British working women facing energy crisis

New research has revealed that over 60 per cent of working women believe there is more pressure on them now, than in their mother's generation. 

The research of over 2,000 women goes on to reveal that a potent, energy-zapping mix of technology overload, sleep deprivation and work/life imbalance is draining women’s power pack, leaving them working on empty and feeling pressured in all areas of life.

Stress is clearly a problem affecting many women's energy levels, with over two thirds of women (71%) admitting to spending half their time feeling stressed. Another big energy draw seems to be coming from modern technology. 

Even when we finish work we’re still staying switched on – with nearly two thirds (64%) of women leaving their phones on at night, and half of us not even turning them to silent.  And while for some of us the daily commute to work is for catching up on the news or reading, 31% of women admit it’s a chance to check their phones for emails.

Women are also feeling pressured when it comes to diet and exercise. With 65% of women feeling guilty as they don’t do enough exercise and over half (54%) believing they should eat a healthier diet. So it’s not a surprise that energy slumps are on the increase, with 81% of women suffering from energy slumps, either in the morning, after lunch or by mid-afternoon.

As we move towards 2013 I would encourage anyone to make energy a focus for their New Year’s resolution. Forget fad diets or expensive gym memberships, like a new relationship, if you can’t see longevity in your resolutions, then you’re probably going to end up dumping them and grabbing for the chocolate. 

By focusing on increasing your energy levels and creating positive habits that are realistic and sustainable you’ll see massive changes in your waist line, mood and productivity.

For more information and advice on how to achieve great energy visit www.energiseyou.com/book 

Forget the fad diets

Yesterday, equalities minister Jo Swinson's urged magazine editors to stop featuring irresponsible "fad diets and fitness myths" that will not actually help people lose weight.

After twenty years in the health, energy and weight loss business, it's about time something was done about these crazy fad diets, and it's great to see an MP taking a stand.

Fad diets are crazy. They are unhealthy, unhelpful and unrealistic. But worse than that, they can be dangerous.

They are bad for energy levels, which amongst other things effect people's moods and ability to stay active, and often restrict key food groups which are essential for good health.

But their major Achilles Heel is that most ask too much in too little time which is why people rarely stick to them and often end up in a worst place once they've quit the diet.

They may help the diet industry to pile on the pounds, but generally they don't help individuals to lose weight in a sensible and sustainable way. They can in fact have a negative impact on people's health, energy and performance.

The story behind ENERGISE YOU

What a year!  

I’m really pleased to see my book, ENERGISE YOU – The ultimate health and energy plan, in print.

I wrote the book over a year ago now so it’s fantastic to have the hard copy now here on my desk. And it will be on sale in all major bookstores from January…exciting times.

So, why did I write the ENERGISE YOU?

Anyone who has met me knows I really am so passionate about helping people to improve their health and increase their energy. Whilst our corporate business is helping companies to improve the health, energy and performance of their staff I wanted to create something that everyone, regardless of where they work, can use and refer to on a regular basis.

After years of research, I know information alone doesn’t work; you also need a system for taking the information and creating change. This is where the book comes in. ENERGISE YOU includes a proven system which is used by the energiseYou corporate business – this has helped thousands of employees to improve their health and energy.

Having coached over 10,000 people around health and energy, I have learnt four very powerful things:

1. People’s health, energy and happiness is ultimately driven by their habits in 7 key areas:  mind management, nutrition, sleep, exercise, smart computer use, re-energising and work life balance. The book is full of all the best habits we should adopt and all the habits that we should drop in these 7 areas.

2. The large majority of people just want an expert they trust to tell them what to do in a super simple way; they don't want to know about all the reasons why they should do it, just what works.

3. People need a simple yet sophisticated system for change - we need to know what to do but also how to do it.

4. Finally, pretty much everyone I’ve met and coached wants more energy, they just want to know what to do to get it, how to implement the change and most importantly they want it made quick and SIMPLE.

