Fun, Freedom & Fulfilment at Work

Graduate Conference "First Steps" - Introduction to the Research

Introduction to the graduate "First Steps" conference

Our Partner - Future Foundations

The Work Empowerment Foundation has partnered with Future Foundations to create the foundation's first conference event empowering a specific niche of working people. Future Foundations are...

.....pioneers in training and support services for graduates, students, school-leavers, and pupils to help prepare them for the real world and the transitions within education.

Why graduates?

Graduate skills shortage has become a prominent employment issue in the past years...the number of graduates on the market has been increasing at unprecedented rates, yet employers are still complaining that they are not able the recruit the kind of graduates that they need. Graduates are having significant difficulties in getting their first employment...and employers are having significant difficulties in recruiting graduates.

Out of the two groups, the graduates are the ones with most immediate need...and they are very open and eager to empower themselves NOW. They do not want to wait for years whilst larger structural changes take place - they are willing to work with the market situation as it is NOW to find jobs and other opportunities that that will enable them to take their FIRST STEPS in starting successful careers.

How the graduates fit with Work Empowerment Foundation

A key role of the Work Empowerment Foundation is to facilitate empowerment of working people. We do this by working with niches who are willing to do what it takes to empower themselves NOW in order to improve their working situation...the niche for graduates fit this criteria.

Furthermore, as a foundation we intend to provide opportunities for graduates to gain experience and leadership skills by providing volunteer work and part time work to support us deliver of our services, conferences and projects. The aim of this is to enable graduates to gain the work experience that they require to demonstrate their employability and fit with their target organisations.

Why a conference?

The foundation is launching the empowerment of graduates with the FIRST STEPS conference. This conference is planned to take place in November 2007. The social conference format provides the ideal forum to bring together the key stakeholders to start the self empowerment of graduates by:

• Discussing the key issues from an empowerment perspective
• Exploring how graduates can empower themselves in different contexts
• Exploring the potential collaborations that can made to create win-win results for graduates, universities and employers
• Giving feedback on some of the empowerment tools that have been developed by the foundation to be run by graduates for graduates (graduate peer mentoring employability programme; graduate empowerment events; on line empowerment communities)
• Joining working groups to carry on the conversations that have started in the conference

Graduate conference research

Issues to be researched

Our research for the conference will concentrate on the following strands:

1. Graduate Market - How the market looks from the graduate side (suppliers) and the employer side (customers)
2. Generation Y - How the characteristics of the graduates are changing
3. New Organisations (link to be provided later) - How the characteristics of organisations are changing
4. Graduate Skills Gap - What exactly is the skills gap and what are the key drivers of the gap
5. Current Graduate Empowerment Landscape (link to be provided later) - What are the other empowerment initiatives that are available for graduates and who are the key players in the graduate market

Graduate Empowerment Tools developed by the foundation

We will also doing research for the three tools that the foundation itself is developing to empower graduates - these will be demonstrated at the conference:

• Graduate Empowerment Events (link with more details will be provided later)

Work Empowerment Foundation will be working with Future Foundations to develop a Graduate Empowerment Event that will be run every 1 - 2 months depending on time of year. We plan to facilitate a team of graduates to run this event for other graduates.

• Graduate Employability Programme (link with more details will be provided later)

Work Empowerment Foundation is working with Energize Solutions to develop a peer mentoring programme to help students to develop employability skills through mentoring delivered by graduates who have been working 1 - 2 years. The students will be able to demonstrate that they have employability skills by running a community project that covers the three sectors (public sector, private sector and the third sector).

• On line Graduate Employability Communities (link with more details will be provided later)

Work Empowerment Foundation will be including graduate topics on its Empowerment Website service. These topics will be moderated by groups of students volunteers. The foundation will be partnering with Future Foundations to design and develop these communities.

Posted by: Hina Patel

Summary....Happiness Conference Research

"Happy Days" Conference Research Summary

This post summarises the research that the foundation has done for its happiness & wellbeing event. Please note that we will be adding to this post as we progress in the conference development. This aim of this post is to pull together the key themes and related posts in a way which makes the the whole happiness & wellbeing arena easy to understand.

The research will be summarised into four areas:

1. Overall perspective of happiness and wellbeing
2. Happiness and wellbeing of family & young people
3. Happiness and wellbeing at work
4. Politics of happiness & wellbeing

1. Overall Perspective of Happiness and Wellbeing

An overview of happiness

The website supporting Mark Easton's BBC 6 part series "The Happiness Formula" that was screened in 2006 provides a good overview of happiness. The articles that were written to support the airing of the programme in May / June 2006 provide a synopsis of the key issues associated with happiness by exploring the journey to lasting happiness. [Post "Mark Easton - The Happiness Formula" ].

