Wellbeing Education - guest blog by Nigel Gann

Happy Schools?
Richard Layard Happiness: Lessons from a New Sciencesuggests that the things that make people happy are our social lives, the trust we have in others, the continuity of our lives, our feelings of self-worth (including feeling at least as well off as other people), and the feeling that things are getting better.

Can such elements be striven for in schools? Are they measurable? And if so, what will that tell us? And what’s it got to do with schools?

Individual happiness is an aspiration which depends on a variety of factors, personal and general. We hope to be happy in our work and in our personal lives. We work better when we feel good. Schools can be happy, or not.

That may depend on the agglomeration of personal happiness – over which we have little control – or, more likely, it is at least partly dependent on the characteristics of the school – its structures, its ways of working, its collective sense of self-worth and meaningful achievement.

What a Wellbeing School might look like
Case studies strongly suggest that a focus on staff wellbeing raises morale, improves practice, and develops collegiality, as well as raising outcomes at both primary and secondary levels.
Schools where staff have a greater sense of wellbeing are better places to be – they recruit and retain good staff more effectively than other schools; staff are off sick less and report lower levels of stress; and they produce better results.

They are not afraid to try new things or to evaluate their own performance. They also have a more positive impact on students.

They are places where people feel good most of the time. They are also likely to be places where people are valued more for their intrinsic personal worth than for their status in a hierarchical organisation.

Like most organisations, the key issues that arise in schools for all staff are communications and managing workload. Often the former is the greatest concern of support staff, who find themselves left out of the loop more often than they should, while the second is cited mainly, but not exclusively, by teaching staff and senior management.

Some examples of changing school practice
These examples come from the implementation of wellbeing programmes across schools in a large urban local authority.

• A school found that deadlines were causing enormous stress for staff. Somehow, teachers were always taken by surprise a week or so before the deadline for assessments and reports. The headteacher agreed to formulate the calendar for the next academic year as early as possible, to involve staff at a consultative phase, to keep deadlines clearly highlighted in a prominent place, and to find the right balance between reminding and nagging.
  
• In a secondary school, staff reported, in the survey, that they often felt they were spoken to by other staff in disrespectful ways. They spent the next two staff meetings sharing experiences and discussing solutions, and resolved to review the situation annually so as not to let this happen again.
  
• In a primary school, staff reported substantial bullying, harassment and disrespectful behaviour. In the post-survey discussion, it was discovered that this referred to a small group of parents collecting their children at the end of the school day. This had been raised once some time before, but the then head had explained it away as the inevitable behaviour to be expected of parents in that neighbourhood. The new head declared this to be unacceptable, gave staff an immediate verbal response and walk-away strategy, and provided a local authority form reporting abuse of LA staff. The LA acted swiftly, declaring site bans on three families, and the issue was, for the moment, resolved.
  
• A secondary school set up an agreement with a local garage to provide MOTs and servicing for staff cars, with collection from and delivery to the school car park.
  
• In one primary school, the lunchtime staff were distressed on Children in Need Day, when all other staff and the children were dressed in pyjamas and dressing gowns. No-one had told them. The answer: The caretaker spent part of the next holidays making individual pigeon-holes for all staff, and the headteacher and administration staff made sure that newsletters, staff announcements, thank-you notes and, sometimes, chocolates would be found there.
  
• A primary school introduced the use of texting to staff mobiles, so that part-time staff and staff absent for any reason still received important up-to-date information.

In each of these cases, the school showed itself sensitive and responsive to concerns that worried staff, affected their experience of their work and reduced their effectiveness.

What can we do in schools?
What can we do to help to achieve our wellbeing goals in schools?

• We value everyone’s contribution to the school, underplaying hierarchies and promoting a shared vision;
  
• We help people to manage their workload better;
  
• We show appreciation of everyone who contributes to the good running of the school;
  
• We tell everyone as much of what’s going on as much of the time as possible, and help people through times of change, even when it might not directly concern them;
  
• We have strategies in place to support people unobtrusively when they are experiencing difficulties;
  
• We help people to find the appropriate slot that work should play in their lives;
  
• We focus on the core business of the school, and show how everyone can play a part in achieving it;
  
• And we demonstrate to everyone how the school is getting better at achieving it;
  
• We pledge that everyone who works here will leave in some way better off than they came.

