Today’s post comes after a week, where for most of it, I can only describe myself as having been in what my partner and I like to call a “funk”. It’s not a good thing like Parliament Funkadelic, it’s more like when you know you are in a bad mood that you just can’t shake.

I tried to be conscious of it and ‘do the right things’ to pull myself out of it. But in looking back, eating crunchy-nut cornflakes for dinner more than twice in a week in my pj’s really doesn’t seem like I was making that big of an effort.

I came across this article on Harvard Business Review earlier this week. I printed it out and have been carrying it around, to and from work, not having the motivation to get it out and read it.

So today I was on a 6am flight to Melbourne (yeah that means you have to get out of bed reaaaally early). After a short snooze on the plane, I jumped into a cab and thought I might start reading. Wish I’d done so sooner.

The article is called “Whatever you feel compelled to do, don’t” by Tony Schwartz. Tony is the president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of Be Excellent at Anything.

Tony talks about how we have two selves- one when we are at our best and another when we are at our worst. When we are at our best we make the good decisions and think forward into the future. When we are at our worst, we make short-sighted and destructive choices.

You know… drinking too much, exercising and sleeping too little and things like eating crunchy nut cornflakes for dinner. Twice.

Tony explains that when we are working at our worst:

In the face of a perceived threat, however, our sympathetic nervous system and amygdala take over and our second self steps up. A flood of stress hormones is released. Our pre-frontal cortex shuts down, we become narrow and more myopic in our vision, and we react more primitively and instinctively.

The physiology of fight or flight mobilizes us to attack, or run like hell. Think of this as the “Survival Zone.” It’s a great place to be if there’s a lion coming at you.

Check out the full article here if you like, however his answers are simple.

1) Become more aware of when your emotions begin to turn negative (I think I had this one sorted)
2) Apply the “Golden Rules of Triggers” – whatever you feel compelled to do, don’t. Compulsions are not choices and they rarely lead to positive outcomes.

BAM! What a snap of wisdom for the day. Something to think about anyway next time your partner asks you what your problem is!

Have a great weekend!

Today is the day where I can give away two free tickets to “Employee Engagement Bootcamp” facilitated by Employee Engagement Speaker, Trainer and Mentor, Kate Boorer on Thursday 24th March in Sydney CBD.

Each participant will also walk away with a customised engagement profile and action plan to begin implementing so you and your organisation see results immediately!

And the winners are:

Pretty pleased I was able to film this at my desk with my eyes closed!

If you were not successful, don’t stress because you can attend for the discounted price of $99 for HR Club Sydney members using the discount code HRCLUBSYD. Click here for all the details.

Recently at a People and Culture Conference, I was given a copy of the ‘Eight steps to happiness; the science of getting happy and how it can work for you’. Obviously being the nerd that I am, I was pretty excited as I had seen a few episodes of the TV show and was keen to read more.

If you haven’t seen the show, it’s called Making Australia Happy, and essentially they took eight volunteers from Marrickville and with an expert coaching team, the aim was to improve their happiness. The reason why Marrickville was chosen was because according to a National survey, residents of Marrickville have the lowest well-being in Australia.

Happiness sounds a little fluffy and intangible to some; however this book has a strong emphasis on referring everything they do to a proven science or quality research (particularly from the field of Positive Psychology).

The book takes you through each of the eight steps to happiness and while some may seem quite straight forward, the reality is that people don’t put this into practice. We all know that things like smoking, eating junk food and not exercising is bad for us, but even mentally- we deep down know that there are certain things that we do all the time, that are detrimental to our mental health. Or alternatively, things that we could be doing to make ourselves feel a lot better.

If you are into quizzes, reports or measures for these things. The Happy 100 index is a good way to check in and see how you are travelling. It may also be a good tool for someone who is not very self-aware of their own moods and hence how they may affect others in the workplace.