What the science of happiness is telling us

During my research, I was extremely surprised by the amount of work that had been done in this area...it seems that happiness and achieving happiness is becoming more important to us as a worldwide society. In the following series of posts, I have tried to make sense of what I have found:

• What is happiness and wellbeing? Happiness is created by a variety of factors and that typically we need to have them all in our lives. This was determined by finding people who are happy and determining what kinds of lives that they were living that were creating that happiness. To be happy we need to create lives that balance - and the level of balance is dependent on the individual (their preferences, needs and desires) i.e. one size does not fit all. [Post "Happiness & Wellbeing - Key Facts"]
• How do we measure happiness? The one sure thing in the happiness of science is that we know if we are feeling happy or not (this is the measurement of "subjective" happiness). However, it also seems that there can be a big difference between what we are feeling moment to moment and the overall satisfaction the we feel in our lives. [Post "Measuring Happiness & Positive Psychology].
• How can we make ourselves happy? Research has shown us what kinds of factors that we need to have in our lives to make us happy by looking at happy people. However, research also suggests that those of us who are unhappy are not very effective at making ourselves happy. Most of this lack of effectiveness comes from pursuing happiness as a goal - this results in us having a lot of wrong strategies about what makes us happy [Posts "Do We Know What Makes Us Happy?" & "Daniel Gilbert - Stumbling on Happiness"]. It seems that there is some need to educate people as how to create balanced lives for themselves.
• How can we use the happiness studies to make us happier at the governmental level? Now that we have all this research about what makes us happy - the challenge for governments is to determine how best to use public resources to create environments that empower us to be happy. The UK government has created a group (Whitehall Wellbeing Working Group) to oversee the development of a wellbeing index (as part of the defra sustainability agenda) and to determine how to apply happiness and wellbeing research to policy development.
• How can we use the happiness studies to make us happier at the individual level? We are the source to our own happiness - it is up to us to create balanced lives that make us feel fulfilled, satisfied and happy. Even if the government was extremely successful in creating an economy and living environments that fully support our ability to be happy, only we can make ourselves happy - and it appears that we are currently not very effective at doing this. Positive Psychology has been born from this gap - it is a science dedicated to taking happiness research and creating tools and resources from them that people can use to make themselves happier. [Post "The Basics of Positive Psychology?" ]. Also positive psychologists are also not adverse to advising governments how to create policies that make people happier.

How happy are we?

So just how happy is the UK?  This varies according to where we look:

• We are not okay - levels of mental depression - according to Oliver James in Affluenza Anglo-Saxon cultures (English speaking) are suffering from a middle-class virus called "Affluenza" which causes depression, anxiety and addiction. Anglo-Saxon countries (eg. USA and UK) have twice the amount of mental depression than non-English speaking cultures (eg. Denmark) - the raised depression level is attributed to having a culture that is excessively focused on work, consumerism and money.
• We are okay - work happiness surveys - the majority of the work based surveys looking at happiness (based on "subjective happiness" which are self-reported happiness levels) say that we are generally happy at work. [Post "Work Surveys" ].
• We are not okay - the unicef report - this report  has put the UK at the bottom of 21 developed countries in terms of the wellbeing and happiness of its children. The UK is reported as being a "dog-eat-dog" culture that is not very kind to each other. [Post "What can we learn from the Unicef report"].
• We are not okay - the politics of wellbeing - the sense of urgency around wellbeing in politics seems to be increasing. [Post "The issues from cif politics of well-being debate", "Well-being working groups", "Conservative party & well-being", "Happiness, well-being and the government" ]. 
• We are okay - world map of happiness - this projection of global happiness shows us to be 41 out of 178 countries. [Post "Adrian White - World Map of Happiness" ].
• We could be okay and not know it - happiness experiments - a personal happiness experiment run by Adam Gee where he reported 3 things that made him happy at the end of each day run made him realise how lucky and happy his life was. This kind of exercise is typical of those used in the application of positive psychology. [Post "Adam Gee - Happiness Project" ].
• We are showing the strain - ESRC & the impact of a changing world - as we become globalised and more knitted in with the rest of the world, we are needing to expend a lot energy and effort to keep up with the new world that we are in. Our society is now starting to show the strain - we are overworked and suffering from related mental and physical stresses - we are becoming more obese - our children are unhappier - divorce rates are increasing. [Post "ESRC" ].
• We could be okay with help - positive psychology - positive psychology has now penetrated the UK market demonstrating that we have a need to be educated in how to make ourselves happy [posts "The basics of positive psychology" & "Martin Segliman - Authentic Happiness" ].
  • The Wellbeing Institute - [Post "Nick Baylis - The Wellbeing Institute" ]
  • Centre of Applied Positive Psychology - [Post "Centre of Applied Positive Psychology" ]
  • Centre of Confidence and Wellbeing - [Post "Centre for Confidence" ]

2. Happiness & Wellbeing of Family and Young People

What is the current situation?

