Bullying In The Workplace And Being An Upstander (with Jessica Hickman) The People & Culture Podcast With James Judge podcast

20:49

Tamerlaine Beasley is the Managing Director of Beasley Intercultural, a company that has provided cross-cultural training and advisory services for over 20 years. Tamerlaine has worked with business, government and international agencies and in this episode I get her insights on how to navigate cross-cultural communication issues. .…

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Developments in Dispute Resolution with Amber Williams 27:28

hace 2 years27:28

27:28

Topics covered include Working for a member organisation vs a corporate organisation. How did you become the CEO of Resolution Institute? What’s the accreditation situation for mediators in New Zealand? What other forms of dispute resolution practitioners are there and what standards exist to regulate them? Expert determination and accreditation (what is it and how migth you become one)? The role of mediation and legal practice in dispute resolution. The role of restorative practice in Australia and New Zealand. What else is emerging in the practice of dispute resolution or what is happening at the Resolution Institute that might interest listeners?…

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Trends in Human Resources in Europe (with Tim Rayner) 18:57

hace 2 years18:57

18:57

In this episode I'm joined by Tim Rayner from ChapmanCG, a leading, global executive search firm dedicated solely to the Human Resource profession. Tim has been working in talent management and executive search for over 20 years. He is based in Europe where he specialises in senior HR search assignments. We talk about trends he’s seeing in the world of human resources, recruitment, and what he's hearing from the clients he works with at the most senior levels.…

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Bullying in the workplace and being an upstander (with Jessica Hickman) 29:59

hace 2 years29:59

29:59

In this month's episode I'm talking to Jessica Hickman about her new book, The Upstander Leader, and what she is doing to help build capability in leaders and organisations to stop and prevent bullying. She also shares some of the personal journey she went through that brought her to this field. In the conversation we explore the bystander effect and how it's a key contributor to toxic cultures. We also talk about the work she does to help move people from what she describes as the 'bystander zone' to becoming upstanders. We look at how good leadership is also a key component in creating positive workplace cultures and what factors are at play to sometimes unconsciously make people bystander. Jess has also identified specific upstander traits and outlines 5 critical steps that people can take to develop themselves as upstander leaders. Among these is a commitment to learning and moving from a fixed to a growth mindset. There is also a discussion of replacing authority with influence and why that's increasingly important. Interestingly she positions love as one of the critical leadership values, at times a difficult conversation to have in some of the male dominated industries she has and continues to work with. - You can find out more about her website & book at Jessica Hickman. - Additional resources and help on Bullying are here Bullyology – Break the silence on bullying. - The online course she has developed is here Upstand Academy by Jessica Hickman I hope you find the conversation informative (I could listen to a Welsh accent all day, but that's probably immaterial to most of you). All reviews and comments welcome.…

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From the playing field to the boardroom - insights from sports psychology (with Dr Kirsten Peterson) 34:06

hace 2 years34:06

34:06

In this month's episode I'm excited to be talking to Dr Kirsten Peterson about what she has learnt about high performance from coaching elite athletes. More specifically, we explore how this learning can be applied more broadly, including in the workplace. Dr Peterson is a performance psychologist with a deep background working with sports people at the elite level, having worked for many years with both the US Olympic Committee and the Australian Institute of Sport. We cover a range of topics, including her experience coaching a wide rang of acrobatic and combat sports, at both the individual and group level, for US Olympic teams. We discuss what can be learnt from mistakes made in sports coaching that should not be translated to the workplace, including why we still have allegations of bullying, discrimination and racial abuse to this very day (e.g. Hawthorn Football Club). Her view is that there a couple of contributing factors at play. "There are some well meaning but outmoded ideas about how human beings can and should be motivated or encouraged .. we are rapidly accumulating great evidence about how the human brain works that we didn't have 20 years ago so people were taking their best guess and its also a bit of, I was raised with this tough love attitude so if it's good enough for me... " To some extent its coaches not knowing any better, and they may get results, but not sustainable ones. On the darker side she explains that there are too many times when too much authority is given to someone but with no accountability for their behaviour, so they can get away with things. Athletes feel like they have no choice because if they don't agree or do what is demanded of them, they will get dropped from the team. There is also often a power imbalance at play. Setting up a balance between safety and accountability is also a key component of great performance. The literature strongly shows that making an environment psychologically safe enough so that anyone can talk openly about what they don't know, or when they have made a mistake to be able to admit it without feeling like their head is going to be chopped, off is critical. On the other hand coaches can fear this idea of psychological safety because it sounds too comfortable. It's really about absolute impeccable accountability, done in a safe way. "It's not brutalising accountability, and it's not safety at all costs without any accountability." So often these environments can be uncomfortable, because everyone is striving to be better, but it's done in a way that feels OK. Ground rules are important here as well as integrity, doing what you say you are going to do, and having one set of rules that apply to everyone. I also ask here what differences there might be in what you would say to encourage better performance in individuals as opposed to working or communicating with a team. Kirsten explains that in both kinds of sports, either communicating with the individual or a group, its universally true that you want to be able to build trust so you can ask the deeper questions. This requires two things, a relationship, and an ability to ask those questions that go below the surface. The conversation also covers. - The greatest mistakes she believes leaders make when trying to get the best performance from their team. - Developments over the last few decades in areas such as mindfulness, flow, resilience and grit. - What mental toughness actually means (is it really a thing and how can it be weaponised to label people soft or weak). - The insights she lays out in her new book " When grit is not enough " and her concept of non-contingent reinforcement and goal setting. Kirsten's website can be found here I hope you find the conversation as informative as I did. Please reach out and let me know of any other topics you'd like me to explore?…