The eight steps are:

1. Goals and values
2. Random acts of kindness
3. Mindfulness
4. Strengths and solutions
5. Gratitude
6. Forgiveness
7. Social Networks
8. Reflect, review, renew

Things I am fan of:
 

• This book is easy to read and understand- you don’t need to be a scientist, psychologist or professional anything to read it
• Uses a simple tool to measure happiness and keep track of progress (Happy 100 index)
• Random acts of kindness- explains a way that you can do nice things for other people, feel great about it, and then not have any negative after shocks like anger or resentment if the recipient is not grateful. Plus it makes other people happy!
• Mindfulness- we should really slow down and take the time (regularly) to look at what is around us rather than constantly being on autopilot
• Mindfulness also presents another option for those from a traditional CBT perspective who find it difficult to dispute or get rid of negative thoughts- this methodology teaches individuals to change their relationship with those thoughts instead
• Understanding character strengths- go to www.viacharacter.org to identify your top strengths so that you can start using them in daily life (Mine were kindness and generosity; humour and playfulness; gratitude; hope, optimism and future-mindedness; and zest, enthusiasm and energy).
• Learning how to adapt a solutions-focused mindset and using ‘possibility language’
• Gratitude- write down three good things that went well during the course of the day and why it happened. Watch this clip from Martin Seligman for more info. There’s also an app for that.
• The book really goes into the science behind the program and every bit of research mentioned is fully referenced- meaning that you can find the exact paper and delve deeper into any areas that interest you.

I recommend grabbing a copy of the book if you are interested or checking out the abc website http://makingaustraliahappy.abc.net.au/

Happy Friday everyone!

Today I’m asking for your help, in assisting a student with a PhD study. His name is Lehan and you can connect with him on LinkedIn if you like.

Here’s some info and a link to the survey:

It is believed that coping is an important indicator for various physical and psychological health outcomes; however, there are few reliable measures of coping to test the relationship between physical and psychological health accurately. Future parts of this research project will also include various other physiological and psychological measurements in order to test the relationship between coping and health more accurately. The findings from this research project will aim to guide future research and clinical practice in the fields of coping, stress and health.

You are invited to participate in a part of this PhD research project aimed at developing a new coping scale by completing the following questionnaire. The aim of the project is to develop a new reliable index of coping. There are 67 short ‘true’ or ‘false’ statements to respond to and should take between 5-10 minutes to complete. The project has been reviewed and approved by the University of Canterbury Human Ethics Committee. The questionnaire is anonymous, and you will not be identified as a participant without your consent. Your participation is completely voluntary.

To participate please copy the link below into your web browser.

http://www.kwiksurveys.com?s=KBLDKO_a5d15873

Thank you for your time!

Last night I was reading ‘HR Monthly’ and again Peter Wilson spoke about the issue of sexual harassment. Yep it’s in the media a lot at the moment due to recent high profile cases and deserves the attention that it’s getting. Any form of bullying and harassment is not ok in my books and I can’t believe that it still happens to the extent that it does.

Peter says that there are four best-practice principles for managing sexual harassment:

1) Communicating a clear policy position
2) Providing supportive training programs
3) Conducting a sound review process on complaints
4) Taking prompt and effective remedial action

The impacts on individuals are clear.

In the case of the two female air traffic controllers who accused their government-owned employer of allowing “extreme” sexual discrimination and bullying, the allegations included:

• being refused access to training and professional development
• being abused and belittled for being pregnant
• being told that part-time employment was not welcome
• the spreading of false allegations
• being exposed to pornography distributed by management

On one occasion, when one of the women was in the early stages of pregnancy, an Airservices manager expressed he was not happy she may need time off and allegedly told her he had a “coat hanger in the back of his car”.
Mrs Macdonald, who fought back tears as she spoke, said she had worked for more than 18 years at the organisation and the harassment had caused her and her family great distress.

It had affected her health, sleep and mood and she had to explain to her three sons why she was so distressed. She blamed managers for the harassment and praised peers who worked alongside her.

I read on further in ‘HR Monthly’ and I notice that the topic of the Agenda is “Is the mental health of employees a priority in Australian workplaces?”

While both Barbara Hocking (Sane Australia) and Professor Patrick McGorry (Orygen Youth Heath and Australian of the Year) note that ‘it’s becoming a priority’ and ‘it’s starting to get people’s attention’ I think if we are being completely honest and brutal, I think we are making a huge assumption that employers actually care and want to take this seriously.

Mental health and sexual harassment is getting some good air time, and I hate to be negative about this but many of the options at the moment are still seriously limited in ensuring it doesn’t happen and a lot of the emphasis is on the employee to fix it rather than the employer.

For example in the David Jones sexual harassment case “Ms Fraser-Kirk alleges she informed David Jones management about Mr McInnes’s unwelcome advances on several occasions, and on one occasion was told: “Next time that happens, you just need to be very clear and say ‘no Mark’ and he’ll back off.”

