More than 30 HR professionals from across Dorset and Hampshire joined us yesterday at the Vitality Stadium in Bournemouth to hear how they can develop a more focused, calm and confident workforce in 2020.
Ginette Oliver from Rising Vibe presented on the 6 Cs of an impactful conversation – a simple and easy to apply framework that nurtures a more open, honest and transparent culture and aims to reduce mental health issues in the workplace.
Numerous studies have shown that a decline in employee engagement and organisational trust has led to a rise in mental health issues at work, with stress and anxiety being the leading cause for sick leave in Britain.
Workload, management practices, role conflict, colleague relationships and a blame culture are said to be the main contributors.
As a result, employers are being encouraged to adopt a more open-door policy where employees feel they can have difficult conversations without any negative consequences.
Shocking workplace statistics
Ginette shared shocking some shocking statistics that support the need to create an encouraging workplace environment:
- 70% of employees say that they avoid ‘difficult conversations’ with their boss, colleagues and line managers
- Every single conversation failure costs an organisation around £6,000 and more than seven working days
- 53% of employees are managing ‘toxic situations’ by avoiding them
- Employees spend 2.8 hours per week dealing with difficult situations which amounts to approximately £288 billion in paid hours
To truly make a difference, Ginette explained how management teams need to mean what they say and do what they promise; avoid box-ticking exercises in favour of conversation; adopt the tools and frameworks for themselves first, which will set an example; and keep doing it because consistency is key.
