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Whilst there are many ways to look at safety and risk, our research has shown us that safety can never be complete without three elements.

Physical safety – the environment and spaces around us at work, home and in the community

Social safety – the people and relationships around us at work, home and in the community

Psychological safety – how safe we feel in the environment and spaces at work, home and community and how safe we feel with the people and relationships at work, home and the community

Wholistic safety requires all three aspects to be balanced.

If we don’t like the people we work with then how motivated might we be to keep them safe from falling?

If we don’t think people care about us at work then how likely are we to reach out when we need help?

Wholistic safety is the combination of physical, social and psychological safety. All three must be measured to created safe workplaces.

Are you currently measuring physical, social and psychological safety in your workplace?

Getting old scares people. No surprise but we fear getting older and let’s face it, in the long run, it doesn’t end well! It’s the end that makes thinking about ageing a hard topic to get our heads around. What do we generally do with things that are hard, we avoid them?

Being old is always 20 years older than you are. As part of my PhD research, I asked people “how old is old?” and the concept of “old” was never an age they attributed to themselves. It was always a number about 20 years from the age they were at the time.

You can ask a whole room of 45-year-old workers how old is an “old worker” and time after time they will say it’s about 20 years older than they are.

Four problems with not identifying as oldat work

1. We fail to plan for how our bodies and family needs change as we age. This disruption can cause unnecessary absences.
2. We don’t look after ourselves properly and as a result we don’t age well
3. We create risk when there doesn’t need to be any
4. We miss opportunities to continue to learn and fail to teach others

If you don’t take ageing at work seriously you will increase your injury risk profile. Prior to COVID-19 there had been an energy around creating accessible workforces for older people but in the past 12 months the conversation around ageing has been swamped with information on mental health.

Getting old isn’t going to go away. No matter what gets thrown at us, whether its poor mental health at work or a pandemic the fact remains that your teams are still ageing. You are still ageing. The problem of ageing is not someone else’s problem, it’s everyone’s problem.

Three things you can do now about your ageing workforce

1. Regular health checks. The age of your teams isn’t your problem but how they are ageing is.
2. Connection.Find out if your employees feel connected to each other and feel like they belong. Check in to see how many of your staff could be at risk of leaving.
3. Create accessibility to reduce risk. Think about redesigning job descriptions to enable older workers to have more flexibility at work.

When I run workshops for employers on workforce sustainability with an older workforce, I ask participants, what does “old mean”? It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to stereotype and talk about our idea of being old. The majority of people will say that being old means “bad driving”, “being cranky”, “smell”, “being forgetful” to which I respond, “oh so you are saying that a teenager isn’t a bad driver? Teenagers don’t smell? Or aren’t forgetful?

Time and again I have to remind people that people are just people. It doesn’t matter how old you are it’s how you age that’s the key.

Have you ever been walking along the street when you pass some random person when by chance you make eye contact and they ask, “Hello, how are you today”? 

How good does that make you feel?

These days we go on our way with our eyes glued to our phone, or our heads down thinking about a deadline at work, what will we have for dinner, the car being due for registration or what we are doing on the weekend. It does not cost us anything to be polite, but it can certainly be priceless to make someone feel good and put them in a great mood to tackle what lays ahead for the rest of the day!

This used to be a common thing when I was younger that everyone that you passed you would acknowledge them, whether it be a nod of the head, a hello, G`day or a smile. None of us know what sort of day, week, month or even year for that matter the person we are about to pass has had. Unfortunately, the world that we live in these days people are to scared to make eye contact, shy or apprehensive to talk to a stranger. Take a second and think to yourself if you were the person that a stranger asked, “hello how are you today” what would you do?   If it is me that has asked the question, personally I know how good it makes me feel. The person may even stop and be up for a chat, especially if it is an elderly person. It could be a mother who is having a stressful day chasing around the kids while trying to do the groceries or a father who is going through a messy divorce and is at risk of not seeing his kids!

You often see mothers in carparks at supermarkets struggling to get the kids in and load the groceries in the car, it does not hurt to ask them “do you need a hand there”. Whether it is taking the trolley back or putting the groceries or pram in the boot of the car. I have experienced this in the past and you can just see in their body language how grateful they are for your assistance. Very similar to when elderly people are struggling to carry things or trying to cross a busy road, offering help can mean they get to where they need to go safely.

So next time you are walking along the street, on the bus or train going to work, out at the department stores, at the local pub or club or just taking your dog for a walk, remember to look up, look around and get a real buzz by saying “hello how are you today” to a random person!

It does not cost us anything to be polite, but it can certainly be priceless to make someone feel good and put them in a great mood to tackle what lays ahead for the rest of the day!