Now when we in HR talk to people about what they should do if they think they are being bullied we tell them to:

• Keep detailed records about the incidents- this could be jotting down something in an email or on paper
• If you feel comfortable let the bully know that their behaviour makes you feel uncomfortable
• Talk about it with someone who can provide assistance such as your manager, Human Resources, or EAP
• Seek resolution – informal or formal process

In reality this just isn’t enough. In reality this doesn’t work. This is how it often goes.

• You think you are being bullied and you talk to your friends and/or family about it.
• You start taking notes and keeping track of what is happening as your anxiety builds.
• It becomes unbearable and your friends and/or family encourage you to do something about it.
• You agonise over it and finally you build up the courage to speak to a Manager, someone in HR or EAP (if they have one).

While EAP might help you deal with the harassment, the response many employees get from the business is less than what is needed. As Peter says “It’s no surprise that the results of such an internal investigation exercise are likely to be heavily compromised and corrupted by organisational power structures”.

Likely responses could be:

“Just be stronger and he’ll leave you alone” (as in David Jones case mentioned above)
“Oh, he doesn’t mean anything by it”
“We are employed in a ‘work hard, play hard’ culture and sometimes these things happen”

Further to this, in order to avoid dealing with the problem some companies will then move the employee, pressure them to leave, offer mutual separation or even terminate them.

Life is too short and mental health is a serious issue in this country. We need more than this.

Perhaps we need an authority that individuals can call (anonymously from their workplace) and report serious sexual harassment and bullying issues and be assured that something will be done about it. Sort of like WorkCover or even the Food Authority- with the power to publicise poor employers and impose penalties. Someone that has the power to walk into a workplace independently and conduct an audit and help those who need it.

As Peter mentioned there are four best practice principles for managing sexual harassment, although I bet the worst offenders have none or maybe one of these (a crappy policy which does absolutely nothing).

I don’t know what the solution is, and the above solution is possibly a mindless rant but I just know we need to do a whole lot more.

You may have noticed in September that I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog and if you follow my personal twitter account, I may also have been a bit quiet and also a bit emo at times.

There has been a lot going on and a lot of soul searching needed to be done for me to reach a good decision. I tend to go a bit quiet on all fronts when this happens.

I’ve decided to resign from my job at Wotton + Kearney. It was a difficult decision to make, and one that was made for personal reasons.

Now that the decision has been made, I feel somewhat relieved and excited about what the future has in store for me.

And so the story of a Gen Y HR professional continues…

Fast Company is looking for 2010′s most influential person online and I was wondering if you might be interested in supporting me. Of course I’m not the most influential person online (probably not even in my own house!) but I thought it might be an interesting project to participate in.

There have been a lot of lists going around the HR Community about online influence in various areas and while it’s all a bit of fun and games, it is pretty intriguing to think about how we interact with people online and then what happens when those connections are asked to take action.

According to Mark Borden from Fast Company, “What the Influence Project aims to do is remove some of the mystery behind the inherent passivity of social network numbers. This experiment will show what happens when an individual takes an audience at rest and applies an unbalanced force–through suggestion, advice or direction–that converts it into an army of action. That’s power that can be quantified and lead to an understanding that can be applied to both the largest and smallest of networks.”

Sounds pretty wicked.

If you would like to help me out, all you need to do is click on the my link http://fcinf.com/v/afd8 – that’s all!

I would also like to throw a very special shout out to the very glamourous Sarah White who is Chief Strategy Officer at HRMDirect and Talent Management Software Blogger at ImSoCorporate.com all the way from the U.S.

She actually got me onto this via LinkedIn- so if you would like to support her as well- it only takes one click- http://fcinf.com/v/ahjx

As you might already know, my partner works in the media industry and I like to hear about what he does when he comes home just as he listens to me and my HR adventures for that particular day. He’s accompanied me to HR events and I like to go along to some of his events. I like to do this because I am interested in social media (not that that is all he does by the way!) and also because it reminds me to step out of that HR mindset at work i.e. I remember not everyone thinks like us.

Yesterday on Mumbrella, there was an article posted on Crust, (Gourmet Pizza Bar) because they tweeted this comment “Need a laugh? Hilarious compilation of female driver madness” and provided this link to a video showing bad female drivers.

There was a bit of a reaction on twitter about it being offensive and a few hours later they tweeted “Sorry guys, we apologise for the video and meant no offense to drivers, female or otherwise. Lesson learned and thanks for the feedback.”