The book is full of the best information and habits for the mind, nutrition, sleep, exercise, smart computer use, re-energising and work life balance. It can be used like a handbook and can be referred back to for inspiration - it has been dubbed the ultimate energy plan, by those who have used it and it really will help you get great results.

But read it for yourself and let me know what you think on Twitter or Facebook.

HR professionals need to think about themselves…

A recent research report, published by vocational training organisation, City and Guilds, has found HR professionals are some of the unhappiest across the UK workforce.

We know that employee wellbeing often falls to the HR team to manage. The challenge for some HR professionals is that they are so busy looking after the needs of their people that they can forget about themselves.

I often talk about the benefits associated with a healthy, happy and motivated workforce. But this really is essential for our personal wellbeing and if we are to improve the performance of our businesses.

Now is the time for HR professionals to factor their needs into the wellbeing equation. Here are some tips to help you get started…

Replace the word stress with resilience

Stress is a word that is so overused, both inside and outside the workplace. This is not to say it is not a serious issue – in fact new research from the Group Risk Development (GRiD) shows employee stress has been voted the number one risk to employee wellbeing.

But if you are to limit the negative impact associated with, and caused, by stress in the workplace you need to move away from focusing on it so much and think about how you can deal with pressure and become more resilient.

Invest in yourself

Invest in your physical and emotional energy wisely. Develop ways to ensure you are more resilient and make sure you build in recovery time so their energy isn't drained – for expert advice click here to secure your place on our live webinar, on the 12 December.

Try and give yourself 20 minutes of ‘stop time’ per day. Try sitting in a relaxing place in silence and focus on your breathing or listen to some relaxing music.

To check your health and energy click here and take our free online, 10 minute, questionnaire.

Believe

Believe good things can happen. This will give you the motivation to want to make them happen and to be persistent.

Be positive

It may sound very simple but very few people get this right – consistently do more of the things that positively affect you and do less of the things that affect you negatively.

Stay focused

Stay focused on what's important rather than allowing problems or concerns about what might happen to take you off course. 

You can improve your focus and energy by trying to do one task at a time.

                                                        
Make wellbeing part of your culture
Work with your leaders, managers and HR team to make wellbeing part of your organisational culture. Ensure they understand that people need space to perform, relax and take time out to re-energise if they are to give the most at work and your managers need to recognise and support this.

Remember to thank staff this Christmas

Remember to say ‘thank you’ this Christmas. These two words can make all the difference in terms of retaining, engaging and motivating employees.
  

Whilst giving recognition needs to be part of a wider reward strategy and should definitely not be limited to the end of the year, Christmas is a perfect time to give staff an end of year reward and it is an ideal time to formerly thank staff for their hard work.

Do this successfully and you will not only make staff feel great before they take time off over the festive season but you will also set the tone for 2013. So instead of January being the month many employees hand their notice in, you have an opportunity to make staff feel excited about returning to work.

Get the end of year thank you right and employees will be more motivated, to hit the ground running in 2013.

Face-to-face communication is the ideal way to say thank you, as this really allows messages to be delivered in the way you want them to be, but thought also needs to go into the reward if you are giving one.

The research shows money isn’t the number one motivating factor. Whilst it’s important to give employees something that they will appreciate and value it is also worth thinking about what will help support your objectives – what will motivate them to come back to work feeling refreshed and ready to hit the ground running?   

There are lots of options in terms of low cost presents that employers can give their staff, from financial rewards to an activity based gift or something they can take home. Try to think about what you want to achieve and what fits into your culture. 

As Edenred highlight in their recent report, Christmas Rewards Unwrapped, who delivers the thank you is also important. The year end marks a more formal occasion and therefore it makes good business sense for the thanks to come from someone in the senior leadership team.

Doing this will enable you to not only make sure that employees feel valued and that they have made a difference to the success of the business but it will also enable you to set the tone for 2013.

A little thank you goes a long way so let’s get it right…

P.S. Click here to join our live webinar, on the 12 December, to find out how you can improve energy levels and performance this Christmas.
 

Health screening - should you or shouldn’t you?