By Danny Pryde

The spiral down into mental unwellness

Ever know what it’s like to wake up in a cold sweat terrified about the day ahead? What about hiding in the bathrooms at work crying, feeling like it’s all too much? What about feeling that rising fear just because you know you have to go to work but you know you can’t make it, so you crawl back under your covers wishing the day would go away? What about standing in the shower feeling like a pit of despair is opening up around you and you don’t know how you’re going to struggle to stay out of it? Or feel sick at the thought of having to be brave and be part of something you don’t believe in?

Have you ever felt any of those things? I have. I hate to admit it, but I have felt them all.

Those moments can feel endless. Like there is no way out. I look back at those moments in time when I have felt untethered to something safe and secure. It’s at these times when we are at our loneliest, when we don’t feel like we belong. We don’t feel like anyone cares about us. These moments in time are our greatest moments of risk. We make bad decisions, we are more likely to get into an accident, we are more likely to have a headache, get a cold, eat too much, exercise too much, drink too much, stay on social media too long, self-destruct and escape.  It’s at these moments we stop looking after ourselves and we stop looking after people around us. Accidents start to happen. Mistakes at work. Relationships break. We are present but we aren’t contributing. We are unwell.

Practical steps to help prevent someone sliding into mental unwellness

Community is one of the biggest protective factors for mental wellbeing. Research has shown time and again that as social beings we are designed to be part of a community, a tribe, a group of humans that we can call “our people”. Your perception about who genuinely cares for you is the critical component here.

This is where large workplaces tend to go wrong. There is an assumption that if enough money is put into a paid intervention then everyone will feel happy and connected but we all know that isn’t true.

Several reasons why some interventions for supporting workers at work to feel well doesn’t work:

1. The large majority of interventions paid for by employers are not evidence based. What you will see are organisations paying large quantities of money and not getting results.
2. People know when interventions are not genuine. This is really important because human instinct is so good that people know when they are being offered something that ticks a company box versus a company just doing the right thing.
3. Most interventions try to fix the “person” and rarely look at the “group”. If you don’t target the group dynamics, then you will struggle with the people dynamics.

I once worked at place that was insanely toxic. What made it worse was that life outside work wasn’t the best either so when combined it had a catastrophic impact on my health. What saved me at the time was the caring love and support of one person. This treasured friend instinctively operated on caring, kindness and connection. Every day for close to four years they would check in on me. Sometimes for a moment, sometimes for a walk at lunch. Somehow in their busy day they always found time to find me, to check in. To genuinely see if I was ok. They could see me struggling even when I couldn’t see it myself. I didn’t realise what they were doing at the time, but they created that one genuine relationship for me that helped me move forward.

Research has shown that having one person in your life who you genuinely care about and who cares about you is the biggest protective factor to reduce the feeling of pain. Other research found out that the reason we feel “pain” when we feel alone or rejected is because it’s firing the same brain centre as physical pain. It becomes a double whammy!

A genuine relationship protects you against the storm.

Genuine relationships act like umbrella’s in the rain so you can stay dry for a little while to sort yourself out and stay with you while the storm passes.

We recently ran a few surveys. We asked people in a few different industries, health, manufacturing, finance about what could your employer do to make you feel like you are appreciated and belong at work and overwhelmingly the answer was so Australian and so simple. It was – put on a BBQ or pay for us to have lunch together. People want to be allowed to be together to form genuine relationships that aren’t always about work.

For four years of the particular work place I was in, I could feel myself slowly moving from not wanting to get out of bed to bounding out of bed. I became excited to go to work, to get dressed, to wash my hair, to take care of myself again. I didn’t even know why at first but then it dawned on me that I loved showing up every day, not because of my job but because I knew someone would be happy to see me when I showed up and for that experience, I will forever be grateful. That moment in time showed me that genuinely caring about people created one of the best beginnings of a mental wellness intervention for me.

We need rethink how we as large organisations create community and connection. If your workplace is toxic, if your interventions aren’t working then maybe go back to the drawing board and remember all people want is to feel like they belong.

What can you do to help create genuine communities in your life or workplace?

For more information on how to create genuine communities at work to reduce risk contact us at www.howesafe.com or call Caroline +61 406 990 816 or email – caroline@howesafe.com

Thanks to a response a received after I posted the blog on Belonging, I decided to investigate the value of kindness. Someone had commented and said that “Kindness is underrated” and this led me to think about all the ways we can show kindness to each other. What I wondered was, how easy is it to be genuinely kind to one another? What are the aspects of kindness that we respond to best? From my perspective, one of the easiest ways to show kindness is through smiling so I decided to research the value of a smile.

