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Importance of Mental Health Awareness at Work

by sincera | Aug 23, 2017 | Leadership, Motivation, Productivity, World of Work

While efforts for mental health awareness in the space has picked up pace, there still is a long way to go. Recent studies and research has shown the direct link between mental health and performance or productivity.

To understand why mental health awareness at the workplace is an issue to be addressed immediately one must look at the bigger picture of how serious the concern really is. Numbers are absolute, and make an impact in a way that words cannot. So here are some numbers to put things into perspective, before we delve further into the topic.

Mental Health Awareness – A Reality Check

56 million Indians, or 4.5% of India’s population suffer from depression.
While nearly 10 per cent of the population has common mental disorders, 1.9 per cent of the population suffers from severe mental disorders. [Source: WHO]
The WHO has defined sustainable development goals and elaborated the impact of mental illnesses and suicide on them. The suicide rate in India in 2015 at 15.7/100,000 is higher than the regional average of 12.9 and the global average of 10.6. Suicide is the leading cause of death among those aged 15–29 in India. [source: Mental Health Awareness: The Indian Scenario]
There is just one psychiatrist for four lakh Indians. Another expert said there were 4,000 psychiatrists, 1,000 psychologists and 3,000 social workers for the whole of the country and only 1,022 college seats for mental health professionals are set aside in India. [Source: World Mental Health Day: India’s Mental Health Crisis In Numbers]

Can the World of Work Make a Difference?

Yes it can.

Coming away from the scary numbers, let’s talk about how the world of work can make a positive difference to the existing scenario.

Why should the world of work make a difference?

Because about 8-10 hours out of 24 hours of our day is spent at work.

How can the work-space make a difference to our mental health awareness?

1. First things first, by acknowledging the importance of mental health and mental health awareness.

This made news recently, when an employee wrote to her CEO informing that she would be taking some time off, so she can come back a ‘100%’. The CEO’s response is up here for all of us to see.

Acknowledging that taking care of your mental health is important is the first step towards creating awareness. Being fit mentally is just as important as being fit physically to be at your productive best. However, it is impossible to bring about change without acknowledgment of the issue.

2. Tackling the associated Stigma

The social stigma attached to mental health comes in the way of even acknowledging mental health issues and dialogues. This continues to be one of the main road blocks towards addressing mental health concerns. Along with dealing with the mental health concerns, the individual is also at the receiving end of a great deal of social prejudice and discrimination. One way work spaces can help tackle this is by holding frequent workshops, webinars, or even focused conversations and dialogues on mental health. It is because of the social stigma attached that more often than not, mental health concerns are internalized. Addressing them by holding sustained conversations about them is the only to bust the stigma.

3. Making resources available

By creating a work environment where the employees have access to basic mental health resources, should they need it, is a great way of showing support for mental health concerns. When we say resources, we mean very simple, basic resources, which in fact should become a norm. For example, a counselor at a designated desk. If the organisation cannot afford a full-time counselor, you could bring someone on board for 2 or 3 days a week and he/ she could be made available on appointment. Similarly, other easy ways are by creating a resource pool of short video clips or documents on mental health which could be circulated amongst the employees on email.

Spending some time on creating a ‘Mental Health Directory’, can also be hugely beneficial, not just for your organisation, but for anyone who has access to this directory. Recently, students from the Azim Premji University in Bangalore, created a Mental Health Directory for the city of Bangalore, which has valuable information regarding all available mental resources in the city. Awareness centers, recreational centers, wellness centers, counselors, psychiatrists, alternative care services, rehabilitation centers are some of the many resources which have been documented within this directory.

4. Small changes to the work-space design can make big differences

When we say changes to work space design, we do not mean big, expensive changes. We mean a basic mindfulness check of your work space.

While companies invest in many strategies to support the physical health of employees, from flu vaccinations to filtered air systems, ignoring employees’ mental health means businesses risk losing any gains they make in physical health support. Depression, stress, substance abuse, financial distress, work-life balance, ADHD, and, yes, even workplace bullying are all issues with which workers are dealing and that have a large drain on productivity. – Jennifer Stukenberg, How to design workspaces that support employee mental health.

Being mindful in how the work-space is designed plays a huge role in enhancing the productivity of your employees, by supporting their mental health. The most basic checklist is as follows –

Well lit and ventilated work space.
Away from noise and distraction.
Ensuring cohesiveness by positioning the employees in such a way that they can see each other and feel connected, instead of feeling isolated.
Some green around – there are plenty of options for indoor plants!