The best indicator at the moment about how we are getting on with happiness and wellbeing of family and young people is the unicef report . The report "An overview of child well-being in rich countries" was released in February 2007 amidst a lot of publicity. This report put the UK bottom of 21 developed countries when unicef looked at 40 indicators (data collected over 2000-2003). The key reasons reported for this poor performance is then general underinvestment in young people / family and an overly competitive unkind society. [Post "What can we learn from the unicef report" ]

A brainstorm on what could have given rise to this

The below list is based on some of the themes that I have picked up during the research for the happiness & wellbeing conference:

• Our culture is becoming more focused on self gratification and quick returns - as we pursue more happiness and fulfilment, our lack of understanding of what truly makes us happy has caused us to concentrate more on creating transient pleasures and self gratification. We are becoming more and more focused on consumerism. We as a culture are under investing in both our communities and families. Both of these which are phenomenal sources of long lasting happiness but they require medium to long term investment of hard work and diligence to develop them as substantial sources of happiness. [Post "Do we know what makes us happy?" ].
• Our need to perform as a nation - our rapidly changing competitive environment is causing us to push our children to perform better so that they can be prepared for the future. Children are now being tested nationally on a regular basis. This is resulting in an excessive focus on performing well in the classroom and giving rise to increased stress levels in our children. Children are no longer left to "organically" develop into well adjusted children through play and social interactions - they are being forced to fit into a "good child" mould.
• The future is more uncertain for our children - our children are seeing a lot of changes going on in the world and they do not feel supported or prepared to meet this future. This can cause high levels of stress.
• Parents are working more and are tired when they are not - the economy is causing parents to be working longer hours in order to perform at work. As well as parents having less time for their children because of work, parents are also not able to provide quality time to children because they are tired when they get back from work. In my research with life coaches I found that one of the key reasons that people people seek life coaching support is because work has taken over their life and they are tired all the time. [Post "Life coaching perspective on work empowerment" ].
• Parents are struggling to parent well - the programme "Honey we're killing the kids" demonstrates that we as a culture have a lot of bad family habits that are having a negative impact on our children. As our lives have become faster and more time constrained, the habits that encouraged cohesive family development are being put aside for activities that are quick and easy. [Post "Kris Murrin - Honey we're killing the kids" ].
• Community support is decreasing - children are less likely to participate with the wider community because of the concerns of their safety. Families are contributing less to their local communities because they have less time available and they do not prioritise community activities. Also, technology is making children more solitary creatures as they spend time with the computer rather than real life people.
• Our children are not well understood - the younger generation is significantly different from previous generations - yet we still try to treat them the same. We do not appreciate the strengths and the gifts of this new generation and this is resulting in alienation because society is not ready for them.

What is currently being done?

• Good Childhood Inquiry - the Children's Society launched its 2 year Good Childhood Inquiry to coincide with the release of the unicef report. This inquiry will determine what makes a good childhood today and provide a children / family focus advise to policy developers. [Post "Children's Society - Good Childhood Inquiry" ]
• Other childhood inquiries - The conservative party has launched an Inquiry into the Quality of British Childhood which is being run by a high profile working group. The group will report back with the results of the inquiry at the end of 2007. Demos has also launched a Families and Health Care Programme that will be predominately look at the care of young people in the community.[Post "Current Young People Inquiries - Quality of British Childhood" ].
• Happiness curriculum in Schools - The headmaster of Wellington College, Anthony Seldon, has pioneered the inclusion of happiness education into his college's curriculum. This education is based on the work done by positive psychologists. [Post "Anthony Seldon - Happiness Curriculum at Wellington College" ].
• Other positive psychology projects - The Young Foundation has launched a local well-being project with 3 local authorities covering positive parenting and developing emotional resilience young people. The Centre for Confidence and Well-being in Scotland is looking at several projects that work at keeping the confidence and motivation of young people high. [Post "Summary of Young People Projects" ].
• Policy development - the conservative party is advocating the principle of family friendly policy development. [Post "Conservative Party & Well-Being" ].

3. Happiness and Well-being at Work

How are we currently doing?

Work surveys: According to work surveys in general, the majority of us feel fairly happy at work...for example the August 2006 survey by Standard Life showed that most people consider themselves to be reasonably happy at work.  [Post "Work Surveys" ] .

Engagement: However, a key indicator of being happy (according to positive psychology) is the level of "engagement" that people have:

Engagement..being in "flow" (being "absorbed") with what we are doing

The CIPD's research on engagement [ Post "CIPD - Work Engagement" ] showed that only 30% of employees are engaged in their work.

The opportunity: This indicates that even though people are fairly happy at work, there is still a significant opportunity for them to be happier at work which will show up in their level of engagement.

Overall view of employment

The following organisations provide a good view of employment and the work environment:

• The Institute of Employability Studies provides an apolitical view of employment serving both the private sector and the public sector. The institute focuses in knowledge and practical experience in: employment, training policy, operation of labour markets, human resource planning and development. [Post "Institute of Employment Studies" ].
• The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development  serves the HR community and development practitioners. They help their members to work effectively with human capacity and capability in the organisations that they serve. [Post "CIPD - Work Engagement" ].
• The Work Foundation brings together all sides of the working organisation (not just HR) working to improve both economic performance and quality of life. The purpose of The Work Foundation is to promote the quest for good work. [Post "Work Foundation - Good Work" ].

