When we think about our employees and their performance management expectations; there will always be times when they wake up just not feeling it, or not able to cope facing the day at work ahead. It may be something outside of work that is consuming them and making them feel like this. They may or may not be able to physically go into work; it depends on the situation. It is during these times that their minds are preoccupied with other thoughts and/or worries. These days will always be less productive, less enjoyable, and overall frustrating and distracting for them.
The last thing they need is a colleague, family member, or manager saying, ‘just leave that stuff at the door, please’. I heard this the other day when I was talking to someone about their job, and they made this comment that they needed to ‘leave it at the door’. In this day and age, this is not something we should have to hear people say nor embrace it. It’s quite absurd to hear this and to think that one can’t appear to be having a bad day or to show they have something personal or otherwise that they are dealing with.
Rather than express statements like, ‘what’s wrong with them?’, ‘why are they so miserable?’, ‘surely they can snap out of it and move on!’, we need to pay more attention to the person and do more than just assume.
So how do we do this… how do we make the change we need?
Tap into an employee’s wellbeing
With so much attention on the mental health of employees in the workplace, this has to change. It requires managers and colleagues to make a real shift in attitude to be able to tap into an employee’s wellbeing to understand how they are really feeling and find out if “they are ok?”. We need to have a culture that allows regular touch points with an employee to tap into the whole person.
Change the mindset around workplace wellbeing
If organisations and managers are to change their mindset about workplace wellbeing, we all need to jump on board and break the stigma around this. Hearing ‘leave it at the door’ does nothing for the employee or the organisation. How can we expect employees to perform if we shut down their emotions and in turn their levels of engagement? It starts with leaders and managers of the organisation to truly embrace the wellbeing of employees.
Embrace intelligent workplace wellbeing data
Find a way to gather intelligent data on employee engagement and employee wellbeing that gives you the real facts on the wellbeing and engagement in the organization. Employees’ emotions and how they are feeling need to be drawn out here to make the data intelligent and useful. Think about how this data needs to be used and what the communication steps are.
Embed intelligent conversations throughout the organisation
With intelligent data, we have the structure and knowledge needed for managers to have intelligent conversations with their employees. The data needs to be accurate and rich for the conversation to be meaningful.
Our view at Emotie is to open that door, allow employees to bring their whole selves to work, have intelligent conversations, and be part of a forward-thinking organisation that fully supports every employee in any situation. No more ‘leave it at the door’ statements. By embedding Emotie into your business, you facilitate an emotional response to questions to change the culture, show your employees that you care, and truly embed a change in mindset for the better.