People should be themselves at work, but bosses need to let them

But, with ever-increasing demands to deliver more with less, what can employers do that would make a difference without damaging their business?

The term “work-life balance” suggests that work is somehow separate from life. This implies that if people could just spend more time not at work it would alleviate the problem.

A soon-to-be published study by Professor Michelle Ryan shows satisfaction with work-life balance has little (5pc) to do with the amount of time we spend outside work and much more to do with whether we sense that we fit in and expect to succeed in work (35pc).

When we feel socially excluded, the effect on our brain chemistry is the same as physical pain, which is why so many of us bend ourselves out of shape to try to fit in (61pc of employees, according to a recent study).

The best way for bosses to help employees is, paradoxically, not to increase the separation between home and work but to integrate them. The more that “the person I am in the rest of my life” is consistent with “the person I am at work”, the less stressed and more productive we become.

In the business world “inclusion” is to “diversity” what “roll” is to “rock”. As a result, it hasn’t had much of a life on its own. To create a healthy and productive workplace, inclusion needs top billing, with the benefits of a diverse workforce as a delightful consequence.

Meetings that start with a chat about the weekend’s sporting fixtures and continue so that only the most forceful are heard are sure to create outsiders. But there are plenty of more subtle ways that we form cliques and obliquely dismiss those who aren’t like us.

We allow people to be themselves at work by crafting the job to suit the person rather than the other way around; focusing performance discussions on strengths more than “development needs”; by cherishing people who are “spikey” – that is, who have some great qualities as well as some obvious blind spots – rather than sidelining them as misfits.

This means appointing and equipping managers with the acuity to make personal connections and then giving them permission to do so. It means employing a wider range of styles to ensure that whatever their proclivity, everyone feels heard. It means celebrating people because they are exceptions, not just because they are exceptional.

Above all, it requires leaders to do the one thing they most fear: let go.

So far, the corporate response to the overwhelmed employee has been underwhelming.

Time management courses and occupational health programmes may alleviate some of the symptoms, but they won’t cure the malaise. Making it safer for people to express themselves at work will achieve much more.

Octavius Black is CEO of Mind Gym (www.themindgym.com). Follow him on Twitter: @octaviusblack

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