What is happening....work meets the family and society

Corporate Social Responsibility - CSR means that businesses take into account their economic, social and environment impacts. This includes looking into the impact that they have on employees, employee families and communities. The government is working to demonstrate through their Responsible Competitive Index that businesses that take part in CSR activities have improved competitiveness. There are no significant CSR government programmes for well-being of employees (apart from: HWWB, Flexible working from the 2002 Employment Act, the CSR project "Rights at Work" being led by DWP) - it is felt that it should be clear to businesses that there is a solid business case for happy, healthy and productive employees.  [Post "Government CSR, well-being and the workplace" ].

Work-Life Balance - The UK is a nation of workaholics - we work longer hours than the Europeans and we are less productive. Longer hours means that we have less time to spend with our families and that we are often tired when we do spend time with our families, However, the number of hours that we are working is falling. The Evening Standard (14th May 2007) article "Long hours falling as men restore work-life balance" shows that the number of men working in private sector organisations working more than 45 hours a week has fallen from 41% in 1997 to 31% in 2007. It is thought that better work-life balance could actually boost productivity and help create stronger families. The Work Foundation has started up the Employers and Work-Life Balance organisation which helps employers to develop and improve their sustainable work-life strategies.

Work Flexibility - More and more workers prefer to have flexible working because it allows them to both meet their work commitments and manage their family lives. Flexible working also improves the productivity of individuals - research by CIPD has shown that those members of the workforce who are the most engaged in their work have more access to flexible working than those who less engaged. Furthermore, flexible working is not a separate issue from work-life balance - it is a key part of work-life balance as stated by Unison's Work-Life Balance Campaign:

"Unison believes that all workers should have a right to work that does not damage their freedom to pursue activities outside the workplace. This means making work more sensitive. Arranging work more effectively and organising it more intelligently."

Work is Good for You - The government has taken the stance that work is good for you and is a large source of happiness and wellbeing in our lives. Also the changing demographics means that essential for the overall economy that a larger percentage of those of working age are at work rather than being away from work due to illness. They have launched the Health, Work and Well-Being (HWWB) programme to help employees reduce health related work problems in the first place and to bring them back quicker to work if they do fall ill (as working will help the employees recuperation process). However, Unison have a differing view:

New Labour sees "work" as the panacea to may work problems...it believes that work is the means equality of opportunity (personal, familial, societal salvation) will be delivered...the work focus means that more and more time is being spent at work...two thirds of employees feel working hours undermine family life.

"Good Work" is what is required - Richard Reeves (in "The voice of co-owned businesses")  believes that we are concentrating too much on "work-life" balance..."The biggest challenge facing us is not overwork but BETTER WORK...bad work is a blight on civilization...it wastes time, humanity and hope....work is not merely an economic necessity but something that will enhance your life". [Post "Richard Reeves - Happy Mondays" ].

I have tried to pull together what is meant by good work in my posts:

• Happiness & good work part 1 - exploring unhappiness & sickness, happiness & engagement, simple definition of good work
• Happiness & good work part 2 - exploring the key factors of good work ( work-life balance, healthy & fitness, reasonable workloads, tools for the trade, good management, supportive culture).

My key conclusion is that is what makes good work is a combination factors rather than just concentrating on one issue (eg work-life balance). Also, just as important as employers creating great workplaces is employees being empowered to create great work for themselves - it is not all down to employers.

Happiness meets the free market!

Employee engagement is the next competitive advantage - as the business landscape becomes more global and competitive, more and more businesses are realising that they need their work force to be more engaged. Engaged employees, as well as being more productive, are more creative, innovative and more prepared to go the extra mile to help their organisations achieve their strategic objectives. CIPD in their report "How Engaged are British Workers" looked at the most productive workers and determined what factors that they had in common (work-life balance, flexible contracts, opportunity to impact on the management, leadership commitment, fairness & transparency of the organisation). [Post "CIPD - Employee Engagement" ].

Engaged employees are motivated - the foundation has recently piloted with Energize Solutions and UEL a prototype pilot for its graduate employability programme [see post "Prototype Pilots - An Amazing Tool" ]. In this pilot I came across some interesting numbers covering levels of motivation and levels of productivity [source: Michael Cox and Michael E. Rock, Seven Pillars of Leadership(Research quoted in Liberating the Corporate Soul by Richard Barrett)]:

• Difference in productivity between high motivation and average motivation
  • Low task complexity - 52%
  • Medium task complexity - 85%
  • High task complexity - 127%
• Difference in productivity between least motivated and most motivated
  • Low task complexity - 300%
  • Medium task complexity - 1200%
  • High task complexity - too large to measure!!