Advancing wellbeing in a school changes lives. It puts people at the heart of the school. Outcome targets may be with us forever, and teachers suffer some of the highest rates of work-related stress. Mental health issues cost UK employers some £26 billion each year.

Your staff are always your most valuable resource. Look after them.

Nigel Gann is an education consultant, a wellbeing facilitator, and author of Targets for Tomorrow's Schools (Routledge) - www.hamdoneducation.co.uk

A longer version of this article appeared in “School Leadership Today”, V3.2, July 2011

Reviewed: To Miss with Love - Katharine Birbalsingh

Had Katharine Birbalsingh not been thrust into the media spotlight as a result of her speech at a party political conference it is hard to gauge whether her book, “To Miss with Love” would have attracted as much attention and hype. This is not to say that it is not a good or easy read. It is.

Penned as a factually-based depiction of a London secondary schoolteacher’s school year, there is much within the semi-diary format that will resonate with anyone who has taught within a challenging social context, and not necessarily in London, despite the author’s view that the grass may be greener outside the city.

Snippets of exchanges between teachers and pupils or teachers and parents remind you of the often unexpected challenges and frustrations that pepper a school day or week -alongside the extraordinary commitment to education of those who work in schools, determined to raise aspirations and achievements, often giving of their own time voluntarily to extra-curricular activities, in addition to the demands of a time-constrained workload.

Working at Ordinary School, “Snuffy” records her thoughts, frustrations and delights across the year and particularly the challenge of ensuring that students meet their grades in GCSE examinations. This, against the background of a mismatch between teacher /student expectations and repeated comparisons between state and private education opens the debate about who is more concerned about outcomes, students or teachers. An underlying hankering for societal change and its view of education and particularly for the achievement of black students permeates. (This is curiously matched against her experiences from brief visits to schools in Jamaica and India – where she feels that learning is so much better).

In some ways this is a monochrome account of school life from an egotistical standpoint. You never really get to know the characters, fictional composites named in Buynanesqe style: Mr Goodheart, Ms Sensible, Ms Alternative, Ms Magical, Mr Cajole and Mr Hadenough alongside students with names such as Furious, Seething, Deranged, Cavalier, Stoic, Wholesome, Munchkin, Stoic and Beautiful.

If you expect to read the book with a particular political ideology you may end up feeling uncomfortable – because although the author holds strong views – they shift inconsistently across the pendulum of opinion. Indeed the flow of the “story” is often interrupted by this and no real conclusion is achieved at the end of the year. Whilst you become aware of the author’s frustrations with the current educational system, it is obvious that she loves teaching.

A recurrent theme for teachers, even and especially those who are successful and effective in their careers, is the level of anxiety and fear generated through Ofsted inspection, its ever-imminent arrival and the expectations required in preparation. Ofsted grades schools from 1 to 4. To be graded 3 is to be "satisfactory" and, as Hadenough remarks, "Only in teaching is 'satisfactory' unsatisfactory". The positive outcome at the end of the year comes almost as a unexpected surprise.

Threading its way through the diary are anecdotes about Snuffy’s relationship with her husband Liberal and the pressures they face meeting the demands of her job through the choices that she makes. We hear of the long hours, workload, pressure and stress that she experiences and he patiently endures. But these issues are not unique to teachers in inner city schools.

One is left wondering whether many of the staff at Ordinary School would have benefitted from the judicious use of an Employee Assistance Programme like Worklife Support for you. Exchanges between the author and colleagues repeatedly express anxiety about inspection, the frustrations of the long hours culture, time management, supporting colleagues through difficult times under pressure, the continual emotional drain of managing student behaviour and disaffected student attitudes. These run alongside the harsh messages about the realities of some schools – violent fights between pupils, theft of personal property, the bureaucracy around student exclusion and the oft-sensed perception of powerlessness.

An Employee Assistance Programme would offer so much to staff, offering objective support and guidance to help establish a feeling of control, to offer practical strategies and perhaps a different way of managing their own inner voices that seem to eat away at energy levels.