People then started commenting on Mumbrella with both sides of the argument being represented. I posted the following comment:

Click to enlarge image

Basically what I was saying is, that even in the workplace there are times when this sort of thing happens and its no scandal or major issue because we are all human and diverse individuals. In a working environment there is bound to be times when someone makes a comment like this which in hindsight they might later regret. My point though was that this was clearly a one-off that they have already apologised for and not something that needs to be made into a huge deal. It was a “silly” comment, and even when bullying and harassment complaints are considered in the courts, they take into account how affected the individual was, what a reasonable person would consider to be offensive etc. I just thought people should lighten up a bit, as there are many more serious incidents which need to be represented.

Someone anonymously replied to my comment with this:

Click to enlarge image

While I find this person’s language towards me offensive (lol), I would like to reply and invite your comments as well- as the Sydney Human Resources Community.

Let’s treat this as a real workplace scenario. Someone in the workplace makes a comment about females being bad drivers in a clear attempt to be humorous and make others laugh.

Workplace bullying or harassment involves the persistent ill treatment of a person (get NSW info here). In other words:

It is repeated or persistent over a period of time
It is offensive, intimidating, humiliating, or degrading and ridicules or insults the person at work.

The tweet concerned was not repeated or a persistent message over a period of time so you would be hard pressed getting this one across the line as bullying and harassment. Not to say it should be ignored, it should be addressed if the individual wishes to, but it’s important to note that it isn’t bullying or harassment generally until it is repeated (serious breaches would be handled differently). Now I acknowledge that some may have found it offensive or even degrading towards women- so let’s run with that line i.e. you have someone that comes to you at work saying that they feel that way.

As a HR professional, the steps that I would normally recommend to someone who is being bullying would be listed as following:

Keep detailed records about the incidents- this could be jotting down something in an email or on paper
Talk about it with someone who can provide assistance such as your manager, HR staff or an Equity and Diversity Officer.
If you feel comfortable let the bully know that their behaviour makes you feel uncomfortable
Do not retaliate- and walk away from the situation if it becomes out of control
Seek resolution – informal or formal process

So in the workplace, the person who was offended would have come to me and as per the above, I would recommend that they speak with Crust Pizza and let them know that it makes them uncomfortable (which the twitter community did). What was the outcome?

Crust Pizza apologised and reiterated that it “meant no offense to drivers, female or otherwise”. They then articulated that they had learned their lesson and then thanked the community for the feedback.

You couldn’t ask for this to have gone any better in the workplace.

My personal opinion was that it wasn’t a big deal and I personally wasn’t offended by it. I am able to have a laugh at myself and acknowledge that I will make mistakes. Coming from a sport background it’s important to remember that Babe Ruth is remembered as the home run king even though he still holds the record for the greatest number of strikeouts!

So keen to hear your thoughts. Did I deserve the bashing from @HR Infraction for voicing my personal opinion?

Yes well it feels like there is a lot of focus on women and leadership at the moment. Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female prime minister Thursday after Kevin Rudd lost favor over mining disputes and his shelving of climate change initiatives.

So for the Women of NSW we now have a female Premier, Kristina Keneally (@kkeneally), a female Governor-General her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC and now Julia Gillard is our first female PM.

This comes at a time when there is a lot of talk about the level of women in senior leadership roles in Australia, calls for mandatory quotas for women on boards, paid maternity leave for all and again pay equity.

Are we at the point where things are starting to truly shift? Keen to hear your thoughts. I’m not sure to be honest. Sometimes it is hard to differentiate whether people are doing things because they feel obliged or because it looks good, as opposed to believing it is actually important. I think if all these conversations continue to gain momentum, we’ll get there.

On that note, I’d like to share a few things that you might be interested in.

Women, Management and Work Conference

Macquarie University’s Women, Management and Work Conference, on 29-30 July 2010, will be a place to canvas solutions to increasing the number of women elected to parliament, appointed to boards and senior management positions and achieving salary equity.

Leading women speakers will be discussing equal opportunity in the workplace and strategies to achieve higher levels of women in leadership roles throughout Australia. It will encourage and inspire women to succeed in the workforce.

Conference co-chair Melanie O’Connor says, “The conference has been running for 22 years, yet 22 years later we are still looking for solutions to these intractable issues. Although many Australians do not want to hear it, gender continues to act as an insidious barrier.”

