Horizon Point Consulting

Search results for: “productivity”

2021 Book of the Year

It might seem odd that a company with a core value of “productivity” would choose a book of the year titled Do Nothing. But in a year of seeing people’s mental and physical health deteriorate due not just to issues a global pandemic continues to cause, but also because of the phenomenon of overworking and under living, we found the book captured the essence of putting productivity, and work, in perspective.

As the author, Celeste Headlee states, “The question is not about whether you are productive but what you are producing.” And we would go on to say that the question also expands to examine the method in which you structure your production and whether or not it leads to healthier, more joyful lives and more meaningful output.

Over the course of the year, we watched ourselves and our clients attempt to be on two to three virtual meetings at a time, catch up on work emails over the weekend because the work week demanded forty hours of meetings alone, and watched as story after story was brought up about people’s mental health crashing and therefore causing a complete meltdown of physical health. Emergency surgeries were needed, trips to the ER for chest pains took place, and people cried at lunch with us because they were so exhausted and did not see a way out of their current state of life revolving around the need to meet “productivity” demands at work and at home.

But as our core value of productivity intertwines with the value to put people first and to foster passion with an end goal of innovating the workplace, we found that many of us don’t have the bandwidth or the energy to innovate anything as we constantly chase the next goal or metric, all while trying to multitask as we are chained to our phones and computers.

We’ve lost sight of the goal of work with purpose and replaced it with work towards some endless pursuit that creates exhaustion and insanity. This narrative may not be something you’ve personally experienced, but we’d venture to guess you know and love at least one person that has been impacted by this conundrum.

So, we all took or are taking sabbaticals in 2021 and 2022 to think deeply about what this means and to develop training and insights to shift the paradigm for ourselves and our clients on what it means to work, to be productive, and to think deeply about just how we got to this point where enough is never enough.

Do Nothing provides a history and research lesson about how, over the past 200 years since the industrial revolution, we’ve gotten here and gives us six “life-back strategies” on “how to break away from overworking, overdoing, and under living.”

And although we as a team may not agree with everything Headlee postulates in her narrative which may be more based on how she defines work (something for pay) versus how we do (something for pursuing purpose), we agree with its method of the scientific practitioner approach by taking sound research and applying the learnings of that research in our own lives and workplaces to experiment and learn. Then, we can follow the information and data our learning provides to make better decisions.

And as Headlee suggests, in our metric obsessed world, sometimes the information provided doesn’t come in the form of numbers but in the way we feel. We need to be paying more attention to how we feel and what that means for us to be productive in a way that leads to creativity and innovation. This book provides us with the opportunity to think about how to do that.

In fact, one method of feeling should be tied to our ability to have time to think, not just do. Our ability to think, apply, and learn is what separates us as human beings. It’s what makes us human and it’s what produces great work. It’s what produces innovation.

Given the thinking and learning we’ve done over the course of 2021 and into 2022 on the topic of workplace wellness and wellbeing and in an effort to innovate the workplace through people practices, we are excited to be offering workshops- one on a cruise ship, yes on a cruise ship!- to help you come to understand the research, design experiments at your workplace, and help follow the data and the feelings to help not only yourself but also to help your workplace build a culture where people thrive. To not just create change at the individual level, but to create it through organizational systems and structures. These workshops will also provide an opportunity for relationship building and fun.

The premise of our book of the year and our workshops is not to literally “do nothing” but to realize we’ve gone so far to the opposite extreme that we need to find a way to focus on doing nothing so that we can center ourselves so that we can find balance and pleasure not only in leisure but also in work, and to realize that sometimes they are both so integrated that you cannot have one without the other.

We are so appreciative of the opportunity to pursue purpose with you this year. Thank you for your business and your friendship. Blessings to you and your organization as we all strive to build workplaces where people thrive and enjoy doing work worth producing and have the health and mindset and permission to enjoy leisure. Both are noble goals, and both require one another to happen.

