Harmonics

How are you feeling?

This week was all about Zoom calls as we changed how we communicated across our local office, our national coaching team and our global business partners.

I decided to ask everyone “how are you feeling?” so everyone got a chance to respond before we started each virtual meeting. A typical business meeting is working through the agenda as efficiently as possible. These are different times and I got many different responses as everyone opened up about how this new reality is impacting them.

It struck me how inhumane and robotic we have become toward each other at work. This challenge might just be a time when we start to re-find our sense of humanity and community.

The most common emotion, I am finding in my many conversations is Fear. We need to remember Fear is a contagion and spreading like this virus. Fear signals the brain to release cortisol and when we are stressed reduces our immune system to fight off this virus.

Sky News is feeding us fear 24/7 presently. My advice, TURN IT OFF, instead track your emotions daily by downloading this free Moodmeter app developed by Yale. Boost your immune system by self regulating your emotions. Self- Awareness is a start and it is within OUR control. How are you feeling?

Family Life and work has collided inside all of our homes in the past week. I want to share 6 things we are seeing and some real life stories which may resonate from across our team at Harmonics
#familylife #thisislifeaswedidntknowitbefore! #ourteam

As the work we do at Harmonics spans the full employee life cycle through Recruitment, Change Management, Coaching, Outplacement and Financial Planning, I wanted to share 6 Disruptive Changes we are seeing as Work and Life collide in our homes/temporary workspaces.

We all have a Common Purpose Now

As a nationwide team at Harmonics we are currently living apart but working together to fight this COVID-19 challenge. We join with all citizens in the country in taking seriously the Government precautions to protect our extended families and friends at this time. We all have a common purpose now and it make me feel proud to be Irish to see the sense of community in the way everyone has responded.

6 Key changes are we seeing now

1- Remote Working can be a Precious Time – We are all having more Zoom calls and seeing team members in their home environments. It is not easy for many with no access to childcare at this time. To quote a client yesterday when discussing her life as unusual from her home office with three kids under 10. “I must go back to my teaching job now, in fairness they are teaching themselves”. We had a ‘meeting’ on what to do to cheer up our neighbour who is going through cancer treatment. My eldest girl took minutes, my son was the ideas guy and our youngest kept saying ‘I am excited to be in a meeting’  Between stopping them fighting and constantly preparing food for them I am enjoying these precious moments”. So reminder of the precious family moments this is bringing.

2- Urgent Hiring – Clients in specific sectors are hiring urgently. They need people now to fill vacancies as a result of an upsurge in demand. The hiring process is virtual interviews and virtual on-boarding with many being offered laptops upon starting day so they can work remotely. This is a very different on-boarding experience and our recruitment team are coaching people through this new experience. The message to our candidates is to be prepared for virtual interviews. We are offering our video interview simulator to candidates free of charge at this time to support this transition.

3- The Fear of Moving Now – We are seeing candidates who were in a recruitment process before the virus spread questioning if now is the right time to move employer in light of the unknown unknowns with the economy. Our advice is that if you are moving to an Organisation with the right values fit who is prepared to invest in hiring you now, this is a good time to make that decision and shows they have ultimate confidence in the future of their business.

4- Time Out Coaching – We have rearranged face to face Executive Coaching sessions to become Zoom sessions. Many business leaders are stressed and need these one hour time outs to rethink and re-prioritise now. Decisions made on impulse when you are stressed are often not the right ones in the medium to long term. To quote a coachee after a virtual coaching session yesterday, “This session has helped me to get back in control and has saved me making a massive business mistake because I was coming purely from an emotional place…thanks!”

5- Being Change-able – We are taking calls from HR who need extra support in managing difficult downsizing conversations and potential redundancies. The announcement of support from Government is of great assistance in stemming the flow of permanent redundancies at least for now. It is also a time when people need to step up and show their versatility. Some roles have been impacted but support may be needed in another function, it is up to individuals to seek out ways they can add value in ways they hadn’t considered before. This is a great opportunity to demonstrate ‘agility’. Employers and employees have a common purpose now – survival. It is about us, not them and us.

6- Money, money, money – @Liam Croke and the Harmonics Financial team are managing calls from people who are concerned about their jobs, cashflow, investments and pensions. No case is the same, as an example some previously double income houses are coming to terms with a new reality of one partner having to claim temporary Government assistance in a very short space of time. It is a time for many to reappraise monthly outgoings and to ensure the right financial decisions are made early.

We are living through history right now

We are indeed living through a historical time in our lives so what better time to revisit history for inspiration. Picture for one moment how hopeless the situation of Victor Frankl as a prisoner for 3 years in Nazi concentration camps. I will leave you with these two quotes from Frankl that are worth reflecting on:

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves”

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”.

We all have a common purpose to protect those in our community who need our support especially those with underlying conditions and the elderly.

Stay healthy and safe.

John and the team at Harmonics

 

Did you know most break up’s happen in February?

I had a discussion with a friend this week, they said they wanted to break up with their partner, they have been together just over a year now. Why I asked?

I can’t be myself, I don’t feel there is an emotional connection, but I don’t know what to say and how to say it. Can you help me John, what way would you go about ending it?
My reply was to lighten the air……Well when I was in my teenage years, the most common breaking up advice I got was to say “It’s not you it’s me”:) Seriously I questioned, have you spoken to them about how you feel? No was the reply, I don’t comfortable having awkward conversations like that, I don’t want to make them feel bad. I don’t want to tell them the truth about how I really think and feel………

So now we were getting to the truth- my friend was in conflict avoidance mode and a year long relationship was going to end because they couldn’t have a courageous conversation. Relationship counselling is not my expertise so we will leave this story here for now…….more later in the post.

But I did want to tell you that most work break up’s happen in February.

Many of the most talented people hand in their notice to leave their jobs in February because they have just received their annual bonus and it makes financial sense to move and start afresh.

I have shared above the most recent research from our Future Career Readiness Research study. It shows a massive 42% of people at work today self describe as either having a hit a career ceiling, feel frustrated or in a toxic situation. Why?

The common factor is both managers and employees are failing to have courageous career conversations. Managers we have found avoid the career development chat in fear they may not be able to meet employee career expectations. The view is most often to leave well enough alone and hope they stay. Our research shows talent are looking for new career experiences after just 17 months tenure. Career Progression today does just not mean promotion, it means people want to learn new skills and work on new projects to become more employable and marketable in the future. If you as an employer can’t offer this to your talented people they will leave for new pastures and they are right.
Many Senior Business Leaders I meet are complaining they can’t find and retain talent. It is a tight talent market for sure, but in any relationship be it work or in life where you value the other party, you need to be able to have the courageous conversation.

Harmonics has now developed the Future Workforce Readiness Index for Organisations to measure how their employees think and feel about their career, so they can take pro-active steps to not only retain talent but also provide the career development opportunities to develop them to be at their best.
If you are a Manager of people or an employee, think about having the courageous conversation. The relationship may be worth saving, but like my friend you wont find out unless you have the chat. It may just result in less break ups happening in February!

The Future Workforce Readiness Research is available to download here on https://www.harmonics.ie/study-finds-64-average-score-future-career-readiness/