Wellbeing Articles

About this Article:
In this article Marieke Guy examines the benefits and pitfalls of working remotely for employees and organisations.

Opening Words:
In the 21st Century work has changed. Remote working or teleworking is an employment arrangement in which employees can complete their work from a location other than their office base, be it their home, a sub-office or even the local coffee shop. As Woody Leonhard puts it in the Underground Guide to Telecommuting, “Work is becoming something you do, not a place you go to.”

Modern employment law now offers more flexibility of working hours. From April 2003, all employees with children under 6 years old, or children under 18 with disabilities, have a legal right to ask to work flexibly. In April 2007 this legislation was extended to employees with responsibility for caring for spouses and partners; while in November 2007 the Prime Minister announced plans to extend these provisions to those parents with older children. Further details are available from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform .

Useful Reading For:
Anyone managing a remote team, or working or contemplating working remotely.

About this Article:
Marieke Guy follows up on her two previous articles for Ariadne with an overview of an evolving structure to provide consistent support to UKOLN colleagues who work remotely.

Opening Words:
In my previous articles on remote working I have written about the positive and negative aspects of working from home and the technologies that can support one to do so. This article aims to discuss how we, here at UKOLN, have put this theory into practice by creating a support framework for remote workers. It is a case study of what can be done with enthusiastic staff, support from managers and faith in an iterative process. It is also a reality check. Remote working continues to be an aspiration for so many yet the reality is not always plain sailing. However what remote working does offer, if it can be realised, is choice and flexibility; two increasingly required job characteristics that let the best employees work to the best of their ability.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone managing a remote team, or working or contemplating working remotely.

Article Overview:
We've obtained permission from the Health and Safety Executive in the UK to include some of their useful leaflets in the library as background reading for trainers and learners.

This booklet shows you the kind of things which cause the more common accidents and harm to people’s health. It lets you see what applies to your work activities, and tells you how you can get more help and information.

Opening Words:
Getting hurt at work or becoming ill through work is not a pleasant subject to think about. The reality is that over 200 people a year lose their lives at work in Britain. In addition, around 150,000 non-fatal injuries are reported each year, and an estimated 2 million suffer from ill health caused or made worse by work.

The mistake is to believe that these things happen in highly unusual or exceptional circumstances that never occur in your workplace. This is not the case. Some basic thinking and acting beforehand could usually have prevented these things from happening.

Implementing health and safety measures doesn’t have to be expensive, time consuming or complicated. In fact, safer and more efficient working practices can often save money but, more importantly, they can help to save lives.

Useful Reading For:
Trainers wishing to develop their knowledge of health and safety law and learners as additional reading.

Article Overview:
This article by Nick Heap examines the importance of relationships within the work environment.

Opening Words:
I have been interested in how people build relationships since 1969. I went on a week’s training event where a group of us were encouraged to look at our behaviour as it happened. My most important insight from this experience was that we have the technical resources and material to solve all the problems we have. What is missing is the willingness and the skills to work together. This requires us to listen to each other; indeed, listening is the underlying skill required in all good relationships.

In society we need to build effective relationships for a number of reasons. For instance, the health of people depends on what happens in organisations and what they do.

Useful Reading For:
Everyone.

Article Overview:
In this article, Simon North and Penny Gundry take a look at resilience to define what it is and identify how we can increase our resilience to enable us to learn, adapt and to move forwards given any situation.

Opening Words:
We should ask two questions about resilience. Firstly, what is it? In most dictionaries, it is defined as the power to revert to original form after compressions. Secondly, is there really something to consider in this resilience issue? In the context of careers, there most certainly is.

In the UK, a PWC report for 2011 estimated that absenteeism cost to the economy was £32 billion. A similar cost was A$30Bn in Australia. Figures for the costs of absenteeism, insurance, costs of cover and lost productivity are huge in the US. In terms of days absent in the past three years, the figure in the UK is 6.5 days per employee a year and in Canada was 7.7 days.

Useful Reading For:
Everyone.

Article Overview:
This is a great new article from Mandy Green of the Matchett Group that looks at some of the unique challenges of the training role. Mandy offers some clear advice and tips for managing the more stressful aspects of the job. A must-read for all trainers!