“Research by Associate Professor McGraw published in The 2008 Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency Census highlights some alarming statistics which show that women do not form the majority in any category of senior job position in any industry in Australia.”

“Not surprisingly, not a single industry in Australia pays women more than they do men and most pay them less.”

“In 2008, there were four female CEOs in the top ASX200 companies in Australia or two percent, down from three per cent in 2006. 106 companies in the top ASX200 do not have a single woman on their boards,” said Ms O’Connor.

The conference will include presentations, round table discussions and workshops encouraging audience participation run by influential Australian leaders.

Topics discussed over the two days include: how to get on a board, how to get on an executive team, coaching and mentoring, promotion and development in your job, balancing the risks and rewards as well as inspiring leadership success stories. This year also includes topics on starting your own business.

There are over 20 inspiring and leading speakers including:
· The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, Minister for Housing; Minister for the Status of Women

· Brigadier Simone Wilkie AM, Director General Training, Headquarters Forces Command

· Heather Ridout, Chief Executive, Australian Industry Group

· Andrea Grant, Group Managing Director Human Resources, Telstra

· Mia Freedman, Journalist, columnist, author and media consultant

The Conference Directors are Associate Professor Peter McGraw, high profile management consultant Melanie O’Connor and Pam Morpeth.
Date: 29 and 30 July 2010, 9am – 5:30pm
Where: Sofitel Sydney Wentworth, 61-101 Phillip St, Sydney
For more information and program details visit: http://www.lmsf.mq.edu.au/wmwc
To register visit: http://www.lmsf.mq.edu.au/wmwc/register_now

You might also like to follow them online:

Web: http://www.lmsf.mq.edu.au/wmwc
Facebook: Women at Work Australia
Twitter: @womenatworkoz
Posterous: http://womenatworkoz.posterous.com/

New Blog- Coping with Jane

Jane Coupland has started her own blog which aims to share the “boom chicka wah wah of fabulous women”.

Jane says “Imagine if we all had access to what makes female innovators and the most influential women of present day, tick. Who would these individuals be, and is there something they could share with us that we could take away and use?”

She will be working towards providing lifestyle and career insights of modern day heroines from the community.

She is also interested in being a megaphone for fabulous 30+ women!

I encourage you to check it out and provide suggestions to Jane if you know any fabulous women with stories worth sharing.

Women in Business Blog

I recently came across the women in business website (I think on twitter or LinkedIn) and thought that there might be a lot of people interested in this. It’s a pretty cool little community where you can engage by signing up as a member on the blog, you can participate in the discussions on LinkedIn, start chatting with people on twitter or become a fan on facebook.

To give you a better idea of what the site is about, the manifesto below pretty much sums it up:

Embrace doing business online
Connect to a likeminded community
Promote your business by sharing value

Clare Lancaster also runs a five week online training course which teaches you the principles of online marketing strategy, SEO, social media and email marketing and how you can apply them to your business.

Finally, one of my favourite females Christina Aguilera has just launched her new album Bionic and I would like to share one of her songs. It’s just beautiful and she often sings about the strength of being a woman.

Have a fantastic week everyone!

Welcome back everyone. Well you might still be on holidays but I’m back to work today and back blogging to ease you into the new work year.

I thought I might start off with the HR Carnival as it’s something I’d like to get more involved with in 2010 (sounds like a New Years resolution doesn’t it?).

In case you haven’t heard of HR Carnival before; started by the Evil HR Lady its an awesome collection of posts from those in the HR Community from around the world (including the UK, U.S.A. and of course- Australia!).

Every two weeks you can read the posts online, or even contribute. Each carnival is hosted by a different HR Super star.

The most recent HR Carnival is being hosted by Bill Boorman at The Recruiting Unblog. This one is particularly worth having a look into because it asks the HR Community to upload a one minute video introducing themselves and to talk about what 2010 holds for them.

If you are already on twitter, you may already have heard of some of these people so its a great opportunity to put a face to the name.

Some special mentions include Laurie Ruettimann (from PunkRockHR), Michael Long (The Red Recruiter) and Kelly Mitton (tHRyving), Dan Nuroo (from saysomethingdan in Australia), Steve Boese (host of #HRHappyHour), and Jessica Lee (Editor Fistful of Talent).

So what do I think I’ll be spending my time on in 2010? Well here’s my video.

Happy HR Carnival and welcome to 2010!