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Mental health and suicide prevention in the workplace (with Rachael McMahon and Connie Galati) 28:28

hace 2 years28:28

28:28

In this month's episode I'm thrilled to be talking (again) to Rachael McMahon , Director and Principal Psychologist with the Australian Public Service (APS) Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Unit and Connie Galati , a Senior Clinical Psychologist with that same unit. They're both incredibly informed and passionate about building awareness and capability in mental health awareness and suicide prevention and what the unit has achieved since its foundation in mid 2021 is remarkable (with evaluations revealing over 90% of participants reporting a positive shift in their suicide prevention capability). In this discussion we talk about societal attitudes to discussing mental health issues, the stigma that can sometimes be associated with disclosure and the negative impact this may have, or be perceived to have, on careers. Rachael makes the point that as our knowledge and understanding of mental health grows people are becoming more likely to disclose, to speak up and get help. "I think young people entering our workforce has really impacted on this. A lot of them have grown up with a high level of mental health literacy and actually have pretty high expectations for the workplace in relation to how we provide support." Her view is that we've actually made a lot of progress in this regard and points to some key initiatives to counteract stigma which have lived experience at their centre. Role modelling by leaders can play a crucial role in disclosure and demonstrating that you can have mental ill health, and still perform. It's really changing the culture of workplaces in the right direction. Connie point out that there's a big focus now on capability uplift. Often people are unsure abut how to have the conversations around mental health and perhaps need a bit of a mental model or road map to do that. In addition, an understanding of who needs to undertake this capability uplift has developed and changed. "... it's not just people in clinical or front line or manager roles but all of us in the workforce can more generally can benefit from learning skills to have these conversations." We also explore how their unit came into being, started with an evidence informed, whole of service review - noting that the APS is one of Australia's biggest employers and does a range of diverse work across many fields, places and involving different occupations. This led to the development of a framework of six domains that provides an overarching architecture that agencies can draw on. These domains represent the continuum of mental health, from wellness to illness, and three enabling domains specific to the APS context. The latter focus on leadership and governance, evaluation and continuous improvement, and the building of literacy and capability in staff - all critical in supporting successful change initiatives. The unit also develops its own range of products and programs under these domains including practice guides that give enterprise level implementation advice on particular mental health and wellbeing topics (e.g. dealing with objectionable material, supporting staff post emotionally impactful events and how to implement workplace, peer support programs). Delivering capability uplift programs building on this has also become part of the unit's ongoing work. We discuss the importance of corporate governance systems in embedding good approaches to mental health at work. Rachael point out that often, mental health capability is focussed at the individual level, "...we see a really busy landscape of lots of training and lots of capability offerings but what we really need to emphasise and illuminate is the critical component of well written policy and procedures" Some of this can be obvious, such as a written procedure for staff to follow on responding to someone after an incident but some is less obvious, like having a reasonable adjustment policy for people in the workplace that might need support when encountering mental health challenges. That's not to say that building capability isn't important but in these situations, you don't want to just leave this to individuals and training courses. Corporate governance is an organisational enabler and one that can often be missed. It's here that organisations can be really creative in supporting people at work and lean into the complexities of these issues. "...it's complex, and that's OK, with good governance we can lean into that. We know that people will become unwell in our work systems, whether that's because of work but more often because of stuff that's happening outside of work but the workplace is a really important place for people to access help". Corporate governance may often be seen as the 'boring' part of mental health and suicide prevention, but it's vital and it also links to implementation approaches. That's were continuous improvement comes in. Often we have advanced policy thinking but we lag when it comes to implementation. Corporate governance asks us to think about how we take the knowledge and insights that we have and turn it into action that drives behaviour change. The conversation also covers, some of the most common reservation encountered when people attempt to address or broach mental health issues at work, dealing with anxiety in having conversations about mental health and demystifying mental health by creating a language that isn't a technical language of diagnosis, moving away from the traditional suicide prevention focus (on what clinicians and health professionals can do) to a focus on early intervention based on inclusion and connection, their development of an early intervention capability program built on skills and concepts drawing on inclusion and connection, trauma informed engagement, psychological first aid, self care and neuroscience, and new initiatives they will be working on in 2023 in suicide prevention using human centred design to build peer support networks. For those who want to take a deeper look into what the Unit is doing, I highly recommend you have a look at the Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Unit's website which (among other things) lays out the Capability Framework they have put together, discusses the Practice Guides that set out contemporary approaches to support the mental health and wellbeing of staff. It also has information relating to Compassionate Foundations, a bespoke approach to building suicide prevention capability through positive human-to-human interactions that promote understanding and connection. I should point out that not all this information is immediately accessible to people outside the APS but the unit can be contacted via email at MHSP@apsc.gov.au If you or someone you know needs help, Lifeline in Australia run a 24 hour crisis support and suicide prevention service that can be reached on 13 11 14. I hope you find the conversation informative. Let me know of other topics you'd like me to explore?…

