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Episode 11 · 1 year ago
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Episode 11 · 1 year ago
The Future of Work
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Hello and welcome to the eleventh episode of Naked Truth with Carmen and Olivia. I hope you are all well. How are you doing, Carmen? What have you've been up to do? That not bad, so you be cool. I find it really a struggle to go from summer to Altum, despite the fact that I love altum. HMM. So it's been busy with them. My kids started secondary school and preparing her for that and been doing a lot of personal development, because you need to be few steps up front from your clients. So see and yes, ideally, then what about you? Yeah, it's Sam. It's funny you mentioned the weather, because you're sat there all wrapped up and I'm sat here in event. That's because my house is so hot. We are having the annual argument overheating and weather. There's an annual argument over what temperature to have the house at, because I think just leave it like at the most, at the absolute most, twenty two degrees, but he likes to whack it onto fold because apparently it's hotter faster. It doesn't. It's not have them start works that. We have this ARG yeah, every year I stroggle with people. Who wants to be in tshirts at home in we yeah, it's today, jumper. I'm an invest and it's October, like I want to be wrapped up in a blanket in front of a fire, not exactly eating on. Yeah, I've been pretty busy. I know we've not recorded for a while, although we have caught up regularly. But yeah, it's been it's been a lot of changes, I think, since the last time we recorded, like personally and around the world. And it's all insane and crazy again, isn't it? And we don't know. I mean, I mean as we're recording, I don't even know if Donald Trump's in hospital anymore or not. I don't know. He was out there doing a parade whilst he's sick. I'm very conn what's cooking on? To be honestly, of months ago, before some I made a conscious decision to know what's media I want. Yeah, every probably three days, or sometimes was a week, just to know which new rules I have to yeah, and I'm my life is so much better. I just don't I'm no interested in all these big DA stories. And you don't even know if he's young. So, yeah, this that this particular story with trump has just got me fascinated. It's I'm just I can't believe what we're seeing. Like I just can't. From like staged photos to a sick, elderly, overweight man doing a parade in a car. You like, I'm not even thinking about your health, I'm thinking about the health of the people who are in the other with you, the drivers. I don't know. For me, I look at him like he's doing a TV show. I think...
...he's behave. Yeah, it's like I am doing my TV show and I think he's degrading the the seat he's sitting on the leader of America. So it's to painful. I can't beat to watching. I just can't. I do want to like if he's okay, like, does he realize this isn't perfectly normal baby Olivia? He's not. Mentally, he is not okay. No, he's he's not. Only that now, because I think he's rounded with himself, with people. I mean, yeah, I didn't watch the debate on TV, but you on the news. You saw him without mask, making fun of the other guy. That, Oh yeah, mask, yeah, and then you see his daughter, IV Anca, being like a Barbie door with very serious face in a very arm and sitting down, sitting down kind of look, and then you saw the the song as well. So for me it's like I just cant for me out of the Lords of the low. I can't. I just got well. I suppose this isn't a political podcast things. I don't know anything about politics. This week we are going to discuss, and I suppose there's a bit of polity takes attached to it, the future at work. So, as we all know, the coronavirus pandemic is affecting everything about the way we live and how we work and the workplace and what employers are meant to be doing. Is Confusing and you know, go back to your office, don't go back to the office, work remotely, don't work remotely, work remotely again. It's all very confusing and also what we see in the media is very scary. You know, we're expecting long term effects on the economy from the pandemic when it comes to businesses. So some businesses may cease trading and you know, only yesterday sinner world announced they were closing their their cinema. Yeah, do than know there? Yeah, so that's another you know, another one bites the dust for another kind of big company. Others have had to adapt their practices and are using more remote workers if they can and work. A behavior could be, you know, permanently shifting over time and this impacts the workforce. When you watch the news, it does feel like all jobs are at risk. You feel down, you don't really want to go sit in your tiny Home Office and stare at a laptop, and a lot of people are experiencing mental health challenges due to the changes and the uncertainty. The experiencing, you know, including anxiety and depression and Carmen. As you know, I'm bit of a fixer, so please tell me. How do we feel exist? Oh dear, first of all, stop watching the news. Olivia, for everybody listening is stub watching the news. So yeah, if it's like the new...