An EAP may not be able to change society but it could help increase capacity to manage the emotional impact of the school year. And at the end of this you have to remember that although this may have been drawn from one teacher’s experiences – it was after all, just a fictional story!

The Architecture of Wellbeing

We talk a lot in our work about the interface between the individual and their place of work and the impact that this relationship can have on perceived levels of stress.

If we use an architectural metaphor perhaps we could explore this impact a bit creatively.

Foundations
Building an organisation on firm foundations clearly means that it will be able to withstand external forces much more effectively. Building a new team and sustaining that team will mean that stress from outside (Ofsted as an example) is managed much more pro-actively. Organisations where the foundations are weak – or not deep rooted enough – will be much more susceptible to external conditions.

Making sure that a strong wellbeing culture is deeply embedded in any organisation will ensure that it remains solid and secure. Shallow foundations prove insubstantial in the face of pressure from outside.

Floors and ceilings / Walls and fences
Ceilings can sometimes get in the way of blue-sky thinking and big-picture work, and yet provide shelter and security - it is very much down to each individual how these are perceived.

Walls can hem you in or make you feel secure depending on your personality and your frame of mind, in exactly the same way as floors and ceilings.

Columns and pillars
These prop you up and offer support both to you as an individual and different parts of an organisation – what would the columns and pillars be in your organisation?

Cement
Fixings and bindings hold everything together. We see personal and professional networking as part of the cement of a wellbeing culture, which can provide strong links, informally and formally. You don’t necessarily see these things but if they are not there things can fall apart!

Bridges
For us in Worklife Support, this involves the link between organisational health and individual health. Bridges are seen as strong structures. Providing interventions that pay attention to both of these aspects of workplace health can lead to strong and robust systems and practices i.e. the Well-Being Programme (addressing organisational issues) and Worklife Support for you - the employee assistance programme supporting personal issues.

Doors and windows
These provide us with views of the outside world and give us access to the wider world. However, they also let things, people and ideas in. The Worklife Support Well-Being Programme is a good example of a process which encourages the wider view and provides safe opportunities to identify any distortions.

Locks and keys
Locks – the things that can keep people out – or in – but keys provide the way in or the answer to particular impasses or problems. Sometimes, in our wellbeing work with schools, keys to unlock sometimes intractable problems can be found in very unusual places or with people we may not recognise as possibly having the answers.

Of course, we could go on…

The Well-Being Programme can encourage every individual within an organisation to think about the structure and the architecture of their school not just from the perspective of the school buildings and furnishings, but also from the perspective of the people who make up the human architecture.

It is your people who are the real key to success.

Anti-Social Networking: communication and wellbeing in cyberspace

Schools with a culture that supports wellbeing usually have good, open and free communication amongst their staff.

At the same time, many if not most schools ban Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, chat and even YouTube, all of which are about open and free communication. Does this make sense?

One thing is clear: in the internet age bans don't work. Just look up Trafigura or wikileaks on your favourite search engine. When organisations call for sites such as RateMyTeacher to be banned, it is a sure sign that they just don't get it. The world has changed, the horse has bolted, the ship has sailed, the blog has been posted, the tweet tweeted.

Most schools have a website which when managed effectively can represent a real opportunity to show the school engaging with all of those people outside of its gates who are interested in some way in what goes on. Increasing numbers of schools even have VLEs or portals. Yet there are comparatively small numbers of schools on Facebook or Twitter.

Does this matter? We think it does.

The same justifications for banning or ignoring the social web often come up:

• It is dangerous or irrelevant to schools
• It is distracting
• It is a gimmick or a passing fad
• We need to keep control of what's said about us
• It's all just gossip.

With the exception of the point about gimmickry (and surely no-one now sees the internet as a passing fad?), all of these points can be made about informal communication of any type, including lots of the chatter that goes on in staff rooms up and down the country every day!

The intelligent approach is to learn about how communication works and engage with it. You cannot control the messages, but you can manage them. Lurk for a while on Facebook or Twitter and see how it works. You'll soon find ways opening up to you of how you can use it to your school's advantage.

There will still be a place for guidance on the best way to use these services. For example, you might want to look at your governing body's rules and make sure that they cover postings on social networking sites. It is also probably a good idea that staff do not follow or friend pupils. However, we know that many colleagues find linking with ex-pupils on Facebook rewarding and even useful as they go off into the world.

