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Stressed? Help should be at hand…

It should be part of the normal management system of most organisations much as reward or health and safety are today. Sadly and misguidedly, identifying stress and building resilience is a rare topic in many boardrooms and is often only dealt with in an ad-hoc and inconsistent way after a crisis has happened. Many managements now need to exercise their proper duty of care for the mental health and wellbeing of their employees particularly with regards to identifying and quantifying the level of stress they are under and their levels of resilience to handle it.… Read More»

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Why focus on resilience?

Addressing workplace stress is a leading challenge for most organisations.  Resilience is the antidote to stress.

Resilience enables people and businesses to bounce back quickly from demanding situations and sustain high levels of performance under pressure. When resilience is low, employee wellbeing suffers, toxic environments prevail and businesses are faced with massive costs e.g. through lost productivity, turnover, poor decisions, absenteeism as some examples.

Progressive employers are taking action to create healthy working environments and mitigate stress. The best companies recognise that to have meaningful impact, a systematic and targeted approach to improving resilience must be taken.… Read More»

Are you so busy you sabotage yourself?

You’ve left an important task undone for weeks. It’s hanging over you, causing daily anxiety. And yet instead of actually doing it, you do a hundred other tasks instead.

Or perhaps you’ve been feeling guilty about not replying to an email, even though replying would only take 5 minutes.

Recognise this?… Read More»

How burnout became a sinister and insidious epidemic

Interesting article in the UK Guardian today about the sheer scale of burnout. It makes the important points:

1) For individuals, symptoms go unrecognised until people are near crisis point and recovery will be a much longer process and;

2) We need to think in a systemic way and see burnout experiences as symptoms of an ailing organisation rather than as a sick individual

See full article here

AURA is a new tool to address both the above, enabling organisations to assess resilience levels, identify problem areas and remediation action and monitor. For full details, visit aura.austenadvisory.com

Launch of new tool for assessing stress

Leaving aside its long term impact on the health of individuals, stress can induce irrational and dangerous behaviours that can threaten the well being of organisations. Numerous business failures have been caused by a lack of appreciation of its cancerous impact which may sometimes be an inherent part of the particular business system, consequence of poor management, or both. It is also too often the main reason for organisational ineffectiveness, high staff turnover, or both. Sometimes this unawareness has led to mental breakdown of those involved, or worse, leading to recriminations around ‘why did you not tell us?’ or ‘How could we not know?’… Read More»

How women get to the top

This is a great article publishing in Harvard Business Review summarising the findings of a study which aimed to identify the code for women’s leadership success.  A central theme is that females need to be resilient whilst taking risks. Resilience is a skill that can be developed. Organisations and individuals must continuously monitor their resilience levels, taking early action to address any areas where it becomes compromised.  AURA is a new tool developed by Austen Advisory to do just this. … Read More»

Mental Health Matters in Hong Kong

Carrie Lam, kicking off the conference

 

It is fantastic to see a rising importance being placed on mental health issues in Hong Kong, reflected by the Hong Kong Mental Health Conference held over the weekend.  The 3 day event was centred around the theme and prime mission of overcoming the stigma of mental health, this proposed as being a more complex and difficult problem to tackle than mental illness itself.  What I liked was that the conference was not purely academic and based around clinical research but incorporated speakers and practical sessions from a range of disciplines. This enabled an evaluation of the mental health issue from the perspective of the workplace, education, healthcare and policy perspectives.… Read More»

Chronic stress and the brain

I attended a fascinating talk on ‘Chronic stress and the brain ‘by Dr. Mithu Storoni, a prominent neuroscientist and researcher from London. She shared the latest research insights into the effects of stress on the brain, citing breakthrough scientific studies which help to explain mental, emotional, physical and behavioural changes experienced when under long periods of stress. There was a Q&A session enabling two-way discussion around some relevant and front of mind issues.

… Read More»

Developing careers with Hong Kong’s youth

I was honoured to work with KELY Support Group over the past several months in Hong Kong. This was a small, yet rewarding way of ‘giving back’ to the society that I have lived in for the past 6 years.

KELY is a non-government funded organisation which provides support to Hong Kong’s youth.  They offer various programmes aiming to equip them with key life skills and resilience as they face various challenges growing up in Hong Kong. One such programme is a work placement programme targeting Ethnic Minority youth. Many of these individuals face inequalities and barriers which make it difficult for them to gain employment and build a successful career. Many of them believe this is out of their reach.

… Read More»

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