...world is one of constant change and disruption, and so they all model of work in that. To be honest, being incorporate for twenty five years, it didn't work well for many of us. Took plenty of stress and sciety and happy people. This model have to go and we must re shape any model based on how we humans we operate and will make us thrive. So companies need to do more than just focusing on safety. That, right now is the right thing to do, because it's the most concerning to make to deal with. But they need to pay attention to the human capital as well as to all these advanced technologies, and it could very well be starting with giving people the tools they need to support and nurture their own well being and mental resilience so they can operate from a place of strength to navigate the change in their daily life. That it will be here for many months to come. So for meantimes of crisis like the current want, the most most important resource is our inner resilience and it has to be the bet rock on which to build any certain called the new normal, not just at work, at home mus well. So it's from the starts as something it's really important to understand how we work as humans, and we have to take personal responsibility individually to do it for ourselves, as we're for the campanies. They have to to do their parts as well. Yeah, and you know, the biggest issue is this is completely unprecedented. We've not dealt with a global issue like this covid pandemic before. So we're all learning together and we weren't prepared as humans or employers to deal with this kind of threat. And when we're faced with perceived threats, the higher functioning parts of our brains just stop working. We've revert to our primitive brain systems and go into that fight or flight mode. We can't operate properly and we struggle to be creative. We can't be empathetic, inclusive, open to new ideas see alternative perspectives when we're struggling to see past the next hour. So real inspiration, breakthroughs and that kind of deep sustaining focus can only happen when you're recharged and engaged, and that's whyen the creative rather than reactive parts of our minds can come to the surface. So we really need to be kind to ourselves if we're struggling with resilience and creativity at the moment. You know it's a difficult time to be resilient and creative and when it comes to businesses, historically, companies haven't been great at dealing with the emotional needs of the workforce. Cash is king. Employees are a cost code. So if years, companies have been streamlining their workforces for efficiency rather than for resilience, so what could we do to improve things and...
...be better prepared for our emotional needs at work. Yeah, for me this is key emotional needs. So it's all about improving our mental resilience and our mental fitness. And we talk about mental resilience, we talked about the capacity to to do three things really to bounce back from advarsity, to adapt change and to keep going on. Wherever you see in front of you, keep that hope and the faith that at some points your life is going to be better. So keep walking, because to be creative and to be productive in uncertainty, in cares, we need to do develop this mental fitness. The mental fitness for me is, first, we need to increase our self awareness. What are our fears, our limiting beliefs, all these old habits that are not working for us, because we keep behaving the same way and getting the same old results that make us und happy, as the first thing, and we need to take responsibility for that individually. Then the other thing is we need to set that are sitting failures as opportunities for growth rather than, you know, being scared about it. You know, look at it like, okay, what is my learning here? What is this telling me? I remember spend so many gears, I wasted so much precious moments, so many years, you know, like no, accepting these adversities, infinitely sorry for myself and, you know, feeling like a victim. Why me? Well, why you? Is because the majority of car cases, adversity will come just to give you a kick up your ass. Basically because, you know, in my case, I spend so many years and happen doing something that it was not my path. They feed I didn't have adversity one after another. I will stay there forever. So, in a way, if you live in the gods, or let me if you don't, and you will live more in a universe and a higher power. For me, I look at it as the universe is giving me that push I need, because if I don't get that, my life is not going to change. And the third one is we need to to focus on action. What can we do? They Sing our control to improve our situation, and one thing with this is accept you reality. Don't fight, because every time you fight reality you will lose hundred percent. Realities would you see in front of you. But then it is that thinking about what can I do in my control to make my situation better? And the moment we started thinking about action and we start acting on that, we stop the fears, we stop the You know, you just focus on action and you keep improving and bring improving. And...