We are still learning about how these new communication methods will work in the long term. However, much of what seems to be happening is positive. One esoteric but relatively timely example is the community of people who grow pumpkins for competition. This used to be a very private, intensely competitive world. However, with the growth of information sharing on the internet, the growers are friendlier - they share hints and tips with rivals, more people are interested and the growth in the pumpkins themselves has been huge!

Surely understanding the world in which everyone lives, works and plays is essential to a successful school. You don't have to engage if you don't want to, but you should try to understand. You may not agree with all that you hear about your school but at least you'll be listening - which is the first step to effective communication.

And if you do want to get involved, why not follow us on Twitter, look us up on Facebook or even just bookmark our Netvibes page?

And if you'd like to see a collection of Social Learning Tools for the Classroom, check out learning guru Jane Hart's website for a great list.

Go on - give it a go.

What do you mean by wellbeing?

When we are asked about what Worklife Support does, the word 'wellbeing' will usually come up. And that's where the fun starts as because, as Professor Joad would have said, "it all depends on what you mean by 'wellbeing.'" (A reference for our older readers.)

Searching for 'wellbeing' on the well-known search engines will bring up a wide range of sites. One even brings up an advert for a B&B!

Most results will focus on personal wellness and health. Some search engines will group or cluster results for you and a search on 'wellbeing' in Yippy for example, produces the following clusters:

• Education
• Mental
• Spiritual, Physical
• Women
• Lifestyle
• Children
• Coaching
• Emotional wellbeing
• Yoga

For an organisation like Worklife Support, offering a Well-Being Programme, this produces some difficulty for two reasons. The first is that we are not a healthcare company. Second is that all the ideas represented by those clusters impinge mostly or entirely on the personal and we aim to deal in organisational wellbeing.

So what do we mean by that and what does an organisation with effective organisational wellbeing look like? Here are some personal thoughts that you may want to consider. Why not leave us your comments?

Firstly, it is important to say that, in our view, wellbeing is a process and an organisational culture, rather than a state. You can't point at something and say "that's wellbeing" but you will know an organisation that treats wellbeing seriously when you come across one.

There are some common trends or cultural aspects to such organisations. One such is a focus on the people working for the organisation, not merely as employees or economic units, but as individuals with a real and valuable contribution to make.

A function of this is that the organisation will have stronger and more secure channels of communication than most. We have found that managers often over-estimate the effectiveness of communication in their schools and other organisations. Addressing that issue is hard but vital.

Another aspect of effective organisational wellbeing is how the leadership works. The traditional top-down, follow-the-leader style of leadership that still applies in many schools may well be necessary in certain situations, but it is not a recipe for a successful organisation in the long term.

It is noticeable that schools that have been on our Well-Being Programme for more than five years do not feel that the job is done. The more you invest in wellbeing, the more you realise that embedding it into how the school manages itself is the key aim, and one that needs to be regularly monitored and assessed.

Being on the Well-Being Programme can be tough. It is not about being kind to your staff and offering them massages at lunch time - although that can be a valid way of starting to embed wellbeing in your organisation.

As budgets start to tighten, organisations need to be more effective and efficient. That does not mean hard and uncaring - in fact, we know from our work with hundreds of schools, it means completely the opposite. As one headteacher we have worked with said:

"I don't see Well-Being as a project, but as part of the ethos of the school. I would recommend every school in the country to take part. It isn't about whether they can afford to, it's about whether they can afford not to."

So, consider the wellbeing of your staff – whatever that means to you. You have nothing to lose and lots to gain.

Here we go again…………..

Another autumn term, another new start!

For some, this brings the excitement of a new job, or a new post within the same organisation.

For many staff in schools, the start of the new school year brings with it a host of new possibilities – perhaps a new or different classroom, and certainly a new class of pupils. New staff will have arrived and new allegiances will be formed.

A whole new set of challenges…
How we deal with any change varies for each of us, driven by our own internal perceptions, values and experiences. And yet you can acknowledge certain “givens” that may help us through new experiences.

