Evolutionary Provocateur

Absenteeism and the workplace: Why firing the employee is shooting yourself in the foot

When I reviewed stress related illnesses and how they were managed by companies, one of the most interesting differences between U.S. data and U.K. management commentary was that there appeared to be a far higher occurrence of absenteeism in the U.K.than in the U.S.

In America, stress related illness impacts the overall health of the company with the occurrence of chronic illness, most of which can be traced back to stress. Absenteeism is a part of the story but is not on the headlines. In the U.K., it appears to be on the top. People, when under stress, simply do not show up for work.

Equally interesting, disciplining or firing them is presented as the solution, an odd sort of punishment I suppose. Elaborate metric tools, for example the Bradford Factor, provide a formula for documenting an individual’s pattern to either be sick or take a day off. (Keep in mind math is not one of my fortes so it may not be so elaborate.) The presumed value of such a tool is that it informs companies of when to apply disciplinary action.

Nice - but lets circle the things missing from this picture. For one, people want to contribute. Unless the culture internally has repressed what they can offer, this is a natural desire. For two, people are under a lot of pressure to balance work and home. Enlightened companies understand this and don’t dabble with solutions as a result. For three, when you have a high absenteeism level it should tell you that you have managed to disengage your employees from contributing. Absenteeism as a coping strategy can then serve as a mirror for you to see what invisible forces are, in fact, working against employee contribution. Fourth, with an impeding labour shortage it is pretty short sighted to fire your labour when there is a shortage of replacements. Looking deeper might be a better response.

Statistics on absenteeism and the workplace, stress related illnesses and their increase open the window for a change in leadership/management response. Fire the employee and you fire the barometer, the indicator, the unreleased and likely suppressed talent. Does that make sense to you? 

With shifts in the workforce demographics, how does firing a declining availability of talent resolve the labour shortage? I suspect the old habits will have to be replaced by deeper insights and radical change.

Effects of Behavioral Stress in the Workplace: Frog in the Pot

There are two ways to approach this topic. One is by looking at the statistics and intuiting the relationship between the data. The other is by looking at human beings and seeing how humans can behave like a frog in the pot. This is the Pot Approach.

Presumably, if you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water it will bail out like one would expect. However, if you put the frog in nice comfortable water and then add heat, the frog won’t notice until it is too late. I have no interest in testing this out. Pithing frog brains in high school Biology is still a haunting and traumatic memory. At the same time the story begs the question. What is the same about you and the frog?

If you were to walk in to a new working environment and notice right away that there is back stabbing going on, people engage in intense conflict not with the intent to create but to isolate and judge as ‘them’, then pretty quickly you notice and can ask yourself, Do I want to be here? Is this a place where I want to work? The pivotal moment of choice is clear. Whether you choose it or not you have the clarity of choice.

Let’s say you have been working for a company for a long time, and gradually over time the company’s external environment changes. Unknowingly, the company becomes under stress from forces it can not see and then unknowingly it passes them onto staff. Staff can’t see clearly that the temperature is being cranked up but they can feel it and so they develop coping mechanisms: releasing energy (shouting and unreasonable behavior even to the point of violence), blocking the stress (going within – depression, withdrawal, or sickness), or distracting themselves from what they are experiencing through a variety of addictions, drugs of choice, watching TV of the lowest frequency variety (no shortage of that!).

There are two ways to respond to this situation. One is to decide it doesn’t exist in the hopes that someone will change the pot and the temperature at the same time. The other is to jump out of the pot and take the initiative to respond to external pressures in a more aware, conscious and clear way. That takes a change in perspective and a widening of the lens.

Employee Retention: Dancing on the Surface or Diving Deep

When I read in CFO.com that 1110 CEOs left their jobs by November of 2005, and combined that with knowing that there is a pending labour shortage, and significant loss of talent due to stress related illness I had to ask: How did we get here?

I am guessing that the dots are not yet connected.

Let’s look at the recent survey done by Accenture of Executive Issues 2005: High performance and the need for balance. The top four issues are people related including attracting and retaining skilled staff. It begs the question: Were 1110 CEOs really not suitable for the job? Or has the need for instant gratification taken over the C-suite and board expectations? Or is something else going on?