Opening Words:
A trainer’s life is not always a happy one, as one of our colleagues found when, after a very long journey, he arrived at a hotel in Siberia in the early hours of the morning to give a training course the next day. The taxi had driven away, the hotel staff denied all knowledge of his room reservation or the training course, then proceeded to rip him off by over-charging for the booking that he had to make with his own credit card.

Other worst-case scenarios include: arriving at the venue to find the course materials have not turned up; arriving at the venue, only to be told that the venue has been changed; there’s also ‘the show must go on’ syndrome, when, despite feeling at death’s door, you still run the course; and finally, and not least, when there are tears, tantrums and aggression - from delegates: (this can occur in soft skills courses, where some fairly tender areas can be probed) which you have to deal with professionally. Being hurtled around from airports to train stations, dealing with cancelled flights and trains, or spending long hours driving, are also par for the course in a trainer’s life.

Useful Reading For:
A must-read for all trainers.

Article Overview:
In this enjoyable article, Kimberley Hare considers the importance of a resourceful state when learning. She looks at the importance of facilitator's creating learning environments that are high challenge but low stress, providing helpful insights into how this can be achieved.

Opening Words:
Remember a time when you were tired, lethargic and bored. Are you going to learn well in this state? Now imagine that you are extremely anxious and worried - perhaps even a little fearful. A different state to be sure, but again not one in which much learning will take place. These are not resourceful states - it's like you're operating on only a small number of cylinders rather than your full engine power!

Sadly, in classrooms and training venues throughout the world, even as you read these words, many people are tired, lethargic, bored or anxious, worried and fearful. And they will be learning very little - other than perhaps how much they dislike learning.

Useful Reading For:
All facilitators of training sessions.

Article Overview:
We've obtained permission from the Health and Safety Executive in the UK to include some of their useful leaflets in the library as background reading for trainers and learners.

This leaflet outlines basic measures to help you control the risks from your use of electricity at work.

Opening Words:
Electricity can kill. Each year about 1000 accidents at work involving electric shock or burns are reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Around 30 of these are fatal. Most of these fatalities arise from contact with overhead or underground power cables.

Even non-fatal shocks can cause severe and permanent injury. Shocks from faulty equipment may lead to falls from ladders, scaffolds or other work platforms. Those using electricity may not be the only ones at risk: poor electrical installations and faulty electrical appliances can lead to fires which may also cause death or injury to others. Most of these accidents can be avoided by careful planning and straightforward precautions.

Useful Reading For:
Trainers wishing to develop their knowledge of health and safety law and learners as additional reading.

Article Overview:
This excellent article from Mike Bagshaw explains what Emotional Intelligence is, and explains what to consider if planning Emotional Intelligence training.

Opening Words:
When people in the workplace do not act with emotional intelligence the costs can be great: Low morale, bitter conflict and stress all limit business effectiveness. There is also the financial cost of litigation when people complain of being bullied, intimidated, and exploited. Emotional intelligence also contributes in a positive business enhancing way, improving teamwork, customer service and the managing of diversity. Fortunately this critical personal resource can be improved through appropriate coaching and training.

Stability makes us feel secure. It gives a firm and safe base on which to build. Stability means we know what is going on, and what is likely to go on in the future, and stability is something we have not got. Instead, we have one dramatic change after another. It feels frightening and out of control, and it's a natural reaction to keep things the same as much as we can, even when we acknowledge that that is going backwards. What we need to do is build, but we can not have the firm base of stability. We need to draw on inner resources to help us move forward.

Useful Reading For:
Managers and trainers.

Article Overview:
In this, the second of three articles for Trainers' Library, Rick Williams considers the business case for employing disabled people. Disabled people are nearly seven times more likely to be out of work. Rick looks at the reasons for this, and highlights the reasons for being more proactive in attracting disabled people as an employer.

Opening Words:
Bob Niven, Chief Executive of the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) recently said that “. . some employers are beginning to recognise the business case for employing disabled people. On the other hand, there is a gap between aspirations and intentions - that is, in translating policies into practical workplace procedures.”

The 2001 Managing Disability At Work survey of more than 200 employers found that few went beyond simple approaches to employing disabled people. For example, whilst 72% had a policy on employing disabled people only 40% had a system to monitor it. There also appears to be a gap between the attitudes of HR professionals and line managers. The former can introduce a policy of employing disabled people but the line managers, who have to implement it, don’t necessarily see things the same and often resist employing disabled people by using a range of tactics, e.g., citing health and safety as a problem.

