When Work Becomes Your Identity
There is a question that sounds simple, but for many people it is surprisingly difficult to answer. Who are you when you are not working? For some, the answer comes easily. They are a parent, [...]
ADHD in the Workplace: Looking Beyond the Behaviour
When most people think about ADHD, they picture someone who is easily distracted, struggles to sit still or finds it difficult to focus. While there is some truth in those stereotypes, they only scratch the [...]
Curious, Not Furious: How to Respond to Criticism Without Becoming Defensive
Few conversations trigger us as quickly as being criticised. Someone questions our judgement, challenges the quality of our work, or suggests that we have caused a problem. Before we have fully understood what is being [...]
Culture Is What People Learn to Expect
Why your culture survey may be telling you only part of the story Most organisations can describe their culture. They have values, employee surveys, engagement scores, leadership forums, wellbeing initiatives and carefully written statements about [...]
Extending Working Lives: What Australian HR Can Learn from Japan
Australia is discussing skills shortages, workforce participation and the loss of experienced employees. Japan has been dealing with these issues for decades. Japan has one of the world’s oldest populations. Its workforce is shrinking, fewer [...]
Retirement Should Change the Shape of Contribution — Not End It
Australia is not running out of experienced people. We are running out of effective ways to keep their knowledge, judgement and capability in circulation. In many workplaces, retirement is still treated as a hard stop. [...]
The Permanent Sunday: Viktor Frankl, Retirement and the Search for Meaning
Viktor Frankl noticed something after the Second World War that still has something important to teach us about retirement. As a psychiatrist, he observed that many people did not feel most unsettled when life was [...]
Wellbeing Initiative and Psychosocial Safety
Why yoga won’t fix psychosocial hazards: what leaders should do instead Wellness programs can be good for morale, recovery and culture, but they are not, by themselves, controls for psychosocial hazards. A yoga class, morning [...]
Customer Service, According to the Customer Survey
The most reliable service any large corporation seems to provides these days is the customer satisfaction survey. You can spend three days trying to solve a problem they created, be transferred between departments like an [...]
Retiring from Work Does Not Mean Retiring from Connection
One of the biggest surprises for people moving towards retirement is that work has often been doing more for them than they realised. Yes, work provides income. But it also provides structure, purpose, conversation, shared [...]
Dr Susan Roberts says: