Following on from the 5 biggest people challenges we talked about in our last article, our attention turns this week to how to address these challenges. How do you keep the team together?

The five biggest people challenges: If COVID has gifted us anything, it is the opportunity for others to share in our passion to place the individual at the very heart of business.

Much as physical first aid prevents further harm, promotes recovery, preserves life and provides comfort in the moments before professional help arrives, mental health first aid does the same thing when someone is at risk of experiencing a mental health crisis.

In all likelihood you will have heard about the spaghetti test. This was an experiment that challenged various groups of people to build the tallest structure possible out of stands of uncooked spaghetti, string, tape and 1 marshmallow – which had to be on the top of the structure.

Mediation is all about mindset. Whether it is going to work or not, is entirely down to the people in the room. Whether you are going to win or not – well, if that is your mindset, then mediation is most likely not going to work. So no, you won’t win. But the other person won’t either.

We all have mental health. It’s important to understand that mental health doesn’t immediately equate with mental illness.

No matter how great your team is, we can always keep working on how we can improve team collaboration and communication. Now that many teams are experiencing remote working or hybrid working, feeling part of a team has never been more important, or more difficult to do.

We are starting to appreciate the skillsets that come with high emotional intelligence and are actively seeking people with those abilities in order to create emotionally intelligence workplaces.

As a business, why is mental health important?

Is it more important than getting the products to the clients on time, making the production line more efficient, filling the sales pipeline researching the latest technology or having the slickest and latest viral advertising and PR campaign?

We have all in our lifetimes experienced conflict. It’s a fact of life and in the workplace, it is inevitable. If I were to ask you what the positive effects of conflict were in the workplace, you may look at me like I had lost my mind. Surely positive conflict is a bit of an oxymoron?

I’ve worked with a lot of different teams over the years. Some good, some well, not so good. While you’re going through your daily routines, fire fighting, project work, the usual “work stuff”, it can be hard to figure out what it is that makes your team so effective, or not.

Many people will have gone through their entire working lives without coming across mediation in the workplace. Hopefully, that is something that will change with time – not because there is more conflict, but because organisations are more open to resolving disagreements and conflicts as they happen in a more productive and resolution-focussed way.

The past couple of years have been challenging, unsettling and have brought a lot of uncertainty into our lives. Our work routines have been disrupted, our freedom to roam has been curtailed and we’ve had to spend a whole lot of time indoors, sometimes alone or sometimes unable to get some alone time. This has increased stress levels which has increased the risk of people developing mental ill health.

The most important aspect of building great team culture and team relationships, is trust.

Developing a culture of trust takes time and open and honest conversations, carried out in a safe and constructive way. In particular, with so many people working remotely these days, trust plays a bigger role than ever.

At the end of last year we launched an end of year good news quiz. As well as answering multiple choice questions, we also added a tie breaker - If you could create a good news story for 2022, what would it be? Some of the responses were wonderful and are quoted below, along with the answers to the quiz.

Human Everything collaborated with The Haven Wolverhampton to present a webinar on noticing and managing domestic abuse and mental health issues in the workplace. Two very important and interlinked topics.

Our co-founder and Director had a go at a spot of sky diving. As you do…. raising money for KEMP Hospice, this blog tells his story of the day he jumped out of a plane.

Our technology usage is getting out of hand.. and it’s having an impact on our mental health and wellbeing. Time to so something about it? Human Everything are proud to partner with techtimeout to encourage individuals and organisations to become more mindful of their use of technology and take control of their lives again!

These days, we may well need to include in our meetings people who are not just physically in the office but will perhaps be dialling/Zooming/Teams-ing in as well. So how do you ensure that everyone is heard, they all get a chance to share ideas and everyone is an equal shareholder in these spaces?

So I was going to write a blog or an article but decided that as the camera was on I’d just talk… so enjoy this ramble about snowboarding, smashed in teeth and a negative mindset!