Useful Reading For:
Managers and recruitment personnel.

Article Overview:
We've obtained permission from the Health and Safety Executive in the UK to include some of their useful leaflets in the library as background reading for trainers and learners.

This booklet explains the problems associated with manual handling and sets out best practice in dealing with them. The advice is intended for managers of small firms or similar organisations. But the general principles are relevant to all workplaces, whatever their size.

Opening Words:
The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992, as amended in 2002 (‘the Regulations’) apply to a wide range of manual handling activities, including lifting, lowering, pushing, pulling or carrying. The load may be either inanimate - such as a box or a trolley, or animate - a person or an animal. This guidance gives useful practical advice for employers, managers, safety representatives and individual employees on how to reduce the risk of injury from manual handling.

What’s the problem? More than a third of all over-three-day injuries reported each year to HSE and local authorities are caused by manual handling - the transporting or supporting of loads by hand or by bodily force.

Useful Reading For:
Trainers wishing to develop their knowledge of health and safety law and learners as additional reading.

Article Overview:
We've obtained permission from the Health and Safety Executive in the UK to include some of their useful leaflets in the library as background reading for trainers and learners.

This leaflet aims to explain the difference between guidance, approved codes of practice and regulations in the UK.

Opening Words
The basis of British health and safety law is the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

The Act sets out the general duties which employers have towards employees and members of the public, and employees have to themselves and to each other.

These duties are qualified in the Act by the principle of ‘so far as is reasonably practicable’. In other words, an employer does not have to take measures to avoid or reduce the risk if they are technically impossible or if the time, trouble or cost of the measures would be grossly disproportionate to the risk.

What the law requires here is what good management and common sense would lead employers to do anyway: that is, to look at what the risks are and take sensible measures to tackle them.

Useful Reading For:
Trainers wishing to develop their knowledge of health and safety law and learners as additional reading.

Article Overview:
Barry Fitzpatrick's article provides a useful guide of available resources and organisations for personal use or to signpost someone in need of support.

Opening Words:
The information, resources and organisations presented in this document is intended to be a useful guide for information and reference purposes only.

The intended use of this document and its contents should be for personal use or to signpost someone in need of support.

Useful Reading For:
Everyone.

Article Overview
In this article, Diane Bailey looks at the importance of Internal Customer Care and looks at the benefits of an internal service culture to the organisation, its employees and its customers.

Opening Words:
In the late 1980s, management specialist John Humble worked in conjunction with Management Centre Europe on a survey of how managers in Europe viewed the 'service' ethic. In his introduction to the report, Humble stressed that ‘service', in fact, was not something which referred only to external customers. 'Service' is something which is also relevant to colleagues within the organisation – the internal customers. The detail of the service will obviously differ, the report suggested, but the need is the same.

Of the senior managers who took part in the survey (1055, biased towards larger, more forward-thinking companies), 78% saw improving quality and service as the way to competitive success; 85% felt that providing a superior service was one of their key responsibilities.

Where British Managers differ from Europe perhaps is that, in general, much less work has been done in the UK to improve the level of service and care offered to the 'internal' customer, i.e., the people who work within an organisation in other departments or sections, or in branches and units geographically dispersed from the centre...

Useful Reading For:
Anyone attending training related to internal customer care or involved in creating a service culture within an organisation.

Article Overview:
In this article Damian Hughes shares some tips and advice on how to keep focused when faced with a changing environment.

Opening Words:
If I asked you to describe how you feel about change, what would you say? Many people often come up with a mixture of negative and positive terms. On the one hand fear, anxiety, loss, danger and panic; on the other, exhilaration, risk-taking, excitement, improvements, energising. With a mix of emotions, keeping focused can be difficult during a period of change, and maintaining your best performance may become more of a challenge. The power of focus works on what I call ‘The Spice Girls Principle’.

The more you want and focus on something, the more of it you get. However, take a few moments to think about what actually happens to your focus when you are under the pressures of change.

Useful Reading For:
Everyone.

Article Overview:
In this article, Alison takes a look at the issue of Mental Health and asks if increasing awareness in the workplace could help to reduce absences and increase productivity?

Opening Words:
Yesterday I read a statistic that 84 adult men commit suicide every day in the UK. It’s a shocking statistic and how can that be possible and acceptable in 2018?

