For 5 years now, Brockhurst Consulting has been aspiring to make a positive human impact in the world of work.
Our services focus on supporting organisations and individuals to develop and grow through change, to achieve results and most importantly, to ensure everyone enjoys what they do. Microsoft has just published some statistics on the intentions of workers worldwide; over 40% of the global workforce is considering leaving their employer and/or changing jobs this year. I’m sure you will agree we have all been living through so much change in the past 18 months; in fact sometimes I think we even need to change the word ‘change’!
From all accounts, there is a lot more change to come…
This has been reinforced in recent conversations we have had with our clients who tell us that some of their teams have been experiencing up to 70% turnover! It is also evidenced by the number of requests for our career transition services we have received in the last few weeks. There is a ‘turnover tsunami’ clearly happening!
What this means is that you can pretty much guarantee that:
someone you work with, and/or
someone you work for, and/or
someone who works for you, and/or
you will change roles and/or organisations over the next few months.
Our DNA is founded on decades of working with people transitioning their careers, together with our extensive experience of supporting organisations, teams and individuals through transformation programs. We can equip you to lead your people through ongoing change, we can help you find and secure your next job when you’re competing with 40% of the workforce, and we can support you and your teams in remaining agile and resilient in the face of constant uncertainty.
We can help you change the way you change.
As a facilitator of team strengthening programs, Sarah Wood, Director of Consulting Services, reinforces the importance of every team having a clear and shared purpose.
At Brockhurst Consulting we believe it’s critical that every team member understands why the team they are a part of does what it does, and how everyone’s individual contributions connect with this.
In fact, we have recently re-visited our vision and mission with our own team of consultants and coaches at Brockhurst Consulting, and we have all re-committed to our purpose as being:
“We are helping to build a world in which people feel safe and supported at work, so that they are inspired and fulfilled by the work they do.”
Each of our team members feels deeply connected to this collective purpose as we aim to make a positive human impact for the individuals, teams and organisations we work with. Our purpose also acts as our north star guiding us in everything we do.
We take teams through an activity that involves all team members in helping them clarify and articulate their ‘why’ – what is their deeper mission in terms of the impact they are seeking to make:
Why do you do what you do?
What would your team’s purpose be?
What contribution and/or impact are you seeking to make?
There’s never been a more appropriate time to have this conversation with your team to strengthen the connections of team members and to remind them of the value and the impact of the work they do.
We can guide you and your team through this process.
As a passionate student of Neuroscience, Tom Brockhurst provides a tip to help us through these ongoing tough times – learn to be kind to yourself.
Neuroscience tells us that we experience physical pain in the same way we experience emotional pain. We can therefore take some insights from what we do when we have a physical ‘bump’ to what we can do to look after ourselves during the many emotional ‘bumps’ that Covid is currently throwing at us all.
When we experience a physical injury on the sports field, what do we do?
We take some time out of the game
We head to the bench
We get some treatment
We watch the game from the sidelines
We keep in touch
We head back into the game when we are ready
So what can we do for ourselves when we experience pain from the various emotional impacts of Covid? Tom believes it is really important to do whatever it takes to get yourself onto that metaphorical bench, give yourself that break, re-gather your senses and get back into the ‘game’ only when you are ready:
Put your hand up
Take some time out
Step away from your computer
Grab a cup of tea
Go for a walk
Call a friend
Get back to work when you are ready
We can help you generate that new habit of being kind to yourself so give us a call today.
Having spent 14 days in isolation, Tom Brockhurst has a new perspective on the implications lockdown can have on people.
After having his autonomy taken away for a couple of weeks – ‘it really erodes at your being’ – it makes sense to Tom that the future workspace is some form of a ‘blended environment’.
Neuroscience tells us that we need to solve for autonomy and manage for fairness and this extends to organisations contemplating bringing workforces back into the office.
So what does solving for autonomy mean?
It means we need to question what is the best way for an organisation to move forward, and how do we ensure it is collaborative and inclusive to all. What are the decisions that we can extend to our employees about coming back to the workplace?
How do we ensure decisions are made as a team and not in isolation, or without consideration and input from all?
Does 100% of our workforce need to be in all the time? Maybe it’s only 50%. We give them the choice about who’s in and when.
Does everybody need to get together every day for that communal piece that we know is quite valuable?
Do only a few hours a week or a few days a month need to be spent in the office?
Neuroscience research has proven that if everyone has a say in decisions at work, you will create a more productive and connected workplace.
So once these decisions that gives our employees some autonomy have been made, we need to ensure everybody is having a say and there is fairness in the way that it is working.
Solve for autonomy and manage for fairness. That’s how we’re approaching the quagmire and the ambiguity of coming back to work after COVID. Hopefully there’s no more lockdowns but whatever happens, the future is going to be different.
We hope this has been helpful as you are thinking about transitioning back to the workplace over the next few weeks and months.