If you are interested in learning more about how to create organizations where people thrive, please visit our Illuminate website at: https://horizonpointconsulting.com/illuminate/

December 7, 2021
Show Compassion, Save Your Empathy
“What the world needs more than empathy is compassion. Empathy is feeling the pain and suffering of others. Compassion is acting to relieve the pain and suffering of others.” – Adam Grant

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to Adam Grant’s podcast while driving and the topic was mental health and how organizations can make an impact. At Horizon Point we’ve been having candid conversations about our own mental health in the last few months. As Mary Ila mentioned in her blog post Taking a Walkabout we have all been dealing with health issues as a result of our own stress and anxieties over the past year or so. For us, it all came to a halt during our first quarterly meeting of 2021. And as a result, we have each agreed to take a sabbatical to focus on ourselves. But at the same time, it has led us to conversations on how we can do the next right thing for our clients as well and help them focus on the mental health of their employees.

The podcast with Adam really hit a chord with me. I am an empath, and this is where I really struggle with my mental health. As Adam explains it, having empathy means that you feel the pain and suffering of others. And I agree with him, empathy is exhausting.

As Adam mentions in his podcast, when employees are struggling with their mental health, it has a significant impact on their performance. So how can employers show that they care about the mental health of their employees without exhausting themselves in the process? According to Adam, it’s through compassion, not empathy.

I had never really thought about empathy and compassion together before. I think we often use the terms interchangeably, I know I did. But now I understand they are very different.

Empathy is aimed at an individual and allows for a lot of bias. You will have more empathy for an individual you like than one you don’t. You may have more empathy for that star employee than you do for the one who struggles to meet deadlines. You have more empathy for the employee that reminds you of yourself.

Compassion isn’t about how much you feel someone’s pain, it’s about how well you respond to help alleviate that pain. You can have all of the empathy in the world, feel someone else’s pain immensely, but not do anything to help them relieve that pain and suffering. Compassion is all about helping them move through that pain to the other side.

So how can organizations create a compassionate culture?
- Allow sick days to be utilized for mental health- As Adam puts it allow “sad days.”
- Make sure your health plan covers mental health, or offer an EAP.
- Take two minutes to ask employees how they are. If you notice an employee seems to be having a rough day, show them you care, don’t just try to avoid them.
- Ask employees if they need help, don’t wait for them to come to you.
- As Brene’ Brown would say, you have to be vulnerable. Be willing to put yourself out there too. At Horizon Point we have all been very vulnerable with each other, both before and now during our rejuvenation period.
Creating a culture of compassion helps to keep your employees from the exhaustion of empathy, can increase productivity, improve employees’ mental health which can decrease your healthcare costs, and so much more.

How can you help your organization create a culture of compassion?
November 2, 2021
Is it Time to Kill the 40-Hour Workweek?
Americans work an average of 41.5 hours per week, with 11.1% working over 50 hours per week. World Population Review

Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers. International Labour Organization

Based on data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. Meaning Americans should be able to accomplish in 10 hours per week what it took 40 hours to accomplish in 1950. Yet, we are still working 40 hours per week.

So where did the 40-hour workweek start? With Henry Ford. He implemented it in his Detroit factory it was an innovation in favor of employees. Most workers were putting in six days per week and Ford created the concept of work-life balance. He reduced the workweek to five days in order to allow his employees ample time to rest and be with their families.

Over a century later we still talk about a work-life balance, but we’ve lost the purpose that drove Ford to implement that 40-hour week. We’ve gradually climbed that hill back up towards longer hours and less work-life balance. We shun those who work only 40-hours per week and praise those who work 60-80 hours per week. We have become a society that brags about how many hours we put in at work each week.

I’ll never forget my first job out of college, I received my offer letter and it said that I was required to work a minimum of 45 hours per week. And rarely in the three years, I worked there did I put in less than at least 50, sometimes as much as 80.

