thinking

At the beginning of 2017 Bell’s “Let’s Talk Day” opened an awareness for Canadian workplaces of the need to understand mental health and its impact on Workplace Culture and Productivity.  The purpose of this day was to remove the stigma of Mental Illness and build an understanding through open dialogue.

We good Canadians play it safe when it comes to the “Water Cooler Talk”.  You want to know your workplace culture and be mindful of certain topics where our knowledge may be correct.

As we come to the close of 2017 it is appropriate the OCTOBER 10th is a revisit to Mental Health with WORLD Mental Health Day.  Isn’t it about time? Time to change the stigma around Mental Health in the Workplace.  World Mental Health leaders in the UK have generously created a website along with these high quality resources and materials for Employers and Employees to access FREE of Charge! 

Workplace Culture changes one person at time, Is it you?  Is this your time to broaden your knowledge and change your views and impact your workplace culture to build more understanding of Workplace Mental Health.

Does it feel like you are walking a tight rope?  Can’t seem to catch a break at work? Well we have all had a bad day or week at work;  welcome to the “Adulting Club”.  Okay your options, hmmm… Do we just quit… grump out, or go ahead, my favorite, take it ~ohhh soo personally???   Heck no!  We Resolve, we Pony up, and Tap into what Top Employers are calling the most valuable attributes and skills in the workplace: Positivity & Resiliency.

   We know that there is huge research surrounding the Mindfulness field and its positive impact on employee retention and overall well being , but we also know there are a few of us that need some help getting started with resources to begin our training and practice.   Now, buckle up! This training is for Goliath; NOT for the faint of heart.  This will require you to suspend your pesky “I deserve R-E-S-P-E-C-T” Ego, “Victim Mentality” and lean into the discomfort of oh geeze, that touch feely~ Vulnerability.  Thinking and Behaving like a PRO does not come easy in this fast moving, abrasive and selfish world of work, it requires:

1. Laughter: at Yours Truly:  It’s all pretty funny 🙂 Did you know that laughing triggers Happy?
2. Pause: “Stop- Drop- Stroll”- Mindfulness ~ Build on your ability to RESPOND as a Pro! Hey.. have you thought about how you may have contributed to this?
3. Think: When you are 90, do you want to be remembered as a Class Act or a Royal Pain in the @$$?
4. Learn: Increase your ability to not take things sooo darn personally– Thank you Don Migual Ruiz of The Four Agreements 🙂

So Go Ahead give yourself a GIFT and Shift your Mind! In the meantime here a few favorite videos to encourage  laughter… the Happiness Maker!

15 Short Videos to make you Chuckle after a bad day at WORK!!

We graduated 9 students from a youth employment program recently, and today we are reflecting on the courage it takes for a job seeker to approach an employer.  Confidence may not be high in someone looking for work.  Job seekers question their skills, their value and their potential to be a great employee.  Our employment programs work to build their courage, to help them find their confidence and recognize that each and every person has value to the workplace.  Not everyone is well suited, but everyone deserves the opportunity to prove themselves.  Practice does contribute a great deal to the improvement in a job seekers approach and delivery to an Employer.

So when a job seeker comes calling, consider that they may have walked by your business 10 times before entering, they likely rehearsed their opening introduction in the mirror or to a trusted friend, they have spent time visualizing your business and imagining themselves working alongside you.  It takes courage to walk across the threshold.  If you could, reward the courage it took by spending a few minutes in kindness to provide needed experience in this part of the job search process.  They may not be the right fit for you, but your kindness and patience can help them learn within the journey of finding their right fit.  “It takes a village to encourage a job seeker”.  

Relaxing in our new “zen” staff room this week, Leah picked up a book called “WELLBEING” written by Tom Rath and Jim Harter.  In this book these authors identify 5 essential elements of Wellbeing.  These are: Career, Social, Financial, Physical and Community.  Looking at Career Wellbeing it is identified that when the element of having meaningful purpose in your day that work brings, or even volunteer service can provide, the other 4 elements of well being are easier to achieve.  In other words, when Career WellBeing is out of sync, it is harder to achieve and maintain wellness in the other 4 elements.  So if you are feeling out of sorts, things are not shaping up, and you are struggling with unemployment, this study is very good incentive for you to connect with a career practitioner and get yourself ready to move forward towards overall wellbeing by addressing this first element.