These may be thought of as things that support our resilience and our ability to deal effectively with change:

• our confidence in our own abilities (based on previous successes),
  
• our sense of fairness and equality,
  
• our sense of “doing the right thing”, and
  
• our sense of perspective.

Our personal and professional networks take on a greater significance during times of change, so it is worth thinking about the key people in our lives who provide the greatest support.

From a Well-Being viewpoint, take the time to consider what you want this year to be, and how you want to work. This is an important way of reminding yourself of your own individual locus of control.

Someone with a strong sense of self and a clear view of where they are heading in life is far more likely to engage positively with change, and proactively shape a set of circumstances to their own advantage.

So, ask yourself the question “What do I want this new school year to be like?”

Challenging yourself and invite yourself to make the small shifts in behaviour that we at Worklife Support know can make such a difference to how you feel about our work.

End of term blues?

The end of another academic year is upon us, together with the demands of end of term events and activities that show schools at their very best to parents and local communities.

All staff recognise the supreme effort needed to get through these last few days of the summer term.

In the follow up to recent media reporting over Headteachers’ salaries, the halting of the BSF programme, the Academies Bill, new Free Schools, and a host of other new initiatives, public speculation and sometimes misinformation, perhaps it might be helpful to reflect on the strengths and successes of our schools and those at every level who work so hard to make it so.

The public mindset can be fickle – on the one hand, teachers and others are held up as hero figures, encouraging children and young people to be aspirational and grow beyond their current environs in order to flourish and thrive.

On the other hand, they are often seen as the public face of bureauocracy, chasing targets and harassing families in order to meet those targets and be seen to excel and achieve the “outstanding” label that is seen as so important.

So let’s remember when the schools are closed over the summer break, when in reality many Heads, teachers and other staff will be choosing to work, that we have a system that in the main actually does work, thanks to some really dedicated people who keep things working successfully - sometimes in spite of, rather than because of, government.

It’s so easy to dismiss everything that has gone before in an effort to be seen as the “new broom”. The trick is going to be to build on the successes, while tackling new challenges with what is likely to be a decreasing set of resources.

All staff working in schools should remind themselves of what they do well and then focus on pulling together to face up to what is going to be a very interesting new term.

Managing schools responsibly in a time of cuts

We are all faced with the prospect of what is euphemistically called 'tightening our belts' over the coming years. Whatever the political arguments over timing, everyone seems agreed on the need for cuts.

When faced with this, there are two common reactions. The first is for special pleading - "I understand the need for cuts but not this." The second such reaction is looking after number one; retreating into a silo, protecting your own and (sometimes) either explicitly or implicitly suggesting others are a better target. Neither attitude helps very much. These responses may be predictable but can lead to division and mistrust at the very time when staff need to pull together.

In schools, there are some signs of the the latter reaction setting in with regard to support staff. There are 200,000 more support staff in schools than there were ten years ago. We've already heard talk of 'weird and wonderful job titles' and 'what do all these people do?"

Some Heads claim not to need a bursar - 'just give me the money, I know what I'm doing.'From a Well-Being perspective, this is not a particularly helpful response as it may deflect from the emphasis in raising standards that is the hub of the Headteachers role, and present them with a whole raft of other management tasks, which may well compromise their own personal, professional effectiveness.

In the current climate, schools have a responsibility to be managed as effectively as possible. This means having systems in place to ensure that the school can continue to function even if the Head teacher is not on site. It means assessing the effectiveness of all staff and ensuring that they are the best they can be. Simplistic solutions will not work in the long run.

in particular, simply slashing the numbers of support staff will not only destabilise many schools, it may well be counter-productive in terms of the main reason for these people being employed: pupil outcomes. Earlier this year Ofsted found that "The wider schools workforce, including teaching assistants and learning mentors, is making a difference to pupils’ learning [but] these staff must be effectively deployed, well managed and properly trained."

In other words, investing effectively in your support staff will reap reward, but it requires good management, planning and implementation. It needs to be done properly through a whole-school approach, not ''I'm alright, Jack' or simply letting the Head do it all - even if the Head thinks they can!

Worklife Support works with organisations in order to develop strategies to manage change effectively. This key element of a wellbeing approach to management involves treating all staff not like sheep to be led, or as potential rivals for the sack, but as true colleagues working together toward a shared and agreed goal.