Make the connection between research done by Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson and published in their book ‘Cultural Creatives’ in 2000. Their research shows that there has been a shift in world view, and entire shift in values. Cultural Creatives have what is called a “radar for authenticity” merging the value held around personal experience with a capacity to simultaneously hold the big picture which includes planetary well being. It is pretty clear that their values cannot thrive in most corporate cultures and many are leaving to do what they love in a place of their choosing. Health and happiness are the reward.

This is not a small group. They cover a wide range of incomes, professions, and their age profile reflects that of the whole country (U.S.). In the U.S. they number 50 million. Chances are you either are one or you have someone in this group working for your company. If you want to keep them, then you will have to match your company culture, which means a complete introspection, and creative overhaul, to embrace people who believe that everyone has a unique gift to offer, value developing more self-awareness, and consider helping people to be very or extremely important. The only way is to stop dancing around the surface and go deep. Get radical.

The Connection between the Law of Attraction and Business Achievement

What if companies left behind a survival mentality and instead grasped what the scientific understanding of energy has long known. Like attracts like.

What you send out is what you attract. The trick now is that a lot of companies no longer know who they are. So much time has been invested in reacting to external stimuli or dealing with internal chaos from mergers, acquisitions, downsizing, rightsizing and other sizing - the true talent that lies beneath the surface of talent management and other catch phrases stays beneath.

If time were taken to remove the self-imposed limitations and distractions, then the core talent can emerge. When that happens, the universe (think customers/clients) respond accordingly quite simply because they are attracted to the frequency you resonate. If you are in scarcity mode, struggling to survive, loyalty will naturally be low.

Who would want to ride in that boat knowingly or unknowingly? It is likely to tip at the smallest wave.

Jim Collins in an article in Fast Company dated October, 2002 (Issue 63), did a beautiful job of discerning how being who you are from the core is good business. The distinction he made was between reactor, externally driven without passion, and creator, intrinsically driven and externally aware. Core values inform all efforts. There is a parallel to be drawn between between valuing personal development or self improvement and truly great companies. The connection is self-actualization: the process of being inspired from within to contribute from your unique gift, what you love to do and are good at and as a result, the universe responds by giving you abundance.

The concept of profit has been narrowly defined for some time now quite simply because it is easier for accountants to deal with. While the human tragedy from Katrina and other natural disasters lies on one side of the balance sheet of life, on the other side it gave the opportunity for companies to show their heart, to step up to the plate and to give what they can, using their strengths to make a difference.

That is the new definition of profit. It is also the place of much higher frequency. You don’t get there by going through the motions.

See http://www.handsonnetwork.org  and click on the Corporate Service Council for an example of what expanded thinking looks like in action.

Work-Life Imbalance: How to use being out of balance to achieve more

Why imbalance between work and life is the doorway to releasing untapped potential and shifting to the next level of achievement.

It sounds odd I know but when you really look at it being out of balance is a signal and as such it gives you the opportunity to do something different. Like stop signs on the highway, the signal is there. Not everyone pays attention to them even when they are supposed to. (I am sure you have noticed that when driving). Being out of balance gives you the chance to choose to do something differently. When you see balance as the power to choose rather than a static state of equilibrium in a dynamic world, (How would that ever work?) you can learn to dynamically balance your energy, your thinking, your health, your life.

So how does that allow you to release potential? The topic covers a lot of areas.  For companies and individuals, the balance between the logical versus the intuitive is important. Without that decision are based on fear rather than foresight.

Balancing your energy is key to good health. The whole concept of mental and emotional self-improvement ensures that you are not repressing yourself but expressing yourself. That alone would avoid a lot of depression. How about using balance to ramp up productivity? That would mean being focused, clear and not using limitation to unconsciously block growth. The list goes on.

How does the power to choose allow you to shift to the next level of achievement? This is where the information found at the intersection of science and metaphysics applies to business sense. Each time you raise your level of awareness, become clear about what you are acting upon, understand the situation with greater clarity, go the depths of understanding, you are then able to see and apply new knowledge to your actions. With each step, as long as you are not dancing around the surface, you will shift frequency. This is where the Law of Attraction applies to both business and personal growth.