14 Ways To Help Teams Keep Pace With Change And Manage Well-Being

14 Ways To Help Teams Keep Pace With Change And Manage Well-Being

Written by: Expert Panel®, Forbes Councils Member




No matter how old a business is or what industry it’s in, it will have to change and evolve as long as it’s in operation to stay successful. It’s always up to a company’s leaders to create an environment where people and systems can adapt and keep pace with change.

As the company continually takes measures to better manage change, its leaders also need to help employees manage their health and well-being. Here, 14 professionals from Forbes Coaches Council discuss the best ways for leaders to create a workplace culture that can stay on top of constant changes while also ensuring that employees are able to stay healthy and manage their own well-being.

Forbes Coaches Council members share ways to help teams keep pace with change and manage their own well-being.

Photos courtesy of the individual members.

1. Leverage Positivity By Creating Development Opportunities

Change may create uncertainty among some employees. For others, change is welcomed positively. Leaders may leverage that positivity and create professional development opportunities for those who thrive on change, such as coaching and mentoring them in personnel management to complement their technical expertise. Allow them to lead, train and upskill their teams. Ensure communications are transparent. – Diane Hudson, Career Marketing Techniques, LLC

2. Implement Strategies For Pivoting And Balancing Wellness

Leaders can implement strategies that will allow employees to pivot with the changes internally as well as balance their wellness. Check-ins and one-on-ones are important so that leaders can gauge feedback from their employees and see if they are adapting to the changes in a positive manner that will produce positive business outcomes. – X. Carmen Qadir, Coaching & Consulting Experience, LLC

3. Start By Understanding Employee Needs

Leaders can start by understanding employee needs via surveys, conversations or focus groups. They then need to become the change they wish to see. When leaders hold conversations around the topic of well-being, deliberately and consciously prioritize their own health and well-being, and show interest in others, it creates a massive momentum for change that can be emulated by others throughout the firm. – Rittu Sinha, The Balanced Bandwagon

4. Enhance The Whole And Emphasize The Individual

Every employee is asking the question, “Am I known by my company?” Companies who wish to keep employees must work diligently to both enhance the whole and emphasize the individual. Managers and leaders should survey employees to know what is most important to the individual employees. – Ken Gosnell, CEO Experience


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5. Identify Cultural Factors That Drive Both Change And Engagement

Luckily, there is overlap between the organizational cultural factors that drive change and those that engage employees, such as building and driving a clear vision, involving employees in planning, focusing on learning from the marketplace, and working in effective teams on important business opportunities. Leaders need to understand where their organization stands on these factors and implement initiatives to address any needs. – Michael Couch, Michael Couch and Associates Inc.

6. Prioritize And Create A Psychologically Safe Environment

Relentlessly prioritize and create psychological safety. Because change is a constant, model the way with a frequent revisiting of personal and professional priorities. Explain to your employees why priorities have shifted. Give them the space and permission to make the shifts they need to make to keep growing and going. – Sandy Schwan, Evolving Strategies LLC

7. Reconsider How Collaboration Is Done

Do what’s necessary to make decision-making across the business efficient and restore well-being. Establish norms with your team to manage the collaboration activities in their sphere of influence. Challenge whether the initiative needs your involvement or if it adds time and complexity. Be selective about who should get involved. More is not better. – Sheila Goldgrab, Goldgrab Leadership Coaching

8. Create An Agile Organization Free Of Silos

Create an agile organization and free yourself from departmental silos. Change can best and most successfully be shaped and managed with an agile mindset and cross-functional collaboration. Delegate decision-making power to those with the knowledge and experience and empower your people to decide, contribute and work toward the best solution for all stakeholders. – Michael Thiemann, Strategy-Lab™

9. Embrace New Boundaries To Support Employees

Boldly embrace new and necessary boundaries to support your employees. What if you installed a time-out tool to block your employees from using work email for 15 minutes whenever they were at their computer for more than four hours at a time? Would it be hard? Yes. Would it be worth training your teams to take a short break to refuel? Yes. Would your business tank because of a 15-minute break? No! – Stacey Staaterman, Stacey Staaterman Coaching & Consulting

10. Create A Trusting And Transparent Environment

One of the most important things a leader can do is create a trusting environment where transparency is key. This starts with you setting the example by being honest with your employees about the impacts, good or bad, of any change in the company. You must walk the talk on the importance of taking care of themselves by participating in activities that promote physical and mental well-being. – Andrea Wanerstrand, A3 Culture Lab

11. Create A Deliberate Design Of Systemic Structures

In today’s VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) age, when the external rate of change is faster than internal structures’ ability to cope, the business suffers and employees are stressed. Therefore, deliberately designed systemic structures need to be in place that will anticipate change and not react to it. Employee well-being needs to be part of the workplace’s core values and resourced accordingly with interventions. – Thomas Lim, Singapore Public Service, SportSG

12. Relate To Employees As Human Beings First

Empathy and compassion are great antidotes to workplace stress. Relate to your employees as human beings first and foremost, and recognize their unique talents and contributions. Make time to connect with your workforce to create bonding moments. Once the cortisol levels decrease, efforts at change and transformation will be sustained by the release of happy chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin. – Linda McLoughlin, LeadershipWorks

13. Teach Employees How Manage Both Change And Self-Care

If you want to promote both keeping pace with change and well-being, you have to teach both. We tend to be really good at holding the standard for keeping pace, but what about well-being? Giving your people permission to schedule time to recalibrate and recharge is important for helping them keep pace with change. Teach your people how to take care of themselves, and watch the impact it makes. – Jon Dwoskin, The Jon Dwoskin Experience

14. Communicate Intentionally, Transparently And Regularly

During times of rapid change, one of the sources of stress and drain on positive energy is uncertainty about the future. Company leaders should be intentional with their communications and transparent about what they know and (just as important) what they don’t know about the future. Authentic transparency and regular communication can go a long way toward reducing uncertainty and minimizing stress. – Charles Dormer, APEX STP, LLC

via Forbes – Leadership “https://ift.tt/XsjFPnm”

March 9, 2022 at 05:52AM

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Dr. Sharon Lamm-Hartman

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