Smiling is an underrated, critical, money saving act in the workplace

What do you think the cost of a smile is? When was the last time you could freely walk about your workplace, smile at people and know that they were genuinely smiling back?

Smiles are one of the most important social cues and one of the least expensive ones to give. Researchers have actually found that smiling will change the way a person will make a decision. One experiment found that people were willing to spend more money when a salesperson smiled at them.  

Research also showed that “smiling” was seen to add value for people and that people were willing to forgo a monetary reward in favour of a genuine authentic smile. Imagine that! A genuine authentic smile being more valuable to someone than money. Crazy right, but true.

If you think about authentic smiling being more valuable than money, imagine how much money organisations could save in bonus payments if they genuinely and authentically smiled and cared for their people!

A genuine and authentic smile makes people feel like they are accepted

We all feel different levels of feeling accepted or rejected by people around us and that’s normal. Hopefully we all have the chance to feel loved and accepted but we can all recall those times when we felt rejected by people around us, either at work, home or other. It feels awful right. Interestingly, research found that people who knew what it was like to feel rejected were also a lot better at being able to tell the difference between a smile that was authentic and one that wasn’t. This realistically would mean that pretty much every adult knows the difference between an authentic interaction and smile and one that’s just pasted on for show.

Smiles that are not authentic are seen to negatively impact social behaviour and research showed that if someone gives you a fake smile there is a 70% – 80% chance you will reciprocate that insincere smile. If you feel rejected you are likely to return a smile that is fake because you might still need to put on a show for whoever you need to entertain be it work, home or in your community. Genuine smiles return genuine smiles and fake smiles return fake smiles and fake smiles instinctively make people feel worse.

5 reasons why smiling is important?

1. A smile is one of the most important social cues for people to make them feel accepted by the group
2. People will pay more attention to good social cues than to negative cues
3. A genuine smile is seen as a social reward
4. A fake smile will be picked up subconsciously and people will dislike it and respond accordingly
5. We make decisions based on our social cues. If we feel accepted, we respond better

So, the next time you think about putting on a fake smile, think about what it might cost you, your business, your home. People will know the difference.

Dale Carnegie, the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People wrote a poem about a smile.

“The Value of a Smile” Dale Carnegie

“It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits.

“It creates happiness in the home, fosters goodwill in a business, and is the countersign of friends. It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and nature’s best antidote for trouble.

“Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anyone ’til it is given away. And if in the hurly-burly bustle of today’s business world, some of the people you meet should be too tired to give you a smile, may we ask you to leave one of yours?

“For nobody needs a smile so much as those who have none left to give.”

Enjoy your week and remember to smile genuinely ?

How do you know you are safe? What is it about being safe, feeling safe, knowing you are safe that actually lets you know that someone has got your back?

As far back as the industrial revolution we have seen the evolution of safety as a system. Back in the 1700’s the idea was that safety comprised of three essential domains, being technology, human and organisation. The concept was that if the technology, the people and the organisation was safe then logically it would follow that everyone would be safe. But how do you know humans are safe? Humans being emotional and complex beings are individually designed to feel safe based on their own experiences of the world around them. Instinctively humans are designed to want human connection and what we know from research is that humans have in common though is that instinctively they feel safe when they feel valued, heard and genuinely appreciated.

Safety is more complex than just the physical environment. For proper safety to occur you need three elements for humans. People need to feel that the physical space around them is safe to work in. The second is their own individual psychological safety and then the third space is the social space around them. Do they feel the people around them genuinely care about them? Do they feel that they are valued and loved? To date there is little to no work within the social safety space.

A few years ago, a friend of my son came over for dinner. It was a random mid-weeknight, and, on that night, he told me it was his birthday. I quickly went into the kitchen with my daughter and we quietly whipped up a birthday cake for him which my daughter then decorated with icing, candles and cocktail umbrellas. She thought it made the cake looks spectacular. It was only after we started walking from the kitchen through to the living room that we noticed each cocktail umbrella starting to catch on fire. By the time we got the living room each cocktail umbrella had exploded on the cake and we were left with a cake covered in cinders. It was a disaster.

But here is the thing. When we went out with the cake, my son’s friend, who was in his early 20’s got really emotional and said, “Thank you, this is the first birthday cake anyone has ever made me since I was 6 years old”. To me it was a disaster. To my daughter it was a hilarious moment in time and to him it meant to world that we cared enough about him to make the cake.

And this is where the concept of safety gets fun. From a physical safety perspective, it really was a disaster. there are no two ways about it. I was poised with the fire extinguisher make no mistake but from his psychological and social safety perspective he felt loved. To this day that young man still comes to the house and thinks of us as his family. All because we made a cake on a whim to recognise his birthday.