5. Building Empathy into the Organizational Culture

How sustainable all the above listed options are, is entirely dependent on the larger culture of the organisation. Cultivating ’empathy’ as a culture within the organisation is the key to understanding mental health concerns.

Empathy is not sympathy or pity. Empathy is the ability to understand and share someone else’s feelings from their perspective. It’s about putting yourself authentically in someone else’s shoes. Asking questions from their point of view and not yours, pausing, listening and thinking about the opportunities / issues from that person’s position. Why Every Business Needs a Culture of Empathy

Without the concept of empathy, understanding mental health concerns, or working towards mental health awareness will remain a distant dream. Also, the culture of empathy really starts at the top. It is the vision of the organisation, and the outlook of those on the top to fulfill the vision which makes all the difference.

We leave you with this thought provoking TedTalk by renowned mental health practitioner, Vikram Patel, on Mental Health for All by Involving All. In his talk, Patel argues why mental health shouldn’t just be a privilege of the first world, as it is today, and should be accessible to all. He goes beyond just posing problems by proposing low cost and effective solutions to address these issues.

Are you ready to take on, what may be called as your ‘basic responsibility’ to make mental health accessible for your employees?

5 Quotes that Sum up the Essence of Team Work

by sincera | May 16, 2017 | Leadership, Management, Motivation, Performance, World of Work

Great teams are not built in a day. It takes perseverance, patience, unmatched leadership, hard work and the many other ingredients that make up the magic sauce of Team work. To create magic as a team, it takes individual and collaborative synchronization.

Today we send some inspiration your way in the form of some very effective insights / quotes that will inspire you to be a great team player, and illustrate what real team work looks like.

1. Alone we are a drop in the ocean, but together we are the ocean itself.

“Team work is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie

2. Like the age-old saying goes, united we stand.

“None of us is as smart as all of us.” –Ken Blanchard

3. To begin, to forge ahead, and to succeed.

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” –Henry Ford

4. Because no great team is built without a great leader. It takes a good leader to take responsibility, to share success and to never forget the pat on the back!

“If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.” ― Paul W. Bryant

5. Mistakes happen. What is more important is sticking together unconditionally because after all you are a team. You must finish well, what you started together.

“We’re a team. It’s part of our job to help each other out, and to forgive each other quickly. Otherwise, we’d never get anything done.” ― Jeramey Kraatz

But what is most important is to realize the transience of bad things, and good things. To realize that winning is great, but losing gracefully defines who you are better than a win does. No one says it better than Lance Armstrong in these very powerful, and beautiful words.

“When you win, you don’t examine it very much, except to congratulate yourself. You easily, and wrongly, assume it has something to do with your rare qualities as a person. But winning only measures how hard you’ve worked and how physically talented you are; it doesn’t particularly define you beyond those characteristics.
Losing on the other hand, really does say something about who you are. Among other things it measures are: do you blame others, or do you own the loss? Do you analyze your failure, or just complain about bad luck?
If you’re willing to examine failure, and to look not just at your outward physical performance, but your internal workings, too, losing can be valuable. How you behave in those moments can perhaps be more self-defining than winning could ever be. Sometimes losing shows you for who you really are.” ― Lance Armstrong

Love working as a part of a team? Prefer working alone? What do you think is a better way to be most productive? Share your thoughts on team dynamics and we’ll be happy to share them further!

7 Tips for First Time Managers

by sincera | Mar 22, 2017 | Career, Communication, Management, Motivation

This is a shout out to all you first time managers out there! You are bound to be attacked by butterflies in your tummy, and the symptoms of having cold feet whenever you set out to do something you’ve never done before. While these voyages might appear terrifying, they are a sure sign of the fact that you are growing – in your experiences, and hence as an individual. Applying this general strand of thought to the topic at hand today, this post is dedicated to all you folks out there in the world of work, ready to take on the brand new role of being a manager – for the first time ever.
Before you begin reading this though, we’d like to emphasize that this in no way is a “tutorial”. A change in perspective before you begin to read this will help you understand your new role better. Know that you have risen up in the corporate ladder to be a manager solely because you have it in you to lead, manage and have teams deliver. That said, there are things one knows about, and there are always things one can do better. This post is simply an effort to bolster the latter. Happy reading!

1. Wrap your head around your role and responsibilities

The only way you’ll be able to lead and manage a team well is if you know your own role and responsibilities well enough. Work on yourself before you begin to work on / with your team. Do you own research to have a very thorough sense of the goals you are going to be working on. Ask yourself how you imagine yourself achieving them. Then ask yourself if that process can be applied to the rest of your team as well. While your approach will, of course, depend on the specific situation you might be dealing with at the given moment, having a general sense of direction is a great way to begin this new role.

