During Mental Health Awareness week, Splendid’s Head of Wellbeing, Jane Latham is leading the charge on managing stress in the workplace. Join Jane’s free webinar from 5-6pm on Wednesday 18^th May.

The communications industry has always been fast-paced, but in recent times we’ve seen a step change in speed, complexity and demands right across our industry. This shift was already underway with the growth of online and social media. Then along came Brexit and with it, uncertainty and change. The global pandemic was thrown in for good measure. And today we’re grappling with the climate crisis, the war in Ukraine, and the ensuing cost of living crisis.

“We used to sometimes sprint, sometimes run a marathon. Today we’re doing both and it’s overwhelming.”

A survey conducted by Opinium last October found that 90% of PR professionals had struggled with their mental wellbeing over the previous 12 months, begging the question: how did we get here? And more importantly, what can we do to address the situation, which looks unlikely to change in the short to mid-term?

As a ‘Human Givens’ therapist, I’m a firm believer that The Human Givens approach can provide some of the answers. It’s based around the insight that as humans we are all born with a set of emotional needs, like security, connection, meaning and purpose, which evolved to support our survival as a species. We also have a range of mental resources such as our emotions and instincts, memory and imagination, and or rational and observing mind, which can help us to get our needs met. Emotional issues arise when, for various reasons, our needs aren’t being met and aren’t balanced.

One of the two founders of the Human Givens approach, Joe Griffin, believes the undermining of any of our three fundamental needs for security, control or status will always lead to stress, negatively impacting our performance at work.

On a busy day, it’s easy to ignore the signs of stress building up and continue to plough on, ending our day feeling tired and emotional, having not given our best. However, if we can learn to use our observing mind to recognise how we are feeling, moment to moment, we can develop an awareness of any emotional arousal, and take action to address it before stress takes hold. Using a calming technique such as slow breathing can then help us to access our rational mind, so we can validate the emotions as understandable, given the circumstances. With practice we can also learn to replace any negative self-talk with kind, supportive, wise-friend words, putting us in a better place to address the issue that has arisen. Think about how you talk kindly to a friend and do that to yourself.

Identifying which of our three basic emotional needs are being undermined can help to inform the actions to be taken. For example, a heavy workload will undermine our need to feel in control of our lives, as well as our needs for status and security, as we start to worry that we can’t do everything. We can restore a sense of control by writing down a schedule for the week and meeting with a manager to discuss priorities – do it early to avoid stress boiling over. We could also choose as our next task something that makes us feel good about ourselves, or we could remind ourselves of a few things that went well in the past week, so restoring our sense of positive status.  

This simple approach can be applied to the people we work with. Imagine being let down by a member of your team missing a copy deadline. Any feelings of anger that arise can be validated as understandable given the situation, but do not need to be expressed strongly to the team member, who is likely to be feeling pretty stressed already. Instead, being kind and understanding towards them will help restore their sense of security and status, lowering their stress levels and therefore enabling them to get on and prioritise and complete the work.

“Afterwards, you can review the situation, discuss how to meet future deadlines together and learn from it.”

It’s worth recognising that kindness, towards ourselves and others, can be a powerful tool for restoring emotional balance, and it’s a theme I return to throughout all my Feel Human at Work wellbeing workshops at Splendid.

Fundamentally, the emotional needs framework helps to remind us that we are all human. Over the longer term, applying this simple, common-sense approach to all that we do at work will help us to feel better about ourselves and be more understanding of the needs of others, improving performance across the business.

A member of Splendid’s leadership team for over ten years, Jane currently divides her time between her Head of Wellbeing role at Splendid and seeing private clients as a Human Givens therapist.

Jane will host the free webinar, Feel Human at Work: an Introduction, to all professionals working in the communications industry on Wednesday 18^th May from 5-6pm. Aimed at professionals of all seniority, it will introduce an emotional needs-based approach to managing emotional health and supporting the wellbeing of colleagues more effectively. It will also discuss the effects of stress on both body and mind, exploring simple strategies for responding to stress in the workplace.

Use the link below to learn more and register your place

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/feel-human-at-work-an-introduction-tickets-332959299227

Further information on the Human Givens approach can be found at HGI.org.uk