How much risk is your business under just because your staff don’t feel like they belong? How socially safe is your business?

For more information on social safety contact us at www.howesafe.com

Imagine your perfect day.

If I think about my perfect day, I will wake up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee knowing that I would be getting up stress free and well rested. My feet would hit the floor and I would happily grab my exercise gear and go for a run in the fresh air. My mind might wander to the few important tasks I had to complete that day, but my energy would be high, and I would be happy to tackle any task with enthusiasm. I would get back, shower, eat a nourishing breakfast. The kids would be organised, lunches made and happy to see me. Once everyone had left for work, I would enthusiastically head off to work knowing that whatever I did that day would have a positive impact on people. When I arrive at work, I would be greeted at work by cheerful faces of people who would genuinely care about me being part of the team. Someone might even ask if I wanted a coffee or pop by to see how my family was. I would work for two uninterrupted hours with no emails, no meetings, just productive work time. Then I would stop, have a snack, maybe go for a quick energising walk and then get back to my tasks. My work would enthusiastically boost my optimism about how good life is and at the end of the day I could reflect on how my work had contributed to the greater good. I would come home and be welcomed by a loving family. Eat a well thought through meal and engage in delightful banter across the table, welcoming the stories of everyone’s day. After dinner we would all clean the kitchen together and once that was done, I could shower, sit down, read a book and relax knowing that I could do it all again tomorrow.

How many of you get to have your perfect day?

Or does the day sometimes go like this – You get up feeling frazzled with a poor night sleep because you had to keep getting up with kids crying or the noises of traffic or sirens in the distance keeping you awake. Maybe the stress of work from the day before rendered sleep an unnecessary burden for your already tattered mind. The alarm goes off and you hit snooze, it goes again, and you snooze it again all the while hoping the alarm would just stop working all together so you could at least get more than 9 min uninterrupted sleep. You get up and the kitchen’s a mess, the bread has run out and there is nothing for lunches ready to go. You grab a 2 min shower, throw some makeup on, tie your hair back and run out the door. The trains are late, or the traffic is bad. You race into work but each step closer fills you with more dread. You hate the place; you hate the people, and your work feels like it’s sucking your soul out. When you get in people don’t make eye contact, no one says hello and so you sit in your allocated desk space which by now has become a hot desk making it even less hospitable than it was before that crazy cost saving fad started. You make your way through another day where few people speak to you other than in meetings. No one has asked you how you are. No one has checked to see if your child has recovered from the broken leg, they had that’s kept you up at night. No one has checked how you are getting on with your mum having recently moved into a nursing home and how you are managing the tenuous balance between being a parent, working and looking after your parents. You are exhausted. You’re tired and no one you work with seems to care. You head home at the end of a long day, making your way home with the throngs of traffic and grumpy people. You have to grab shopping on the way home, so you have something to cook dinner with. The family get home and grab food and sit and eat in front of the tv. Once they have finished they get up and leave and you are faced with cleaning the mess. You’re beyond tired so you grab a chocolate hoping that it will make you feel better. You want to sleep but you have just one load of washing to do. Then you realise that your child has a school project due in the morning and you need to stay up work with them on their project or sit there and complete it alone. You make yourself a cup of coffee, suck it up and get on with it.

What about that day? If you had to choose between each day, which one is the one that you relate to more?

While we strive for a perfect day, more often than not we find ourselves entangled in days that drain us. It’s the culmination of the days that drain us that create the most risk.

The human need to “belong” is more than a fanciful new vogue term being bandied about by clever marketing agencies jumping on the next wave of sales. Our research has shown us over the past few years that feeling like you belong, feeling that someone cares about you, knowing that you have someone at work or someone at home that genuinely “has your back”, is one of the most important protective factors for poor health, risk of lost time injury and poor productivity at work. Humans are social creatures that have an innate desire to be part of the “pack”.
We are surrounded by “packs”. If you think about it, you have your home “pack”, your “work” pack and your “community” pack. These are three critical “packs” that we need to feel like we belong to for us to feel cared for, loved, valued and safe. When we don’t feel like we belong to a “pack” or even a person we start to feel disconnected and lonely. We start to feel like we have no solid anchors around us. We know from research more and more that feeling like we belong creates social safety and we also know that social safety is still the least focused on area in workplaces.
So how connected are you to your pack? How can you create a better sense of belonging for yourself? How well do you know if your teams or staff feel like they belong? How much risk is your business under just because your staff don’t feel like they belong? How socially safe is your business?

For more information on social safety contact us at www.howesafe.com