2. Be Decisive

Making decisions, when you are aware that they no longer affect only yourself, can be tough in the stead of your new role. That however, shouldn’t stop you from making them altogether. Well, you definitely cannot “stop”, making decisions, but as a result of being indecisive you may end up delaying those decisions which will hamper the progress of your entire team. This will not only put the objectives and goals at stake, it will also be a reflection on you as a leader, and manager. The fact is, one can’t ever be sure enough about the consequences of any decision – which is what lies at the root of indecisiveness. All you can do is, weigh the pros and cons to the best of your knowledge and ability, and go ahead and implement the decision you make.

3. Delegate

One of the vices most managers contract is fear of delegation, stemming from the fear that things may not be done as “perfectly” as you imagine yourself doing them. Apart from being immensely time-consuming, this fear is going to unsettle the team dynamics. Understand that you are no longer an employee, working more or less in isolation responsible for delegating that tasks assigned to you. Your role has now expanded to that of a manager, which entails you assigning goals and tasks to the team as a whole, and helping them achieve these goals.
If you do feel like you can relate to being a manager who find it hard to delegate, odds are you also find it hard to not micromanage, once you do succeed in delegating. That too, can be detrimental to the progress (and spirit) of your team. Give your team the credit they deserve, and once you have delegated the task, give them the independence (and assistance) they need to be able to accomplish it.

4. Invest time “in” your team

Time management would probably figure as the prime skill for managers. And while you’re teaching yourself how to manage time, ensure that you figure out time slots for one to one interaction with your team members on a fortnightly/ monthly basis. Even if it is a fifteen / twenty-minute long interaction, it is enough for you to take stalk about progress and challenges with regard to individual team members. This helps not only you in solving problems more efficiently, it also makes your employees feel valued, and importantly, anchored. Being a manager and being a mentor should ideally go hand in hand.

Apart from individual meetings, hosting team lunches, dinners once every two or three months just to build team cohesiveness is not a bad idea either.

5. Work on your interpersonal and communication skills

How you communicate, and put your thoughts across as a manager is pivotal to how much work you are able to motivate your team to do. “Interpersonal skills and communication skills lie at the center of human-based managerial considerations. Good managers understand not only what they are trying to say but also the broader context and implications of saying it. Empathy, self-reflection, situational awareness, and charisma all play integral roles in communicating effectively and positively.”
[Source: Boundless. “Interpersonal Skills of Successful Managers.” ]

While you will most certainly have to make unpopular choices as well, you don’t necessarily have to end up being disliked by team for having implemented these tough choices. What is tougher than making those choices is communicating them ‘effectively’, and ‘positively’, as the excerpt above puts it.

6. Find yourself a mentor

Irrespective of what stage you are in your career, you will always need a mentor. More so when you find yourself stepping into the shoes of a role that needs you to do a lot of mentoring. Odds are, you already do have a mentor, if you don’t, now is the perfect time to find yourself one. When we say “find yourself one”, we do not mean it in the casual language that it implies.

A mentor needn’t necessarily be very hard to find. Think of all the people whose advice and support has helped you grow in your career. It could be one of them, or a few of them you look towards as your mentors. It need not be a very formal process, but resuming communication with them (if you’ve fallen out of touch), and keeping at it, so that you may reach out to them when you need help with tricky situations. You know that in all probability they’ve been there before you, and would know intuitively the dynamics of most situations you might find yourself in.

7. Lead by example

Be a leader, not a boss. Being a boss and being a leader could mean two wholly different things. The plan is, to show your team that you are very much a part of the team and at the helm of affairs. The best way to manage your people and motivate them to be their best is by being more of a leader and less of a boss. No to imposing yourself, stating through overt and covert ways, “who the boss is”, yes to communication, negotiation, trust and motivation. If you’ve ever been bossed by your boss, you know exactly what not to do. But, even the best of us need to be reminded at times.
The best way to get the best out of your team is to lead by example. Inspire your team by being everything you expect from them!

Don’t be too hard on yourself and try not to self-impose any pressure. Like everything else, this too is a learning process and you will learn as you grow in your new role. Don’t forget to remind yourself you’ve been chosen for this role because you CAN do it!
Have tips for the first time managers who might be reading this? Let us know!

How to Do a Career Detox – I

by sincera | Feb 16, 2017 | Career, Managing Yourself, Productivity

Career detox – does the phrase sound unfamiliar, almost strange? Well, it is neither. Just like your body needs a detox every now and then, for a better, and healthier you, your career does too.