Very happy employees are engaged - positive psychology defines engagement as being a key aspect of happiness (along with positive emotion and meaning)....this means that highly engaged employees are also very happy [see post "The basics of positive psychology" ]. This provides a fairly robust business case for organisations to ensure that their workforce is happy and healthy (although I have found several articles that say that the amount that needs to be make a workforce happy may actually outweigh the £££ benefits).

Alex Kjerulf (Chief Happiness Officer) has made a great post ("Happiness at work is the ultimate productivity booster") to demonstrate that a person being happy at work is considerably more productive than a person who is not so happy using using productivity enhancement tools (e.g time management tools).

What is being done to create happiness and well-being at work?

• Work Initiatives Summary - The post "Summary of Work Projects - Positive Psychology, Happiness & Well-Being" details the initiatives that I have found to support happiness and well-being at work by:
  • The government
  • The employers
  • Positive psychology practitioners
• Best Companies to Work For - The Sunday Times run a yearly "100 best places to work for" - these are the pioneering organisation who take the well-being of their staff as important and have put structures and processes in place that create empowerment in the workplace.
• Supporting organisations - private sector companies are also setting up to support organisations to create empowering workplaces (list to be added to):
  • I-Opener - see post "I-Opener - Happiness at Work"
  • Stanton Marris - see post "Stanton Marris - Energy Consultants"

4. Politics of Happiness and Well-Being

Post still in progress....

Posted by: Hina Patel

User Niches...Empowerment Website Design Research

Who are the different niches of users that the Empowerment Website will serve?

The foundation needs to develop user interfaces that are suited to the different niches of users who are expected to use the Empowerment Website. Furthermore, the specification of the user niches will enable the foundation to effectively market its available resources to people who will benefit.

User niches

Please note that this listing of user niches will be revised on an ongoing basis during the design of the Empowerment Website.

1. Young people on work experience
2. People at the start of their careers
3. People on the promotion ladder
4. People managing bigger and bigger teams
5. People taking on leadership
6. People on a technical development route
7. People in unchanging jobs
8. People seeking career change
9. People seeking new jobs
10. People who want to contribute and give back to society whilst working

Posted by: Hina Patel

Exploring Work Empowerment Levels and Sense of Urgency...Empowerment Website Design Research

Sense of urgency levels

The users of the Empowerment Website will have differing requirements in the types of resources that they need for the particular work issue. The resource type will depend on the sense of urgency that they are feeling with respect to the specific work issue that is causing them concern.

Each work issue that is addressed will need to provide a range of resources that cover all three levels of urgency.

Level 1 - High Sense of Urgency - "Overwhelm Mode"

The issue is highly important and the user needs a resource that is quick to understand and quick to use. Typically the user will be in a highly emotional state of mind and may even be suffering from significant distress. He / she want to have a "quick-fix" solution that will provide immediate relief.

Level 2 - Medium Sense of Urgency - "Stretch Mode"

The issue is important, but the user has time to contemplate the issue and see how that it fits in with other things on his / her plate in their current job. Typically the user will be primarily motivated to perform well in their current job. This will involve having time to take training to learn new skills and working with others (groups / forums) to develop the required skills.

Level 3 - Low Sense of Urgency - "Career Development Mode"

The issue is important in the long term. The user is willing to take a long term perspective in terms of career development in addressing these issues. They are willing to take the time to undergo self-assessments to discover their strengths, their life purpose and to learn from the past.

Posted by: Hina Patel

Avenues that People Currently Use to Empower Themselves at Work....Empowerment Website Design Research

How do people currently prefer to empower themselves in the workplace?

The core vision of the foundation is to improve the accessibility that people have to the resources that are currently available that will enable them to create fun, freedom and fulfilment in their work.

The foundation does not intend to reinvent any wheels in achieving this vision. This means that we need to work with:

• How people currently prefer to empower themselves - the Empowerment Website needs to take into account the different preferred methods of empowerment for different types of work issues - one size will not fit all
• The work empowerment avenues that people are currently taking - the Empowerment Website needs to enhance and build upon the current avenues that people are using - we need to provide ways of using preferred avenues faster and better

Below is a listing of current work empowerment avenues that people are using....this will be updated on an ongoing basis

Note - the first draft of this list was initiated from the conversations that I had with the two life coaches mentioned in the associated fff post on the "Life Coaching Perspective on Workplace Empowerment".

• Human resources
• In-house training
• Other training courses
• Counseling / coaching from friends
• Line manager
• Colleagues
• Partner at home
• External life coach
• GP
• Help groups in companies (eg women's group)
• Company manuals
• Department manuals
• Related management institutes
• Professional groups
• Company Intranet
• e-learning
• Online resources
• Googling the Internet
• Looking for role models to copy
• Requesting more specific feedback
• Researching
• Try to solve themselves (self analysis, self coaching)
• Books
• Videos
• CD Roms
• Figure out the skill they need to learn
• Peer group (internal / external)
• Mentors (internal / external)
• Take on overall personal development

Posted by: Hina Patel

Life Coaching Perspective on Work Empowerment....Empowerment Website Design Research

Why the life coaching perspective?