At energiseYou we recently completed a thorough research project into whether we should provide health screening services, for our clients, as part of our service offering. Following this research we decided not to launch health screening services as part of the energiseYou corporate employee wellbeing offering.

It’s true that health screening can add value to individuals in terms of detecting heath related issues, such as diabetes and high cholesterol. But let’s come back to the real question, should employers proving and paying for health screening?

In my opinion, the simple answer is no…

I’m not saying health screening doesn’t add value or that it’s not right for every organisation. But for the vast majority of organisations their health and wellbeing budget is better spent on other activities – such as coaching, mentoring and inspiring employees to make simple changes to improve their lifestyle.

Any budget given to employee wellbeing needs to be put to the best use, and as you will see below, health screening is not necessarily the best use of budget:

- It’s not always accurate

Some health screening tests are inaccurate and add little value e.g. BMI, body fat percentage, bio dot test, grip test and peak flow test.

- It’s free at your doctors

Most health related tests you can request at your doctors so there is no real need for employers to provide them.

- It can drain your budget

Health screening can be expensive. This money could be better spent on coaching employees to make changes to their lifestyle.

-  Safety and accuracy means it’s better carried out by your Doctor

For safety and accuracy, some health screening is better carried out with your doctor e.g. cholesterol testing and blood pressure.

-  Encourage employees to see their Doctor

Both cholesterol and blood pressure are beneficial health tests. Therefore as part of our wellbeing activities and health education we encourage employees to have it checked with their Doctor, every five years.

Whilst the screening may detect the odd health problem, we know from our work with some of the best companies that by taking a proactive approach and coaching staff to make a positive changes they can have a bigger impact. By doing this, organisations have been able to improve the health of their staff, reduce absence, reduce the cost of reactive health interventions and increase positivity throughout the organisation.

Therefore any budget dedicated to wellbeing is far better spent on promoting healthy ways of living than health screening, and it is this that will have a positive impact on the financial health of the organisation.

Employee wellbeing – make sure it’s more than a tick box exercise...

Our research, Health and wellbeing at work – where we are at and where we need to be, shows the large majority of employers have wellbeing on their agenda. However, many organisations don’t know where to start or what to do to really improve employee wellbeing and deliver return on investment for their business.

In addition to this, many professionals who are responsible for wellbeing are time poor and have budget restraints. This means welbeing often moves down their list of priorities.

I attended a recent conference focusing on employee wellbeing and two things stood out to me:

1. There are still some organisations that treat wellbeing as a tick box exercise

2. More can be done to deliver return on investment

Let me give you an example...

A senior HR Director talked about his approach to employee wellbeing. He was asked how he got buy-in from those at the top to provide employees with private medical insurance.

He said: “I’m lucky, I don’t have to get buy-in. The directors just get the need for it. They understand the importance of having people in work and therefore understand the need to help those who are off sick get back to work quickly, so I have never needed to make a business case.”

But he then went on to say private medical insurance is very rarely used and claims are very low because of the profile of their workforce.

There we have it. Private medical insurance is not adding real value to this organisation or its employees. In fact, the organisation is wasting thousands of pounds on a service that very few employees will ever need and very few will ever get to benefit from.

Challenge what has been done before
In order to deliver real change we need to move away from treating wellbeing as tickbox exercise or a standalone activity, it is something that needs to be threaded through all talent management activities and that really becomes part of the culture.

It is not enough to simply offer private medical insurance or hold one event or workshop. Only by understanding the challenges your people are facing, such as poor engagement and low energy, can you set your objectives. And these challenges change over time which is why what you offer needs to be reviewed regularly.

In order to influence those at the top and really improve employee wellbeing, HR need to focus on what’s best for employees and what will improve business health.  It is time to challenge what has always been done, review what people related initiatives are in place, start being innovative in our approach to employee wellbeing and not be afraid of change.

To listen to our October 2012 webinar, focusing on practical ways to tackle wellbein, please click here.
 
Please email emma.price@energiseyou.com for a copy of Health and wellbeing at work – where we are at and where we need to be.