A study done by Sibson’s Consulting found that Only 30 percent of the study respondents (750 individuals, primarily senior-level human resources (HR) professionals) reported that their employees trust the performance-management system. Given that formal performance appraisals don’t seem to be working as well as they should to give employees their due, one needs to take charge of his/her career and have a self-performance management system in place to ensure career growth and commensurate rewards. Just being good at your work, efficient and cooperative is not enough – it takes more than that to grow and be successful at the workplace today no matter what your job role or level is. [Read more on Strategies to Maximize your Potential and Performance on your Job here].

Getting yourself to do a career detox is like customizing your personal Performance Appraisal system. A career detox is a great career strategy to maximize your potential and performance at your job – no matter which profession you belong to.

But how does one really do a career detox? That is what this post is all about.
You can accomplish a career detox through a series of exercises whose objectives would be to assess and take stock of your career thus far – in terms of what’s working and what’s not, and then you move on to eliminating what’s not working and build on what is working. It also includes incorporating the aspect of mindfulness into your work – which is crucial to be able to do a successful career detox. This aspect we shall speak about in the second part of this post which is to follow.

1. Reclaim Time: Real Work VS Time spent on Social Media

It’s a fairly common frustration – feeling like there isn’t enough time to do it all, to accomplish all the tasks we plan ourselves. To feel as productive as we imagine ourselves to be. The truth is we’ll never be as productive as we are in our imagination. However, we can get quite close to it. One of the main reasons why we are not at our productive best every day is because of the overwhelming distractions we surround ourselves with.

It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say that we even subject ourselves to these distractions. Namely – Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and the whole, vast kingdom of social media out there which almost thrives on our inability to sustain focus. According to a research by Facebook, which was cited in a NY Times article, an average user spends close to an hour everyday on Facebook. In a week of five working days, that is five hours lost during your working hours. This is just one example of the numerous distractions we are surrounded by.

Reclaim your time by shutting out all these distractions during your working hours, and by just focusing on one task at a time. Before long, you will realize that you are getting real close to being as productive as you are in your imagination!

2. Update your Resume

Your resume should always be something great which is a work in progress. There is always editing to do to your resume to make it better, even if all you do is change the font and the font size. But hey, that makes your resume more legible, doesn’t it?
Go through your resume and have a look at what you need to remove from it, and what you need to add to it. This also gives you scope for a reality check – since your resume after all is a comprehensive report card for your career of sorts. While you are at it, print out three copies to keep them handy – just in case, even if you may not be looking out for jobs. Read here for kick-ass advice on how to create the best resumes ever!

3. Work on Your LinkedIn Profile

Why LinkedIn?
Because:
• There are 332 million people on LinkedIn.
• Two new members join every second.
• There are 187 million monthly unique visitors.
• LinkedIn is currently used in over 200 countries and territories. It’s available in 20 languages.
• There are one billion total endorsements on LinkedIn at the moment.
• 59% of LinkedIn members have never worked at a company with more than 200 employees.
• There are over 39 million students and recent graduates on LinkedIn.
• LinkedIn has 17 million users in the UK users, 10 million users in the Middle East, 61 million users in Asia, 28 million users in India, 6 million users in Australia and 6 million users in China.
• 41% of millionaires use LinkedIn.
• 13% of LinkedIn users do not have a Facebook account. Likewise, 83% of users do not have a Pinterest account. 59% are not active on Twitter.

Are you still wondering why LinkedIn? Because it’s LinkedIn and you Must! If you still don’t have a LinkedIn profile, read what we wrote about why it is utterly necessary to have one in the current times. It isn’t enough for you to just create a profile and forget about it. You must use it! That’s the whole point of LinkedIn – to facilitate intensive networking for you.

You might finally land the opportunities you have been looking for if you start networking through LinkedIn. Having a complete and updated LinkedIn profile is an absolute must. You need to pay attention to what kind of photograph you use as your display picture, your professional headline and summary, and recommendations add that extra credibility to your profile. Want to know more about how to improve your LinkedIn profile and impress the world? Read here.

4. Do A Skills Assessment

Doing a skills assessment in regular intervals is a great way to feel good about the skills you possess, and an even better way to understand what skills you need to be working on to become a better professional. There are a few ways you could do this. You could speak to more experienced people in your professional sphere and get an idea about what you should be working on. You could also take one of the many skill assessment tests centered specifically around your career path on the internet. With a bit of research you will surely find a genuine test, for which you might have to pay though. We’d say, if it seems genuine, and is reasonably priced, take it nonetheless.
Apart from specific skills, there are certain generic skills that you absolutely must have – on and off your CV. Have a look at this checklist of Must Have Skills – On and Off your CV.