We want to claim that certain industries just require at least 40-hours per week, such as healthcare, retail, or manufacturing, but do they really or are we just stuck in that “we’ve always done it this way” rut? Autonomy, an independent research group in Iceland, conducted a four-year study from 2015 to 2019 in which they reduced the workweek of over 2,500 employees from 40 hours down to 35-36 hours. The results were overwhelming.
- Employees were happier and healthier
- It improved work-life balance
- Productivity remained the same or increased
The results were so positive that by the time the study was published earlier this year, 86% of Iceland’s population had either moved to a reduced workweek or added into their collective bargaining agreements to do so in the future.

The study by Autonomy is not the only study that has been conducted in recent years and as with the Autonomy study, results show that decreasing the workweek has a positive impact on employee health and wellbeing, work-life balance, and productivity.

So why do we continue to hold so tight to the 40-hour workweek?
September 23, 2021
The Cost of Sexual Harassment

EEOC reported sexual harassment claims have ebbed and flowed for years now. Some years it’s up and some it’s down. The “MeToo” movement gained momentum in 2017 and for the two years following we saw a rise in EEOC sexual harassment claims. Now the numbers are starting on the down curve again; I’m sure in part due to the pandemic and move to remote workforces. But being remote doesn’t protect any organization from the threat of sexual harassment situations.

A 2019 study conducted by Deloitte aimed to estimate the cost impact of sexual harassment on organizations. By creating a model algorithm to determine the average cost based on total cases, Deloitte estimated that in 2018 workplace sexual harassment cost organizations $2.6 billion in lost productivity and $0.9 billion in other costs, or an average of $1,428 per victim.

Sexual harassment in the workplace can have a huge impact on the organization, including increased absenteeism, decreased employee morale, higher turnover, and management time to investigate claims. Sexual harassment can have a major psychological impact on victims, causing such symptoms as anxiety, depression, insomnia, or headaches. All of these symptoms can in turn have a major impact on an employee’s ability to perform the duties of their position. They can also have a major impact on the employer’s insurance costs, as employees who suffer such symptoms often need to seek medical assistance to alleviate them.

In addition to the costs mentioned above, employers who have to fight claims of sexual harassment through the EEOC or the courts will spend a great deal of time collecting evidence, consulting legal counsel, and fighting the claim in EEOC mediation and/or court. Punitive and compensatory damages could cost an organization between $50,000 and $300,000, depending on company size.

There are multiple options available to employers to help them ensure their employees, and their leadership is trained on sexual harassment including online training that can be purchased on a per person license, LMS training modules that can be purchased for a flat fee, or outsourced training.

Currently, 18 states have some form of regulation on sexual harassment training for employers. Many employers opt-out of training because it’s not required in their state. Others put off training thinking “It would never happen here” or “I can’t afford training”, but it can happen in any organization and the cost of providing training annually is much less than the potential cost of not providing training.

To find out more about Horizon Point’s sexual harassment training, view our course outline.

August 17, 2021
6 Steps for Planning and Implementing Effective Extended Leave

Earlier in the week, our post was a reflection on why I will be taking a walkabout, or an extended amount of time away from work this fall. Each person on our team will be taking four to six weeks off at some point within the next six months.

Whether it is taking time for intentional rest, reflection, and/or deep work or going out on maternity or extended sick leave, stepping away from anything at work requires preparation beforehand in order for the time away and the people providing support during the time away to be a success. Here is a roadmap for doing so:

1. Plan/proactively discuss with your team the timing of your absence and the roles and responsibilities they will have while you are away. You can read more about my team’s discussion on the timing of my absence in the last post, but the next step in this for me has been thinking through and communicating with them about who will do what while I’m out. We will do the same as each person takes leave. Some things are natural, given that many of the projects I work on and the people I work with have at least two of our team members providing support. There are some things where you may be the only person with a knowledge base for execution, so planning proactively gives you the time to provide cross-training, introductions, information, and or tools needed for success.