...the other thing as well, for me, is the biggest lie in history for me, is that we feel we are in control. We were never in control, we will never be in control and now, of course, the more we watch the news, will less in control. We feel based totally okay, because we are not meant to be in control. Life is in control of us. You know, you could be leaving your house to go to work and you could have a car accident that you don't know it's going to happen. Yet the majority of my days I spend the and feeling like I was controlling my life. So this is a big lie. And the problem with the lies now that we feel so annoying control. It give us more stress because in your head is by should be in control. If you have in your head, well, I'm not in control and I shouldn't mean control, it makes total sense. Then you start to focusing in things and you start to getting a little bit less stressed. So for me to drive in life, we need to avoid making decisions from a place of fear and a place of panicky, because the qualities like focus, empathy, collaboration inclusion at essential to win in the future and, as you mentioned, to be creative during uncertity and chaos. Our immediate emotion needs need to be met first. We can't create an implement new solutions for the future if we struggling to see implicate through the day. And there is what is happening right now. We all have this amazing treasures inside us, you know, amazing insights, original ideas and needn't movie solution to previously unsolved problems. But those treasures and those stretches are the building blocks of productivity. But we can't tap into them if we feel anxious or stress, as most people are not right now. So for me, I wrote a post the other linking it's about self care, and Selfcare is not selfish. Again, I spend many years caring about my partner, my dults and my friends, my work and forgetting about me. So selfcare is should be top priority for all of us. It's like if you're in an aeroplane, they always say to you put you oxygen mask before you can help anybody else. Right, so exactly the same day. Is what I mean by self care. So individually we have to put our self care top priority. And then in companies they have to play a big crawl in these to making sure employee woving. It's a dub of their agenda. So yeah, these few things we can build it. And you know, it's great to have this fully optimized work for system, but if...
...the humans that are turning up to work aren't optimize themselves and they're not bringing their whole sales to work, how much of their kind of wisdom and empathy and creativity are showing up with them? And if the answer is not a lot, how do we change that? Well, let's have a look at what human sorry, what makes humans operate at their best whether they're working from home or going into the office. So some key things that can help us be more productive and creative at work are well, number one, when we're not on call twenty four seven. That that's something I certainly recognized in my last corporate role. was that feeling of you always had to reply to emails when you got them, you always had to answer the phone, always had to respond as quickly as possible and it was a story I was telling myself. It wasn't necessarily that anybody else was telling me. You have to reply to that person within fifteen minutes, otherwise they're going to wonder what you're doing or anything like that. It was all in my own head thinking. You know how us, nine at night's a perfectly reasonable time to still be working on my work phone and that doesn't help with creativity. It's just putting more and more pressure on yourself and again just being reactive, reactive, reactive. It isn't being creative. Another thing we can do is make sure we're saying goodbye to our work day at a normal time and get some good sleep. So whatever that is for you, whatever works best for you and your family, work the hours you intend to work and that's it. Okay, they'll always be something that might come up at some point during the year where you have to do some extra hours, but that shouldn't be the norm. You know, the norm should be you do your hours and you finish and you get a good rest and then during your working day you have to be taking regular breaks. You need to give your mind arrest from whatever task is at hand. Go and do something else, go have a walk around the garden, go for a make yourself a coffee, just get away from the screen for a little bit. Something else we really need to make sure we're doing, particularly when we're in these kind of ever changing lockdown, not lockdown, don't really know what we're doing. Measures, is make sure we are connecting meaningfully with friends and family, and that again means finding out what works for you. Is it a phone call? Is it a video call? Is it a socially distance me up? What? What is it that works for you? How do you best connect with people? We're also able to be more productive and creative when we don't feel that we're having to choose between our job and happiness, and I know that can be easier said than done and sometimes we have jobs that don't necessarily make us happy. But my recommendation there...