WELLBEING Resources:                                      http://www.wbfinder.com/home.aspx

Well all resumes are functional really, if you think in terms of the resume introducing you, your skills and experience to an Employer.  The objective of the resume is to entice the Employer to interview you, so you can shine and be offered employment.  In the context of this post we are talking about the format of the resume, not its purpose.  The traditional resume that highlights who you worked for and when is a Chronological resume.  It is the most widely used format.  However, used correctly, a Functional resume can do the same thing.  As an Employer, when you see a Functional resume in front of you, don’t automatically assume the candidate is hiding something, take a good read.  The functional resume is highlighting skills that could be valuable to you.  A functional resume is most useful when a candidate is changing careers, or when a young person has no formal work experience but wants to demonstrate their skills on a resume.  Take a closer look.  There is gold in the Functional Resume.

Have you ever wondered how some folks just seem to be… “On Their Game” ?  Do you want to become more YOU… More Productive, Engaged and CONNECTED?   We know our habits can reap rewards, but can they really be this simple? Check out FORBES for a little reminder on how to connect with your best self at home, at work and in LIFE!

7 Habits of Wildly Successful People

Leaders come in many shapes, sizes and styles, but the Best Leaders~ the ones people respect and want to follow~ share the following common characteristics.

1. The Best Leaders recognize that every team member has unique talents, skills and interests; and those leaders play to those qualities.
2. Good Leaders recognize that a “Cookie Cutter” approach to motivation doesn’t work, and they tailor their incentives to each person.
3. Good Leaders show appreciation for their teams’ efforts by providing support and encouragement and helping the team grow and learn.
4. A Good Leader does not take a military style approach by barking out orders. A congenial atmosphere makes work easier.
5. A Good Leader would never ask someone to do something they wouldn’t do themselves. Come down from the Ivory Tower and work side by side.
6. A Good Leader takes care not only of the team,  but the tools and the workplace as well.
7. A Good Leader sets goals and keep those goals insight.
8. A Good Leader plans for the future and builds sustainability into the organization.
9. A Good Leader mentors the people around them to build future leaders.
10. A Good Leader leads by example.

You aren’t outright harassing anyone right?  I mean, so what if you don’t acknowledge someone as you walk by, it doesn’t matter….right…..right…WRONG.

We all know by now that workplace bullying is against the law, and that an Employer can be held liable if workplace bullying is present, tolerated and unaddressed in your workplace (Worksafe BC Factsheet), but a new study out of the University of Calgary demonstrates that workplace incivility, especially from a superior in the workplace contributes to uneasiness and a lost sense of belonging within the organization.  A continued lack of civility contributes to poor health, and loss of job security and satisfaction.

An anti-bullying policy is not enough, we also need Respectful Workplace policies that are modeled by management, not just written by management. 

In his bestseller, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, Stephen R Covey outlines how Nazi survivor Viktor Frankl discovered what he called the “last human freedom“.  This was the freedom we all have to choose our response to any stimulus.  Frankl believed that in between the Stimulus and the Response, lies “space” or time.   This is time to choose your response to what has happened.  In our workplaces today, we encounter situations, co-workers and supervisors that challenge us.  Our gift, is that there is time to choose how we respond.  Those workers, and Supervisors who use that space and the Freedom to Choose their response, can contribute to a winning workplace culture.  The last human freedom is our Freedom to Choose for the betterment of the relationship and our own self improvement.

Gloria Steinem once said that dreaming is a form of planning.  Steven Covey in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People said that all things are created twice.  There is the mental or the first creation and then the physical or second creation.

Change is inevitable.  Organizations that embrace change, even seek it out by creating visions of their future and then working towards these visions, are organizations that survive.  At the Princeton Skills Centre we are 20 years strong and are embracing our Vision 2020 mental creation of our next phase.  We’re dreaming, planning, and changing.  This is going to be an exciting time