This approach does not absolve any of us from making tough decisions but we are more likely to make the right decisions if we try to work as an inclusive, effective and efficient organisation.

Leaders and Change – keeping on an even keel through the choppy waters of change

We understand that of all the changes that can occur to us in our working lives and in wider society, changes in leadership can have a profound and unsettling effect.

If we reflect on the recent change of administration at political level, a number of us will recognise a sense of anticipation about “new brooms sweeping clean” as well as a possible sense of nervousness about the future.

It’s probably not by accident that our language is so littered with metaphors relating to change – not only do we speak of “new brooms” but also “wiping the slate clean.”

However, it might be worth considering certain things that may help us safely navigate these unchartered waters of change.

Firstly, remember what has gone before – be informed by the best of what has previously happened in the history of an organisation – and decide what to hang on to and what to jettison. Praise and celebrate what works well, and ensure that it is invested in in order for it to continue. Equally, use any period of transition to consider what needs to change, and how best to make it happen.

Secondly, give new leaders a fighting chance!

Is it so hard to believe that people actually want to do good and want to succeed? Interestingly, the Press has been full of doom about our new Lib-Con alliance, yet it might be refreshing to actually suggest that our political leaders really do believe in what is best for the national interest rather than party-political interest.

In Worklife Support, we see new leaders going into schools and academies amid staff uncertainty and anxiety – another metaphor “better the devil you know…” – and having to work hard in the early stages to settle nerves and reassure staff that change is a natural developmental process, and that not everything is necessarily going to change straightaway, if at all. Results from our Well-Being survey show that a change in leadership is often perceived as troubling by some staff.

Tim Brighouse has a brilliant take on change in schools in “Essential Pieces” (right-click and 'save target as' to copy this to your desktop) – he says of a successful school - “we understand and welcome change because change is learning and that’s our business”. He talks of the five elements that need to be present in the management of complex change – vision, skills, resources, incentives and action plan.

Finally, understand what has changed and what has stayed the same. A new leader will, of course, want to mould and shape an organisation to their own vision, but at the same time will need to be informed by reliable intelligence as to what shape the organisation is in.

Change is a process where staff engagement and keeping people informed is critical to steadying nerves and keeping staff on board.

Sick and In Work?

Why do employees come into work when ill is the interesting question raised by a new study for the Work Foundation

The study doesn’t exactly answer the question, but it does highlight many interesting issues.

One such is terminology. The idea of someone being physically in work but mentally elsewhere, for reasons of either physical or mental ill-health, has been commonly described as ‘presenteeism’. The new report prefers ‘sickness presence’ not least because of the link that implies with sickness absence.

The report is clear that sickness presence affects many more employees than sickness absence, up to 45% of staff claimed to be present while ‘sick’ over a four week period.

The study finds sickness absence to be much more closely related to performance that sickness absence, which alone would make it an issue of importance to managers in the present climate.

It identifies three key drivers, including work-related stress, pressure from managers and financial worries. We find this last point interesting as we find take up of debt counselling amongst clients of our EAP generally disappointing.

The study looked at one particular company, AXA-PPP, but the outcomes certainly chime with our experience of schools. It may well be that things are even worse in education. There is enormous personal and vocational pressure amongst all school staff to turn up; even more so with the advent of ‘rarely cover’.

So what does all this mean?

Firstly, anyone thinking about sickness absence alone needs to think again. Organisational effectiveness is impacted more by sickness presence, so things may be worse than many managers realise.

Secondly, it seems likely that many of the organisational developmental strategies, such as our organisational Well-Being programme, can have an even greater impact on performance provided you aware of issues like sickness presence and tailor the interventions accordingly. Ensuring that organisational wellbeing is complemented by individual wellbeing services, such as an EAP and personal health services, can generate even more positive outcomes.

Emphasising access to financial advice and guidance seems, if the report is right, to be particularly important.

It is also clear that training managers to be aware of and the effectively manage staff wellbeing will have enormous benefits for organisations. And given the coming squeeze in the public sector, intelligent staff management is going to be hugely important.

Paying attention to report such as this one from the Work Foundation, and ensuring that you invest in staff wellbeing is looking more and more like a necessity for schools and other organisations everywhere.