Mental health is high on the agenda for the government and the media.

Useful Reading For:
Everyone.

Article Overview:
In this article Martin Shovel suggests that showing our own vulnerability in the classroom may be no bad thing - an all-knowing, flawless trainer may be just the opposite of what a diffident learner needs.

Opening Words:
Brains can be shy, emotional creatures when it comes to learning. If they don't feel secure, they'll stay curled up inside the safety of their skulls, spurning the advances of the outside world. Successful learning is not just about managing information or knowledge, it's also about dealing with feelings – our feelings and the feelings of those we work with in the training room, lecture theatre or classroom.

Openness to learning is about sharing vulnerability. Some people feel almost naked when they go into an unfamiliar learning situation and are often convinced that they are the only ones in the group protecting their dignity with little more than a fig leaf. An all-knowing, flawless trainer, or teacher, might just be the opposite of what the diffident learner needs.

Useful Reading For:
All trainers.

Article Overview:
We've obtained permission from the Health and Safety Executive in the UK to include some of their useful leaflets in the library as background reading for trainers and learners.

This leaflet contains notes on what you should do to ensure a safe working environment in the office.

Opening Words:
'There are too many regulations and too much form filling. If I read everything put out by government I wouldn't have time to run my business.'

Sound familiar? To help you, this booklet sets out what you have to do in office premises where health and safety risks are low. The guiding principle for much of our health and safety law is that there is a balance to be struck between the risk and the cost of prevention. Where the risks are low, for example in small offices, it shouldn't cost much to make sure that you keep within the law. Let's look at five examples:

Useful Reading For:
Trainers wishing to develop their knowledge of health and safety law and learners as additional reading.

Article Overview:
We've obtained permission from the Health and Safety Executive in the UK to include some of their useful leaflets in the library as background reading for trainers and learners.

This leaflet looks at noise as a hazard and the steps that employer's must take to protect employees' hearing.

Opening Words:
Noise is part of everyday life, but loud noise can permanently damage your hearing. Conversation becomes difficult or impossible, your family complains about the television being too loud and you have trouble using the telephone.

Permanent tinnitus (ringing in the ears) can also be caused. The damage can be instant, for very loud or explosive noises, but generally it is gradual. By the time you notice it, it is probably too late.

Useful Reading For:
Trainers wishing to develop their knowledge of health and safety law and learners as additional reading.

Article Overview:
In this article, Helen Krag asks, how happy are you at work? She goes on to look at ways you can boost your level of happiness.

Opening Words:
On a scale of one to ten, how happy are you at work? I encourage you to jot down that number. Is it the right number for you, or do you seek to change it in some way? Read on for six ways you can boost your own level of happiness at work.

Being happy at work is less about our circumstances, more about how we choose to respond to them. Tony Robbins, leadership and success guru, offers a useful framework for six Human Needs that typically drive our behaviours. As human beings, we are adept at finding ways to satisfy these needs – some of which are positive and resourceful for us, and others which are less so. Let’s take a look at the six.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone who works!

Article Overview:
This article looks at how coaching can help people achieve a healthy work life balance. Apparently, a survey by CIPD found that professionals in the UK would sacrifice up to 40% of their annual salary in order to achieve a better work life balance.

Opening Words:
A survey by the CIPD claimed that professionals in the UK would sacrifice up to 40% of their annual salary – an average £13,253 a year - if it meant achieving better work-life balance.

Why has work-life balance become such a hot topic in recent years? The sheer number of choices available today can leave the average professional sinking under a mountain of obligations, leisure activities and family commitments.

Entertainment for our grandparents was limited to a sing-song round the piano and, for their children, a game of hop scotch in the car-free street outside. They didn’t have to spend their weekends searching for the elusive best deal on new cars, fridges or the bewildering array of media technology available today; and two weeks in Yarmouth provided an annual treat, without hours of net-surfing for that last-minute, dream holiday.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone involved in coaching or looking at how coaching can affect our lives.

Article Overview:
We've obtained permission from the Health and Safety Executive in the UK to include some of their useful leaflets in the library as background reading for trainers and learners.

This leaflet gives advice on what to do to eliminate or reduce the risks from work equipment.

Opening Words:
Every year, there are a number of accidents from using work equipment, including machinery. Many are serious and some are fatal.