Good life coaches typically have coached 100+ people in issues relating to their work-life. From the vast number of people that they have coached, they are able to summarise the key issues at work for which people seek life coaching.

Currently most life coaching is directly paid for by the individuals themselves - this means that the problems that they are coming for life coaching on are issues that they cannot handle using resources that they normally have access to. These are issues that have a huge sense of urgency that people are willing to pay for from their own personal disposal income to solve.

These are issues that the foundation's Empowerment Website need to cover as a basic foundation.

Who did I ask?

I asked two NLP certified coaches:

• Hiten Shah - www.destiny-life-coaching.co.uk
• Arvind Devalia - www.arvinddevalia.com

What I found.....The main areas covering results and performance at work

Please note that this list will be updated on an ongoing basis as I get more information.

Area 1: Time Management

• Too much to do and not enough time
• Managing long projects vs short term projects
• Managing self motivation to meet deadlines
• Lack of assertiveness resulting in being landed with unmanageable workloads
• Being reactive as opposed to proactive
• Not enough fun / enjoyable time at work

Area 2: Job Satisfaction

• Not feeling satisfied with the work that they are doing
• Not feeling satisfied with their job prospects
• The responsibility that they have (or do not have)
• Feel that they are not using their full potential

Area 3: Communication

• Communication issues with team members
• Communication issues with managers
• General issues with how people communicate with them

Area 4: Skills

• Need to learn new work skills
• Need to learn new management skills
• Need to learn new leadership and strategic skils

Area 5: Support

• Not enough support at work
• Not enough resources to do the work required
• Lack of direction from managers

Area 6: Work-Life Balance

• Work is overtaking the rest of life
• Lack of energy at work and outside of work
• Lack of time outside of work

What I found.....The main triggers for people seeking coaching

• Feeling general work overwhelm and panic
• Feeling unfulfilled
• Big organisational reshuffle & not being sure about their position
• Being promoted (or not being promoted)
• Finding an area of work challenging - they have usually left the issue for a long time and it is not getting any better
• Negative feedback from performance reviews and appraisals
• They have a new idea of the direction that they want to take their career and do not know how to implement it
• Family conflict about their work
• Deteriorating health
• Notice that their own performance is not as good as it used to be

Posted by: Hina Patel

Policy Development - The Issues from the CIF Politics of Well-being Debate....Happiness Conference Research

Creating Clarity - The amazing power of research!

At the start of my research on happiness and well-being I came across the series of blogs that had been posted on The Guardian's cif (comments is free) in connection with the 21st February 2007 "The Politics of Well-Being" debate initiated by Oliver James. When I first looked through the posts on 18th March, I have to say that I didn't really understand much of what was being said. Now, one and half months later, as I am wrapping up the research phase for the foundation's happiness and well-being conference, I felt the need to revisit the original posts that I reviewed. And to my surprise, I find that I actually understand what is being said with a depth of clarity that I never thought that I would be able to achieve at the start of my research!

Summary of key points from the "The Politics of Well-Being" posts

So here is a summary of key points from the cif posts that I have re-reviewed - some have been posted by the fellow debtors (Derek Draper, Richard Layard, Neal Lawson, James Parnell, Tim Loughton, Sue Palmer) - the rest have been posted by other interested parties.

Pat Kane - "Not Wellbeing, but Wellbecoming"

• We are shifting away from discussions about work, prosperity and consumption
• We are moving towards high levels of "behaviour meddling and social prescription" to enforce well-being
• The concept that any work being good for well-being needs to be challenged
• The government seems to believe that citizens do not know their own best interests
• How can we happy when a large proportion of us are serving through our work "the domestic and hedonistic agendas" of another section of the population
• We have a workaholic culture - parents are neglecting childcare in favour of jobs
• The best role that policy makers can give is is "the support of resources to help us to navigate our deeply complex societies"
• "Support our autonomy, don't prescribe our happiness"

Derek Draper - "The Road to Wellbeing" - "The Road to Happiness"

• We are in unchartered waters
• 1 in 6 people are having signs of mental illness - there is a growing awareness of the prevalence of mental illness
• We have an explosion of worry about our cultural and ethical values
• We have a new generation of politicians prepared to talk about emotional wellbeing - but do our politicians have more to contribute than their words?
• What do measurements of happiness actually mean?
• The role of government - a "wellbeing test" should be applied to all policy decisions
• Wellbeing is analogous to the environment but it is 20 years behind - this issue heralds a sea-change in British politics discourse

Libby Brooks - "Donations to Clarity" - "Joy Divisions"

• The wellbeing conversation is disparate - there will need to more focus to keep the conversation going in a productive way
• We need more clarity about what wellbeing is. Is it happiness? Is it a lack of depression?
• "An examination of our nation's mental health, and in particular the pressing concerns of the mental health of children and adolescents, should not translate into a belief that our lives ought to be continuously, blandly joyous."
• Relationships are important to wellbeing - but we must not discount the part played in happiness by the capacity to be alone
• "An understanding of what we expect of happiness, and where we locate it, is crucial"