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Performance management and misconduct - a lawyer’s perspective with Gabrielle Sullivan 20:47

hace 2 years20:47

20:47

Performance management and misconduct - a lawyer’s perspective with Gabrielle Sullivan In this episode I take a closer look at handling performance issues and misconduct in the workplace from the perspective of a lawyer who is an expert in this field. That expert is Gabrielle Sullivan, Director of Employment Law & Investigations at BAL lawyers. Gabrielle has been practising in this field for over 20 years, acting for both employers and employees and has experience working across all levels of government as well in the private and the not-for-profit sectors. We discuss a range of issues including - What things people do, or maybe don't do, when handling a performance or misconduct issue that could have potentially stopped it getting to the point of needing to call a lawyer. - The difference between managing underperformance and handling allegations of misconduct in the workplace, and how the two can sometimes get confused. - Patterns that can emerge once there’s been an allegation of misconduct, or possibly in the final stages of a performance management process, and what might constitute best practice as the processes get more complicated and potentially multiple. - Common mistakes that are made when investigating allegations of misconduct or underperformance. - I also ask her about bullying and we explore what managers and human resource professionals need to know, or be mindful of, in understanding what is “reasonable management action.” There are a couple of places where we focus specifically on public sector employment as that's a big part of her practice. If you are interested in building the capacity of your leaders and managers to have effective performance discussions, feel free to contact me directly through my website . Apologies, the audio is OK but recording this remotely, there are just a few times where there is a brief distortion for under a second (it's still comprehensible) at Gabrielle's end of the line.…

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Psychological Safety - with Rachael McMahon, Tim Grenfell and Leonie Graham 37:42

hace 2 years37:42

37:42

Psychological Safety. What is it? Why is it important? How do you create and maintain it in your workplace? That's what I cover in this episode with three people who all have important insights on these issues. I'm joined by Rachael McMahon, Director and Principal Psychologist with the Australian Public Service Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Unit. Rachael has led major transformations of practice in suicide prevention, mental health capability, disaster recovery and crisis response. Tim Grenfell is Chief Psychologist with the Australian Federal Police and also has extensive experience working within other government agencies and in a variety of clinical roles. Leonie Graham is Director, People Support at IP Australia and has experience working with private and public sector workforces in a range of human resource and people related roles. We also get to discuss a range of other issues including linkages with mental health in the workplace and what happens where psychological safety is absent in teams. I hope you find the conversation informative. Let me know of other topics you'd like me to explore? Thanks to IP Australia for whom I initially created this recording.…

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Industry Insights - Architecture 25:22

hace 3 years25:22

25:22

In this episode I explore what's been happening in the world of work in a particular industry, specifically, the business of architecture. I'm joined by Chris Millman, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Cox Architecture as well as Margot McGinness, one of their HR Managers based in Canberra. Although both guests come from the same company, they have varied background and with Cox being a multidisciplinary practice with studios all around Australia, they offer some broader insights into this industry sector as a whole. We talk about what systemic impacts there have been to the way they work as a result of the global pandemic, including flexible working arrangements and other changes to policies and practices. We also discuss how this has affected different groups of employees and issues of fairness (and perceptions of fairness). The question of striking a balance between compulsion and choice in how and where people work comes up and we also discuss what implications this might have on staff attraction and retention as well as what it's meant in relation to working with clients.. I hope you find the conversation informative. Let me know of other topics you would like me to explore?…

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Practical Reconciliation with Indigenous Elder, Aunty Munya Andrews and Educator, Carla Rogers 35:34

hace 3 years35:34