Your organisation might already have a broad mental health policy in place. But have you ever considered implementing an action plan tailored to each staff member’s individual wellbeing needs?
Michelle McQuaid is a best-selling author and workplace wellbeing teacher and coach, with more than a decade of senior leadership experience in large organisations around the world. We spoke to Michelle to find out more about the importance of building resilience and wellbeing in staff and teams, and why happiness shouldn’t be the holy grail at work.
Just this week, we’ve had floods in Victoria, NSW and Tasmania and cyclonic storms in South Australia. Natural disasters – whether floods, droughts, heatwaves or bushfires – are rarely far from the headlines in Australia. Which makes it all the more shocking that 25 percent of community organisations say they might need to close permanently after an extreme weather event, while half think they’d be out of action for at least a week.
That’s why the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) suggests that community organisations are generally ill-prepared for disasters and emergencies. To help address this, ACOSS has developed a toolkit to help community organisations measure and improve their resilience in such circumstances.
In the lead-up to her presentation at the 2016 Not-For-Profit People Conference in November, we talk to Bravehearts’ Director of People and Culture Pamela Weatherill about ‘radical self-care’, including why it’s so necessary in the not-for-profit sector.
Did you know that your staff’s ability to focus, solve problems and make decisions could be being compromised by your office itself?
That’s according to a recent study out of the US, which found that even modest improvements to air quality in the average office could noticeably boost the performance of workers.
Did you know that staff who bring their pets to the office experience a drop in stress levels of around 11 percent? So if you’d like to explore how to make your office pet-friendly, here’s the story of how one Australian NFP organisation did it to staff acclaim.
Almost half of all Australians work through their lunch break. And more than a quarter of us – 3.8 million Australians – don’t take a lunch break at all, according to the Australia Institute. But while it might outwardly appear that your lunch-break-skipping staff are admirably committed to their work – and that’s good for your team and your organisation – the real impact is more insidious.
Bullying is often called the “cancer” of the workplace. But unlike cancer, bullying is not a disease. Rather, it’s a symptom of poor organisational functioning.
So what can be done about it?
This might be the best news you get all week:
A study published earlier this year in the peer-reviewed research journal Appetite has found that habitual chocolate consumption is linked to improved mental performance.
It’s fair to say that most workers would prefer not to work such long hours. But in many NFP organisations, working 40-50 hours a week is expected for a number of roles. Have you ever considered the impact of staff working excessively long hours on your organisation itself?