This leaflet gives simple, practical advice on what you can do to eliminate or reduce the risks from work equipment. It covers all workplaces and situations where the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 applies, including offshore installations. It is mainly for those who have responsibility (directly or indirectly) for work equipment and how it is used. If you are an employer, a manager, a supervisor or hire out equipment for use in the workplace, this leaflet will help you understand what you can do to reduce the chances of an accident happening.

Accidents not only cause human suffering, they also cost money, for example in lost working hours, training temporary staff, insurance premiums, fines and managers’ time. By using safe, well-maintained equipment operated by adequately trained staff, you can help prevent accidents and reduce these personal and financial costs.

Useful Reading For:
Trainers wishing to develop their knowledge of health and safety law and learners as additional reading.

Article Overview:
In this article, Sheila Williams looks at how we feel when faced with imposed change and suggests five ways for helping us work through such changes.

Opening Words:
When imposed change – change we have not chosen ourselves – hits us, it can really hurt. We often experience feelings of loss, hopelessness, being powerless, worried that we can’t count on anything and overwhelmed by the need to adapt to new demands.

The Change Curve is a model that illustrates the emotional stages we may go through when experiencing this type of change and not only helps us to make sense of our emotions but allows us to recognise that what we are feeling is entirely normal.

Useful Reading For:
Anyone responsible for managing change or faced with change.

Article Overview:
Graham Guest considers the issue of work life balance in the 21st Century, and suggests that rather than separating the two aspects of our lives, perhaps we need to begin looking at work in different ways.

Opening Words:
A favourite question of my father's was, "Do you live to eat or eat to live?" I long ago found the answer to that one: I live to eat...and drink and travel and talk. Now the big question seems to be, "Do we live to work or work to live?" and over recent years the strange concept of work-life balance has appeared. I say strange because the juxtaposition of the two processes suggests a certain mutual exclusivity: either we work or we live.

A lot has been written about work-life balance and I am reluctant to add to the volume of words. On this subject, as on many others, I think that everything has probably already been said and we are now engaged in reordering and repackaging a fixed number of thoughts and ideas. I could make this the shortest article ever and suggest that readers type 'work-life balance' into a search engine.

Useful Reading For:
Everyone.

Article Overview:
We've obtained permission from the Health and Safety Executive in the UK to include some of their useful leaflets in the library as background reading for trainers and learners.

This leaflet is a guide for people who work with visual display units (VDUs) and their employers. It:

• Answers questions that are most often asked about VDUs and health.
• Gives a summary of the law on VDU work (the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992), and outlines what employers and employees should do to comply.
• Suggests some simple adjustments that users can make to workstations and screens to make them more comfortable and easy to use.
• Explains how employers and users can get further advice.

Opening Words:
What's the difference between a VDU, a VDT, a monitor and display screen equipment (DSE)?

There isn’t one. All these terms mean the same thing - a display screen, usually forming part of a computer and showing text, numbers or graphics.

This booklet gives advice on health and safety in working with such screens. It covers both conventional (cathode ray tube, TV-style) screens and the newer flat-panel displays such as those used in portable computers.

The advice in this booklet applies to the whole workstation, job and work environment, as well as to the VDU, keyboard and other equipment.

Useful Reading For:
Trainers wishing to develop their knowledge of health and safety law and learners as additional reading.

Article Overview:
We've obtained permission from the Health and Safety Executive in the UK to include some of their useful leaflets in the library as background reading for trainers and learners.

This leaflet gives a brief outline of the requirements of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, which cover a wide range of basic health, safety and welfare issues.

Opening Words:
Employers have a general duty under section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of their employees at work. People in control of non-domestic premises have a duty (under section 4 of the Act) towards people who are not their employees but use their premises. The Regulations expand on these duties and are intended to protect the health and safety of everyone in the workplace, and ensure that adequate welfare facilities are provided for people at work.

These Regulations aim to ensure that workplaces meet the health, safety and welfare needs of all members of a workforce, including people with disabilities. Several of the Regulations require things to be ‘suitable’. Regulation 2(3) makes it clear that things should be suitable for anyone. This includes people with disabilities. Where necessary, parts of the workplace, including in particular doors, passageways, stairs, showers, washbasins, lavatories and workstations, should be made accessible for disabled people.

Useful Reading For:
Trainers wishing to develop their knowledge of health and safety law and learners as additional reading.