Use your EAP to Save Money

Staff health and wellbeing programmes are undoubtedly going to be an easy target as cuts in spending start to take effect, even though it is clear that such a move is short-sighted and self-defeating.

However, it is undoubtedly harder to argue the case if staff are not using their employee assistance programme (EAP) or similar service. Low use means the staff aren't interested, so the thinking goes, so it's an easy decision to make.

Our experience says this isn't so and that low use usually masks a range of barriers to wellbeing that the organisation needs to overcome.

Promotion
The most obvious barrier is publicity - if staff don't know about a service or think its not for them, they won't use it! Giving out a leaflet when someone joins and sticking up a poster in the staff room is not going to be enough, especially once your colleague loses the leaflet and the poster in the staff room is covered up by the latest sponsorship form.

We try to promote a range of services and activities to make sure that our EAP (Worklife Support for you) is fresh and relevant to staff. Our customers can contact us to learn more. A key lesson is that promoting staff wellbeing is a year-round activity.

Independence and Confidentiality
Many staff feel that a service like an EAP is a 'bosses spy'. This is not the case for all reputable services: EAPs are impendent, professional and confidential. We do not give the employer details of what its staff call about, nor do we tell the world about issues raised from particular organisations.

Not for me
Thinking the service is someone not for me is often prominent in organisations with a relatively low level of emotional literacy, where organisational wellbeing has not taken root. This shows how an EAP will work even more effectively in conjunction with a service such as the Worklife Support Well-Being programme as organisational as well as personal issues can addressed.

And the simple truth is that everyone has times as you go through life where you need a little help - there should be no shame, stigma or loss of self-esteem in using a service like an EAP.

Problems
The flip side of these issues is that many people see an organisation that has a high level of calls as an organisation with problems. Often, this is simply not the case. It is just that staff know about the service and feel empowered and confident enough to use it.

Milestones and Millstones
PPC, a leading EAP provider, produced some time ago a report based on the idea that as we travel down the road of life, we pass many milestones - birth, childhood, education, marriage, buying a house, work, retirement etc - and using an EAP can help prevent that milestone becoming a millstone.

Even the smallest rural school will have staff who have come up to one of life's milestones in the past year. An EAP can support you with information, advice and counselling, helping you to cope more effectively with the issue and so maintaining your level of contribution at work. That is why it is a workplace benefit to both the staff member and the employer.

So, far from dropping staff wellbeing services, tough times are the best time to invest in supporting your staff so that employer and employee alike can weather the storms ahead.

Now is the time to invest in your staff

The new Employee Outlook from the CIPD is out and, not surprisingly, it makes for very gloomy reading.

Press coverage picked up on the warnings it contains for employers that only a third of employees trust or have confidence in their senior managers, and only a quarter of staff are consulted about decisions that affect them.

However, that was not the only bad news. The survey reports job dissatisfaction on the rise, together with fear of unemployment, and accompanying rises in bullying, stress and and conflict. What the survey doesn't ask is: what drives this behaviour?

Many readers will have had conversations with friends recently where the usual "how's work going?" question will be answered with a grimace and an answer something along the lines of "but at least I've got a job." People seem naturally to retreat into a defensive posture in times of uncertainty, re-inforcing silos, and generally building fear and mistrust in the workplace.

And yet, in times of recession, spending on supporting staff through training, development or other services is usually one of the first items of expenditure to be cut, although this is the very time that staff need more and not less support. A simple example: if workloads are growing, don't staff need more support on how to prioritise their time, and on how to manage increased pressure?

The CIPD report recognises this in recommending that employers track job satistfaction and engagement and improve consultation. It also recommends that employers should help their staff cope with stress and, as living standards stagnate at best, provide financial advice.

At Worklife Support, this has long been our view. The Well-Being programme helps deliver organic organisational change while Worklife Support for you, the employee assistance programme, offers individual support, both emotional and practical, including financial guidance. Our Enhanced Well-Being programme, where both services operate in tandem, is proving increasingly popular.