Tim Loughton - "Money is Not the Root of All Evil"

• "Money is only part of our nation's poor mental health not the root cause of it, the unequal distribution of it even less"
• We need to see the importance of work / life balance - we need to bring forth family friendly economics
• "We need to acknowledge the commercial logic of investing in a happy and therefore more productive, stable workforce. This is where the politics of wellbeing can propagate on the most fertile ground"
• "We need to let our children grow organically into well rounded and socially interactive members of society"

Mark Vernon - "That's What Friends are For"

• Provides an exploration from a Greek perspective which looks at the importance of friendship
• To be human is to be part of society
• Friendships cultivate creativity and compassion - and is a vital counterbalance to impersonal democratic values of justice and equality
• People's wellbeing would rocket if they spent one fifth of their time in the pursuit of friendship (as children do)
• Government should encourage programmes that support people to nurture their friendships

James Parnell - "Money or Your Life"

• The efficiency of our economy is not a dictator of our policy
• The New Labour has shown that a fairer society means a more prosperous economy
• Inequality is being reduced, but there is an increasing anxiety about our wellbeing
• "We are the first generations to have to cope with the challenges presented by the emancipation of womens, the explosion of consumer choice, the opportunities and insecurities of globalisation, the democratisation of information."
• The sate is not the main source of happiness - individuals are - but politics does affect how easy it is for people to be happy
• We need to reduce avoidable misery (unemployment, crime, poor health)
• The Department of Health are promoting well-being through work and are piloting new approaches to tackling depression and anxiety
• We need to empower people autonomy to produce their idea of a good life - we need to empower them to make good choices
• What more can be done to make childhood more stable and happy?
• What is the government doing to directly increase the quality of life?
• We need to have a steady growth of economy to keep the current level of happiness flat (rather than falling)
• Individuals are the ultimate arbitrators of well-being

Neil Clark - "Wanted: and Erich Fromm Party"

• "A healthy economy is only possible at the expense of unhealthy human beings"...Dr Erich Fromm
• In the past decade we have an unprecedented period of economic growth, but collective mental health has declined sharply
• We cannot look for short term fixes (eg CBT)
• "We are encouraged to view all human contacts as expendable, to be 'traded-in' whenever we can get a better deal. Hire and fire rules do not just apply in the business world but in our personal lives too. And we wonder why we are so unhappy."
• The can be no improvement in our collective health unless society changes from the "having" mode of existence to the "being" mode of existence
• Brainwashing used by advertising needs to be prohibited
• What would you look for - a healthy economy or healthy human beings?

Madeleine Bunting - "The Nasty Country"

• The social consensus about what we value and why seem to have fragmented
• We have become a nasty country - we are more preoccupied with our individual concerns and less with those of the community
• Are politicians to blame for this social regression?
• How does the Benthamite principle of the "greatest happiness of the greatest number" translate into politics?
• Oliver James and Richard Layard are challenging the entrenched tradition of materialism of the labour part
• The politics of wellbeing is not cheap and nor is it easily measurable (see Denmark as an example)
• "The British seem  mechanistic, obsessed with procedure and distrustful of each other. The costs in terms of social recession are beginning to become clearer."

Richard Layard - "A Lead Supporting Role"

• Our society has become far too competitive and orientated towards personal success
• The unicef report shows that we are not a kind nation
• There is a need to create a more individualistic culture - more energy in schooling needs to be devoted to the development of empathy and self-understanding
• The Nice guidelines recommend that high quality therapy needs to be made available to people in distress - psychological therapy needs to be more widely available on the NHS

Posted by: Hina Patel

Policy Development - Well-Being Indexes...Happiness Conference Research

This posts details a summary of the well-being index development initiatives that I have found during my research.

Local Level - Development Agencies

East Midlands Development Agency (Emda) are leading the development of a well-being index with the other 8 regional agencies. Emda is looking at the well-being indicator in terms of both personal well-being and community well-being. The pursuit of happiness is the linchpin of Emda's economic strategy for 2006-2020.

National Level - Sustainable Development Agenda

The SDRN (Sustainable Development Research Network) is developing a national well-being indicator. This indicator is part of the set of indicators being developed for the sustainability agenda by defra and the Sustainable Development Commission.

Global Level

NEF Happy Planet Index - this index is a new measure, launched in July 2006, of global progress. This index determines the environmental efficiency with which countries provide long and happy lives by combing environmental impact with well-being.

World Map of Happiness - this is a global projection of subjective well-being that has been developed by Leicester University (Adrian White).