...is to view the job as a job and and experience your kind of happiness outside of that, or, if you are lucky enough, really do find yourself a job and create yourself a job where you are happy, so that you're not feeling this constant kind of tug between all, I have to go to work and I have to do this or you know, I'd much rather be doing that and be happy. I hate my job and we need to find those moments where you can pause and think and explore our own passions and experience real joy. So maybe that's something you find in the workplace and maybe it's something you find completely detached from the workplace. Maybe it's a hobby, whatever it is, make sure you are having those moments to enjoy life and think about things and reflect. And another thing that's really important is we need to feel that we matter. So we need to feel value both at home and in the workplace. We need to feel like we are visible, that people see us and they appreciate us, and part of that you may feel as well. That's on other people to show you, but it's also on you to recognize in how people are showing you that you are valued and you are appreciated. So you might think like, oh well, my partner never says to me that that you never says thank you, and I've when I've done something for them. But what do they show you? What? What is another way that they might be showing you that? Or have that open conversation with them tell them I need you to be more demonstrative in in the way that you demonstrate your your love for me. So it got to point, Olivia, because, sorry to interrupt, I thing is really important that we take ownership with the this, you know, these three primary emotional needs. We have to be visible, too much and to value people. Can only do that to us if we start to do in the first to ourselves, and then we should the way towards all. That's how we like to be treated the majority of times, like in my case, in my life experience, I didn't see me visible, I didn't see me, you know, I didn't hear that I match. In my life, everybody else matter more than me and I truly didn't value myself. I was at the bottom priority of value everybody else. So it seemed possible. If we don't do it first to ourselves, the same it's impossible that we will get in much from other people. So let's take ownership and do it for ourselves and then as well, as you're really so sometimes people there are five languages of Love, love meaning relationships, and in relationship we need to be honest with people. You know, if I'm with a partner and my love language is words and for my partner is giving presents, it's not going to work really well between us. But if I tell him, look, stop the diamonds and...
...tell me I love you, I love you every now and then, then of push. If they don't do it, you can react to it, but at least they know it right. So yeah, really good point. And actually, to come at to your point about valuing yourself, I actually saw something on twitter this morning that I really liked and I probably not going to remember it exactly correctly, but it was that someone's Dad said to them you believed in Santa Clause for eight years, but you can't believe in yourself. The thirty minutes and it really made them stop. My God, and I was like, oh, that's such a powerful eyes so like I'm stealing that. So I'm God, I've got to use it on this podcast, because great. But the thing is we having learned this is skills, because our parents was all about, okay, you need to survive, so we give you the skills and then be kind, be nice, be generously. Baby when and we forget because we think, I mean, for me, coming from the Catholic backgrounds, like no, no, it's all about sharing, be kind and this and that, and we forget tell our kids be kind to yourself first. Yeah, I love yourself first, because once we learn how to love ourselves, and for me still like a journey, they so easy to love for the people, because it doesn't love, it is abandoned, it doesn't leave. Mean that because we love ourselves with we don't have the space or then I you to love others. Does mean that it's like you love yourself, so is easy for you to love all this in the same way. So, yeah, anyway, we deviate a little bit by I thought that's a business. Yeah. So, yeah, if we think about from a company point of view, because we were talking about the future at work. So in my view, companies approach has to be employee centric if they want to be successful in future. So for years, and May being corporate for so many years, we have used to knowledge to replace humans and drive cost savings. But technology doesn't work on its own. Companies still need humans to make you work. So why not use tech knowledge to help us improve mental fitness, employees at faction and well being, you see, to help us change our habits and behavior so we can open rates at our full potential. So it could be that there is options for companies to create a DASHBOARDS for management to measure the mental resilience and emotional well being of the employees, so they can identify and address the factors leading to burn out and distrust in the workplace, and this is impacting in many business metrics. So it will be a really good thing for the business to do so. We will improve the company's performance with an engaged and motivated workforce and, if use correctly, technology can help us to have a better work life balance through...