Investing in your staff and promoting whatever support services that you do make available should be seen as central to your continued effectiveness and success. Simple knee-jerk reactions to the current climate of uncertainty does no-one any good, and may end up actually costing organisations more than they may save. A strategic investment in a programme such as the Well-Being programme proactively supporting both organisational effectiveness and individual support should be seen as a key opportunity to demonstrate to your staff a real committment to employees.

Change Resolution

We're now two weeks into the New Year and, if usual practice is anything to go by, almost everyone you know will have given up on their New Year's resolutions.
This is a cliche, of course, but many cliches do contain a kernel of truth and this is no exception. The question is just why are we so bad at keeping such resolutions? Does this reflect a more general difficulty when faced with change?

And just as important is what happens when we fail at making change or keeping resolutions. A recent article in The Guardian highlights work from Richard Wiseman at the University of Hertfordshire which suggests that we become dispirited at the collapse of our New Year resolutions and end up feeling even worse than before.

The way to achieve change - and successful resolutions - first involves planning - work out a plan and some smaller steps that you can easily measure, which will help you stick to it. Don't worry about the odd lapse and, ideally, stick to one plan at a time.

Anyone trying to make lasting and successful change without a plan, whether in personal affairs or in their organisation, is more likely than not doomed to fail.

Other general tips for ensuring a change process works, whether personal or organisational, include making sure that the goals you set are challenging but achievable, make sure that you can monitor progress, and concentrating on the benefits of change. This relates to the appreciative inquiry method we recommend when developing plans as part of the Well-Being programme.

You might also want to take a look at the website 6Changes which emphasises the tiny steps approach to building new habits.

You can follow Richard Wiseman's useful and informative Twitter feed (@richardwiseman).

Today is National Stress Awareness Day.

When thinking about stress, it is useful to think first about what stress actually is: stress is the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them.

Here are simple indicators of our ability to handle stress. You might want to think about each one and how some simple improvements will help build your ability to cope with stress:

• Getting enough sleep Research shows a small reduction in sleep time can have an impact on how we think, behave and make decisions.
• Regular exercise is good for the mind, as well as the body.
• Eat sensibly with a balanced diet.
• Think positive - negative thoughts can act as self fulfilling prophecies.
• Try not to smoke or drink to excess
• Switch off: time spent on ourselves helps develop self-esteem and a sense of identity.
• Social interaction People benefit from involvement in something greater than themselves, such as doing things for a church or charity, and from simply spending time with friends
• Manage your life Plan a schedule which you manage, rather than one which manages you.

Don't forget all the support networks that are out there for you: your employee assistance programme, trade union, occupational health, friends and family.

You might not be able to stop stress but you can improve your ability to cope with it when it comes along.

Happiness is catching

If the joys of the summer are now a distant memory, you may want to consider spending time with your ‘happy’ colleagues, as according to Professor Richard Wiseman, happiness is catching.

The psychologist led a unique mass-participation “happiness experiment” aimed at putting a smile on people’s faces. Recent research suggests that only 36% of Britons are ‘very happy’ so Professor Wiseman set about fnding the best ways to banish the blues.

More than 26,000 people went online to join in the research and try out a selection of recognised mood-boosting techniques. The idea was that, since happiness is thought to be contagious, they would send ripples of cheerfulness across the UK.

According to the results, it seems to have worked. The sample showed they were 7% happier after the experiment. “The fgure is statistically signifcant,” said Professor Wiseman, “I thought we wouldn’t see a change, but we got a 7% rise.”

"Thinking about one positive thing that had happened the day before appears to have been by far the most effective technique.”

“There was no big improvement in the weather or anything in the news that could have accounted for it”, he says. “Who knows, but I like to think we might have cheered up the nation!” “Everyday may not be good, but there is something good in every day.”

Why not see if the techniques used by Professor Wiseman in his ‘Happiness Experiment’ can have a positive impact on your own happiness? He suggests:

• Starting the day by thinking about the things that made you happy from the previous day
• Remembering to smile whilst carrying out everyday tasks such as making a cup of tea
• Carrying out small acts of kindness, such as paying someone a compliment or holding the door open for someone
• Expressing gratitude for the lucky aspects of your life, for example being in good health

You can learn more about Prof. Wiseman on his website or follow him on Twitter.

In a similar vein, you could also follow Dr Happy - we hope you are already following Worklife Support...