5. Start a Work Journal

While we’ve done an entire blog post on what a work journal is and how it’s going to help you, which you must definitely read – here, we’ll reiterate how a work journal helps, especially to facilitate a career detox.
• When you journal your work, you never miss an idea – By consciously journaling your professional life, you also tend to become aware about the many amazing ideas you may have about doing what you do in a better, more organized way.
• You are your own mentor – When you can read about your thoughts and understand the logic and rationale behind them, you will effortlessly be able to devise the way forward as well.
• The most efficient way to track your progress – Once you get used to journaling your work, you can see the pattern of highs and lows you experience. A work journal also doubles as a great success/ progress tracker.
A work journal can work wonders for a career detox. If you’ve already been keeping one it’s a great way to assess the details of your career. If you haven’t been keeping one, it’s an even better way to start fleshing out the details of how you envision your career to shape, now on.

Want to know more about how to do a successful career detox? Well we have a lot more to say! Apart from the functional aspects for doing a career detox, there are certain other aspects which focus on a journey of self-development and self-growth – two factors which are essential for any professional to have a truly successful career. Tune in for our next post on career detox and more ways on how to accomplish it.

Five Pointers to Make Your Business Proposal Stand Out as the Best

by sincera | Jan 14, 2016 | Business, Career, Management, Performance, Productivity, Writing

A Business Proposal or Sales Proposal is often the first strong knock on the doors of a prospective client. Whether it is in the form of a word document or presentation, it has to be impressive and paint such a compelling picture that the customer just can’t wait to pick up the phone and schedule a face to face meeting with you. You get the entry that you need to pitch your product/service and abilities. Writing and reviewing hundreds of business proposals has made me realize one thing – there is a method to this madness and no proposal is too big or too complex – if you follow certain basic guidelines in the creation process:

Pointer #1: It is not about You – the goal of any proposal is to address the specific customer requirements and pain points. Put yourself in the shoes of the customer and structure the proposal in the best way that answers the customer’s stated or implicit questions. Persuade them that you know the questions and have the answers through your proposal. To do this, ensure that your proposal and every section in the proposal addresses five questions Who, What, How, When and So What:

Who – will do this?
What – needs to be done?
How – will you do it?
When – will all the milestones occur?
So What – will the customer benefit by having you do it?

Pointer #2: Format and Template – Usually the customer specifies the format and structure of the business proposal. Comply with this religiously. Any additional information that you think would be useful in nudging the customer decision in your favour should go into the appendix. If the customer hasn’t specified the response structure, then create the template keeping in mind the questions in Pointer #1. Your proposal should be easily readable and information easy to find. Use indexing and linking within the proposal. Use headings for your sections and labels for your diagrams to draw attention. For some large RFPs (Request For Proposal), especially in government and public sectors, different departments could be given different sections of the proposal to evaluate. So it is important that every section by itself has the context and the references to other sections that might be relevant. Don’t make your customer work too hard or spend a lot of time puzzling his way through your proposal.

Pointer #3 – Optimize against Evaluation Criteria – Most business proposal requests lay out how they will score the vendor for the response. If not, ask the customer about their key evaluation criteria. Compliance to all aspects of the bid is very critical to pass the first stage. So read the fine print carefully before you start putting your efforts to it. Check the submission date and create a timeline to ensure that you meet the deadline. Focus and give more time on those aspects that are most important to the customer and will give you the scoring edge.

Pointer #4 – You do need a Super Executive Summary – Your introduction in the form of the executive summary should actually be the “conclusion” of your proposal. The rest of the business proposal serves to provide the supporting points to add credibility to your introduction. Brainstorm on what the customer needs (as opposed to wants), how you are going to satisfy those needs and why they should do business with you and none else. Summarize the salient points of this into your executive summary first and then start with the rest of your proposal; again it should be more about the customer than about you.

Pointer #5 – Keep it Simple – Minimize buzz words, don’t overwhelm with information just because you have some great content ready, make it visually attractive – sometimes a picture does speak a thousand words. Give a day or two to proofread and review the proposal. Spelling and grammar are yes, important – you don’t want to project yourself as someone who does not care about the details enough.

First impression is everything in hunting and winning business. Use your business proposal to stand out in the crowd and make a lasting impact. I would love to hear your views on what challenges you face in responding to proposals and how you tackle them….

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