...remote working. Could be that we given the employees well being tooled like an employee system program and outtomate the more manual tasks so they can get on with more creative ones. So, for me overall, as a summary here, the company is only as resilient as his people. If employees are anxious, reactive and burnout, every business matric will be affected, and that is why people need to be at the center of whatevery entry plans or the utul transformation strategies companies are formulating right now during this challenging times for the future. Yeah, we need to reimagine and rebuild the relationship between employees and companies and at heart it has to be a about helping employees rebuild the relationship with themselves. Humans are human, and two thousand and twenty has been a tough year. Companies need to create conditions for people to operate from a place of strength and calm and empathy, somewhere they can be curious and somewhere where, you know, they grow in their resilience. The pandemic has pushed us to change the work environment at a quicker pace than anticipated. I mean the speed which some companies which, let's face it, I've been resisting homeworking for years, have been able to switch to remote working was phenomenal. I'm not going to name the names there, but I you know, I do know companies that have been so against homeworking and so convinced that, you know, our employees won't work from home, we can't trust them. Yeah, where you've had to in this case. And guess what? Actually, they're doing absolutely what they can in very difficult circumstances. But we mustn't forget that we're not robots, so we can't just be like automatically reprogram to work in this new way. It takes time and support and it takes, you know, learning from our mistakes and reflection and growth. So without prioritizing the human factor, digital transformation and external productivity tools, and I matter how sophisticated they are, just won't be enough. Leaders need to lend this and be employee focused. Yeah, and for me, talking about leadership, when I look at the future, I think successful corporate leaders of the feature. They need to have strong character trays. I was shocked throughout my career to see people reaching the top jobs with very little character. So character trays like empathy, integrity, compassion, being authentic, I think. I seriously, or perhaps is my strong hope.
I really hope it will be a must for the future. They have to be more conscious leaders and employee centric. I mean, when I look at my employees, they were not just finance managers, they were fathers, daughters, sons. So I look at them as a holistic human mean not just finance manager the title. So there are, for me, therefore, areas that the leaders. They have to pay a lot of attention and to work really hard and it's not easy. I know it's not easy, but I think it's a must. Is We need to do it to listen. So for me, don't make assumptions. If you're a manager or CEO or the right listen to your employees and the most important question to us is what do you need? And then you stay silent until you get the answer. Don't try to feel the silences. Second one is to give show compassion, kindness and understanding. These will go a long way. Thorough one is to simplify, prioritize what is most important, and as will keeping meetings as short and as possible and use very simple messages, no really long emails. That shows you how clever you are, and prepare before meetings and really review. Do we need this meeting? On us? And the last one is to connect to humanity. Human means we crave connection. Connect with your employees by showing you authentic self, showing you the vulnerable. Say, Oh my God, I'm struggling at home, guys with these bloody covets, you know, and my kids, and then neude relationship. Go to a deeper level with your police, because they see you, that you are there with them. And for me, it just remember the most powerful question is tell me, how can I help you? Don't make assumptions any other area, Olivia, that you can think that companies can support the employees. Yeah, I think there are some kind of practical steps they can take. But just before I get to that, just something a few things just came up for me. whist you're talking then, the way you described the kind of being more conscious leaders and been very employee centric, viewing employees in a more holistic way, it really made me think of the work space as being more of a community and not just, you know, employer and employee. It is really looking at that whole bigger picture of you know, we're all part of humanity. We're all here to help each other. Yes, we need to make money in pay the bills, but there's more to it than that. There are human relationships there and there is that need to support each other emotionally as well as, you know, just getting the task really is you're the skill person and and the other thing we're talking about listen and just asking people what they need and then staying silent. It just reminds me of Nancy Kleine and her...