2. Communicate proactively with the external contacts you interact with regularly that you will be out with. For the past two weeks, I’ve emailed or called every client and/or potential client that I interact with to let them know that I’m going to be out, for how long, what this means in terms of what they should or shouldn’t expect from me (for example, I will not be checking email during this time), and who their new point of contact will be on our team. I will say that in doing this, EVERYONE I’ve talked to has been supportive and encouraging in taking the time away. They are appreciative of the heads-up and connection(s) with our team for the project to continue in my absence.

3. Start saying “no” based on your scheduled time away. In the past two weeks, I’ve said “no” to more things than I have in a long time. Both personal and professional. It really helps you realize how much stuff you say “yes” to without even thinking about it. “Yes, my calendar is clear on the date you asked to meet with me, so yes, I’ll meet with you” happens a lot without a thought about whether or not the meeting is necessary or if you even want to meet with that person. We commit to things without thinking about them and then wonder why we can’t find the time to do the most important things. It’s pretty liberating and reflective to take back your time.

4. Set guardrails and systems around being able to maintain your no and the margins the time away should provide. I know my email will be a problem for me. It is the mechanism in which I say yes to most things because most things come in the form of calendar invites via email or requests for this or that via email. So, for me, I will not be checking and responding to emails while I’m out. To ensure I do this, someone on my staff will be changing my email password for me on the day I go out. She will also check the box once a week to make sure there are no emergencies she and the team need to tend to (this will help me maintain my sanity of not checking it) and I will set up an out of office reply explaining that I’m out, points of contact for specific needs, and when I will return. You may not need to go to the extreme of getting someone to change your password (if you do, you have a lot more self-control than I do, because checking email is such a habit for me), but know yourself well enough to deploy the guardrails needed for maintaining the integrity of your leave. This may mean deleting social apps on your phone, disconnecting your wifi (or getting someone to change your wifi password), or setting standard times around the do not disturb feature on your phone. Figure out what you need and solicit any help needed to do so.

5. Reflect on what these planning exercises are telling you. As mentioned earlier, delegating responsibilities to others may help you realize they need to be cross-trained on a certain task or function to be successful. Saying no because you’re going to be out may help you realize you need to say no indefinitely to certain things. It may be telling you that you have a problem with your social media or email usage and need to get a healthy grip on it. All these planning items can help you succeed in an absence and the reflection on them can help ensure long-term success upon your return.

6. Reflect on the purpose of your time away and what you hope to accomplish in taking it. Before you go out, write down two or three things you want to focus your time on while out and post them for yourself in the form of yes or no questions you will see every day. Mine are: 1) Did you rest and restore today? 2) Did you read/research and write/create content today based on your purpose? 3) Did you play with your kids today? Don’t overload yourself with more than three to four questions.

Framing the questions in the second person as “you” has been shown to be helpful in training the brain to eliminate “chatter”. It gives your brain a word that naturally offers more grace than using the first person “I”. Like the book, Chatter states, “Doing so (using ‘you’ to refer to yourself) is linked with less activation in the brain networks associated with rumination and leads to improved performance under stress, wiser thinking, and less negative emotion.” Some questions you may have if you’re recovering from surgery or bringing a newborn home may be: Did you rest today? Did you do something to help your body recover today? Did you refrain from checking work email today? You know what you need, so customize the questions for you. As you begin to heal and or accomplish what you want while you’re out, your questions may change.

Finally, you may not be at liberty to decide if and when you get to take an extended time away from work. But if you are a person in a role where you can impact policy at your workplace, consider how you might drive the conversation around the need for people to take more than a standard week or less of vacation annually and what business results it might achieve. At the very least facilitating dialogue around how you can provide autonomy by structuring work differently (four day work weeks, hybrid work arrangements, mental health days, etc.) in order to impact workplace wellbeing and productivity could lead to substantial gains in recruitment and retention. If you’d like more information on the research related to this, see our previous post on readings for reflection.

August 12, 2021

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