Posted by: Hina Patel

Policy Development - Well-Being Working Groups...Happiness Conference Research

There are two working groups looking at well-being and policy development:

• Current Government - Whitehall Wellbeing Working Group
• Conservative Party - Quality of Life Challenge Organisation Wellbeing Working Group

Whitehall Wellbeing Working Group (W3G)

W3G is a committee of civil servants that has been founded to:

• Pull together all the other government well-being initiatives
• Determine how policies can make people happier
• Develop a national measure for well-being

What they are doing:

• The Whitehall Well-being Working Group have produced a report summarizing the results of the Sustainable Development Unit investigation into the use of well-being concepts in policy making and appraisal.The report is based on a series of interviews with Whitehall departments, the Environment Agency and the Audit Commission, and topics covered include:
  • Use of well-being concepts in policy:
  • current approach and rationale;
  • strengths and weaknesses of current approaches;
  • and benefits and barriers for use of well-being concepts in the future.
  • Measuring well-being (current and planned).
  • Research (current and planned).

In general, it was found that the term well-being is widely used but not specifically defined.  Summary details of findings are given in the report.

• Also Defra has been specifically looking into:
  • Review of evidence on the influences on personal well-being and its application to policy making - There is a substantial body of research identifying factors that influence or are associated with individual well-being across populations. A range of concepts or components of well-being are covered by research, e.g. some studies have focussed on well-being as expressed through life satisfaction, others have looked at psychological well-being and others at objective measures based on administrative data such as income and health. This project reviews evidence of the causative factors associated with various concepts or components of well-being with a view to establishing the strength of the evidence, and to answer the question: “What are the main drivers of well-being: how far do these differ between, or coincide for, different definitions of well-being and why?” The research includes a brief assessment of the potential for different concepts of well-being to inform policy making in specific policy domains, and the scope for applying concepts or components of well-being in a consistent way across a range of policy areas
  • Exploration of the relationship between sustainable development and well-being - The UK’s shared framework for sustainable development, “One future – different paths”, sets out principles that the UK Government, the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly Government, and the Northern Ireland Administration have agreed will help to achieve sustainable development and will form the basis for policy in the UK. The UK strategy, Securing the Future, recognises that to be sustainable a policy must respect all five of the principles while acknowledging that trade-offs may need to be made between them. This project is a think-piece that explores the relationship between well-being and sustainable development. It identifies a relevant concepts and components of well-being, and assess the extent to which an increased focus on each would contribute to the objectives of sustainable development, how an increased focus on well-being could inform decisions about trade-offs, and to what extent such a focus could be in conflict with specific sustainable development goals.

See related fff post on "Happiness, Well-being and the Government"

Quality of Life Challenge Organisation - Wellbeing Working Group

The wellbeing group is one of the 8 working groups in the Quality of Life Policy Group - it is currently headed by Ali Miraj:

How best to improve the quality of life of all people should be the central question for any government? Whilst the debate over how terms such as General Wellbeing (GWB), and Happiness should be defined and then enhanced has been taking place within academic circles for some time, it has yet to become an integral part of the policymaking process. This must change.The Wellbeing Working Group is aiming for a new approach to solving the challenges our society faces.

The issues that the well being group are covering include:

1. Work and economic issues
2. Freedom and local democracy
3. Mental health and happiness
4. Identity and belonging
5. Environment and community
6. Consumption, downshifting, materialism

More about The Quality of Life Policy Group

The Quality for Life Policy Group  is made up of 200 experts from pressure groups, NGOs, academia and government.

David Cameron established the Quality of Life Policy Group to investigate every aspect of the quality of life agenda: transport and housing; urban planning and the quality of public space; pollution, waste, biodiversity and the countryside; energy and climate change.

The Policy Group will provide an independent input into the Conservative Party in July 2007. Individuals taking part in this consultation and policy development process are doing so on a non-partisan basis. It is our intention that our findings will provide the Conservatives with the best possible information and ideas on the issues relating to quality of life.

These are complex issues, and all interrelated. For example, it is impossible to think about the countryside without considering urban planning; and the number of houses we build has a direct impact on our use of limited water supplies.

By grouping these issues together we will develop a robust, considered set of proposals which will genuinely improve everyone's Quality of Life.

Also see related fff post on "Conservative Party and Well-Being"

Posted by: Hina Patel

Sheffield Policy Group - Centre for Well-being in Public Policy...Happiness Conference Research

What is the Centre for Well-Being in Public Policy?

The Centre for Well-being in Public Policy considers how people´s health and well-being can be defined, measured and improved in ways that help policy-makers determine the best use of scarce resources, and to investigate the determinants of well-being insofar as these are relevant to policy formulation.

The centre is truly interdisciplinary, bringing together people from such disciplines as economics, psychology, political science, geography, criminology, animal and plant sciences, public health and mental health. Throughout its activities, the Centre aims to combine theoretical development with policy relevance. It is fully committed to building its research portfolio, and becoming a leading international research centre in a major UK university.

CWiPP 2006 Report

Associated Defra Reports

• Defra report on influences on personal well-being and application to policy making
• Defra report on the relationship between well-being and sustainable development