...book time to think. So if you are a leader and you haven't read that book, that's a very, very good book to read about how to promote thinking within your teams and ideas and how to speak to people. So, yeah, I just wanted to kind of those things came up for me whilst you were talking then and, to be honest, for me. So, you know, if you really think about we spent the majority of our awaking hours with Blis. Know, even with your family. You know, week, go in and check it out. How many hours you spend with Ad Work and how many will your family? So we may stalk to sense that it has to be created in environment ways that like you second family. Yeah, and for there you need to dread read then with respect. And Yeah, wanted them to do well. And because everybody wins. You know, when you are kind and you connect with people, it's good for the given's good for the receiver. Is You know. Yeah, you, totally makes sense. Yeah, and those sort of more practed co options. I suppose, of from a so that hry perspective, that it's, you know, looking at your policies, looking at your homeworking policy, look at your flexible working policy. No, flexible working policies aren't just for parents. It might just be that for someone's own emotional wellbeing, it's better for them to work a slightly different shift pattern than the core hours. Remote working what people want to do once this is all over. To people. Are they desperate to go back into the office? Do they wants to a mixture? Do they want to just work from home? You know, survey people find out what they want. There are simple things. If you are really, you know, really wanting to make some cost cutting exercises and and save some money, but you you don't want to affect your employee satisfaction too much, look at simple policies like the expenses policy and the travel policy. No one needs to fly first class to a meeting that they could have vie zoom and no one needs to be staying in a five star hotel. There are some very simple of savings you can make. And then when you're looking at your employee benefits, how can you improve employee satisfaction through your benefits? It may not be that you have extra money to throw at them, but what are simple things you could put in place that would make people feel better? Simple things like buy and sell and your leave. If you've got some big holiday coming up and you're going to have to use all your annual even one go, you might want to buy a few extra days to have a few extra days off here and there, and it's not costing the company anything. They're going to pay you for those days anyway. And then, when it comes to well being, you know, most companies, I would say, do have an employee assistance program. I would be interested to know how much that is utilized, particularly the awareness of all the things that are available through your employee...
...assistance program, the sort of helplines they have for financial assistance or forgetting some extra support at home and things like that. Do do your employees really know what's available to them? And again, like you were talking about people being vulnerable, be yourself and be vulnerable in front of your employees. If you're a leader and you've used the EAP, talk about it if you're comfortable. Tell you like how good it was and what you manage to get from it, whether it was counseling or Oh, you know, I was falling behind my mortgage payments and I just needed to speak to someone. You know, what is it that you could kind of helped put out there and show that your human and also look, the company looks after you here. We've got all these things things there for you. And then I'm very aware that there are people at the moment who are very worried about their jobs. They might still be furloughed, they might have already been made redundant, and I know this is a very scary time. So you need to be kind to yourself. Do what you need to do to get by and pay the bills, but don't forget about your dream. If you have a dream, maybe this is the time to finally go for it, whether that means retraining or doing a bit of a side Hustle, you know, getting whatever work you can to pay the bills, but then starting a company on the side and just testing the waters. You know, try and take whatever opportunity you can from you know, if you've been handled a bit of a Shitty card at the moment, I can just just do what you can to improve things for yourself. And then, to be honest, when you were mentioning all these different options for companies, when you are in the leadership position, it doesn't mean you're not at all. If you don't have a clue how to help the employees ask as then yeah, what do you need? How can we help? And they would be a mad off. Okay, these things out to spend if we can't afford but this one's and many times, to be honest, it's a human connection. I have leaders at the top that they never walk through the floors to say good morning. MMM, a good morning from your manager goes a long way. How are you? A Good Morning. So many of the things are so simple to do if you know doing them already and then just us. You don't need to have all the answers and you don't need to feel like, oh my God, what a cropper leader, I don't know what to do. Well, we don't know what to do. We ask because it's better not to assume and know what they want so we can really provide for what they meet, Ye know, rather than so, yeah, so, yeah. This is being an interesting chapter in our podcast. We are at the end. Thank you so much for listening and join us again next time. We just want to take a moment to let you now that we expect the podcast to be released monthly from now on. We love doing the podcasts and we start in a time when we both were having more free time and as we became BCI has been more difficult to schedule our diaries. But we want to keep going because it's our passion project for us. So thank you for listening and being patient, as we being...
...a little bit inconsistent over the last couple of months. Connect with us in instant at naked tooth pot and twitter at Naked Truth and the score pot. Our facebook page is naked truth with calming and Olivia. Maybe like to collaborate and share your story. Our email address is naked truth, but at GMAILCOM. Tell your friends about us, spread the world, stay on us, stay you and stay naked. Bye. For now, I.
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