research cutting-edge technologies that could work for your organisation, chat to your network and other colleagues about the subject, read relevant media regularly or listen to industry podcasts. Sign up for newsletters or follow social media accounts that will keep you up-to-date. Call in a professional for help so that you can then help others. Ensure you can use any new apps, programs and tools you introduce. Lead the way and you’ll be an inspiration to your team.

2. Build their Confidence

Proper training is key. Take advantage of all of the online and real-world conferences, training and seminars provided by product suppliers to enhance your team’s skills. Once they’ve mastered a particular technology, make sure there’s a simple process to communicate any updates to the system and reserve time for your team to get on top of those new developments. Some level of independence ranks highly on the desirable list for most employees; you could invest in individual courses and professional development with a technological focus as an incentive for them outside of general team-wide training.

3. Use Technology to Use (More) Technology

It sounds like a bit roundabout but utilising technology may help your team embrace the digital landscape further. There are specific HR apps and programs out there that are designed to keep training and learning processes on track. If you have difficulty in areas such as keeping your team up to date; adopting new systems; educating new staff or assessing your team’s digital capabilities, learning systems from organisations like Success Factors, Cornerstone or Peoplestreme could be something to investigate.

4. Listen Up

Here’s where the human side of HR really comes in. Listen to what your team are asking for and see if it can be delivered from a digital standpoint. Whatever they need there’s bound to be – as the saying goes – “an app for that” and likely one that saves time and/or money. Involve them in the selection of the new products or platforms that they will be using. Your staff may be able to tell if a technology is fit for purpose more than you can. If, by chance, you can’t find a product that works for your team’s unique requirements, consider investing in development.

5. Knowledge is Power

Remember all of those podcasts, videos, media and e-newsletters about digital workplaces that you should be consuming? Shouldn’t your team have access to that knowledge too? Suggest that they sign-up or create an occasional digest for them to share via a meeting or an email. Encourage them to regularly share any knowledge, resources, channels or learnings they find helpful with the wider team. Keep them up-to-date on the latest research on how digital technology provides time, cost and analytic benefits. Did you know AI is in development right now to accurately determine how well new hires will perform in a role or even predict when someone might quit (with time to reverse underlying causes if desired). How brilliant is that?

For the first time in Australia’s workforce there are up to 5 generations working alongside each other, with nearly a 50 year age gap between the oldest and youngest employees. This breadth of age, combined with huge societal changes, presents complexities in the workplace surrounding different needs, attitudes, perspectives and working styles.

As history suggests, each generation believes they know more than their predecessors, and that the generation that follows them are lazy, disrespectful and arrogant. Yet if we break down these generations into “older” and “newer” we discover that often these differences are less about age and more about rapid changes in society that lead to a lack of understanding, or in many cases, a lack of integration.

Diversity is something I’ve always been drawn to – in another life I may have been an anthropologist! Not solely in the workplace, but simply the study of human nature and relationships, and the trends or differences that emerge between generations. For example, looking at the history of Australia’s workforce, our older generations have traditionally made quite engaged, loyal and hardworking employees. They are often devoted researchers, time-orientated individuals who work long hours, are early risers, and committed to putting in ‘the hard yard.’ Newer generations on the other hand have developed a mentality of working ‘smarter’ not harder, motivated by a work-life balance and ideal company culture. While no less hard working, younger generations are born communicators, confident, inherently digitally-savvy and driven by their values. Unlike their older counterparts who struggle with the ‘work-to-live’ attitude, younger generations embrace change and thrive on experience, purpose and recognition.

So how do two (or three, or four) groups of people from one end of the age bracket to the other come together? While societal changes and structures can indeed set us apart from our neighbour, learning how to manage different generations, understand their learning styles and tailor the way you manage your team to suit various needs is an essential skill of being a leader.

For example, almost 80% of millennials say they’d like their boss to act more like a coach or a mentor – which makes sense as these individuals are the newest to the workforce and are still learning their skills, nurturing their connections, and strongly value a positive company culture. On the other hand, ‘baby boomers’ are governed more so by ethics, fairness, dependability and consistency. They take less risks, but are in for the long run. They’re also more likely to leave a workplace due to salary, compared to newer generations who will stay in lower paying job if the culture is the right fit. Together these differences show how important it is for managers to be open, responsive and flexible in their leadership style, as well as acutely aware of who makes up their team, and how different they may be. 

The benefits of a multigenerational workforce are far reaching. Business have become varied in age, experience and breadth of thought, and teams become more flexible due to the advances in technology that keeps us connected. At a leadership level business decisions are usually stronger when combining broad generational perspectives, and tend to remain ahead of the curve by embracing creativity and innovation. Put simply, where younger generations bring fresh energy and an eagerness to change the world, older generations bring wisdom and vision unrivalled by any other demographic – and when united, different skillsets and ideas should flourish.

This idea of diversity in the workforce is not a novel concept, yet one that demands increasing attention and understanding as the sands of time shift. In Part 2 of this topic I’ll share some insights into the difficulties that may arise in multigenerational workplaces, and how you can work with your team to overcome challenges and thrive.