Workplace

Do you need a mental health day? Sometimes the stresses of life spill over into our work, or workplace pressure can begin to affect our mental well-being. During times like these, a mental health day can be a useful tool to care for ourselves. Village Therapist Signe Miller shares information about how mental health days can be beneficial and how workplaces can support their staff. What is a mental health day? We all have mental health. Along with our physical, spiritual, social, and financial wellness, it is one component that contributes to overall well-being. Just like we might have [...]

What is the most valuable aspect of your organization? Often people respond with their building, technology, the service they provide, or the proprietary secrets that set them apart. Some may even say the people. All these things are good – and in many respects are keys to success – but they are not the most valuable aspects of the organization. The most valuable aspect of your organization is culture. The culture of an organization is the foundation of how its leadership sees people. It is the basis from which decisions are made, and it is the key component to maintaining a successful [...]

The average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime. That is equivalent to 11,250 8-hour workdays. It’s safe to say that your job and workplace can have a considerable impact on your mental health and quality of life. If employees are experiencing a lot of stress at work, they're bound to be unhappy. In a 2021 Work Health Survey conducted by Mental Health America (MHA), they set out to provide an opportunity to better understand four different mental health challenges that employees face in the workplace. Mental Health Challenges Employees Face 1. Financial Insecurity With [...]

“We are all a little different and that is OK. In fact, it’s good, if we strive to understand each other, accept each other, and respect each other. If we do that, our diversity can make us stronger as a community.” Recently we’ve been writing about the importance of examining our unconscious bias and digging deeper to understand how these biases can permeate the workplace, affecting our recruitment, retention, promotion and decision-making process. While on this journey of becoming aware of our unconscious bias, it’s key to be able to challenge our assumptions, personally and professionally [...]

You’re moving along, getting work done, feeling productive, and then you have to stop for a meeting. Normally this wouldn’t bother you, but you’re not sure why you were invited to this meeting, or even what the purpose of the meeting is. So you break your concentration and hope you can get back into the flow afterward. While in the meeting, you get frustrated because there is no clear direction, people are talking over each other and, worst of all, the meeting produces nothing but more questions and increased frustration. You go back to your task and realize the motivation and drive you had [...]

It seems like we as a society are more divided than ever, with arguments over politics, which football team is better, or whether pineapple belongs on pizza creating conflict. Conflict can be good – it can help to develop me as a person or an organization – but only when we are willing to listen and have an open dialogue. Sadly, this does not seem to be the culture of our society. We are so focused on being right or winning the argument that we are not willing to entertain an idea that is contradictory to ours. Conflict arises when we are not living according to our values, or when our values [...]

What is my purpose? Why am I in the position I am? Is there more for me out there in the world? Where are these thoughts and questions coming from? With nearly 60,000 thoughts swirling around in our head each day, over half of which are negative or pessimistic and 90% repeating themselves day to day, it’s no wonder we may question ourselves. self-reflection \self-ri-flek-shen\ n : serious thought about one’s character, actions, and motives or that of careful consideration of one’s behavior and beliefs; also known as introspection The original idea of introspection was developed by Wilhelm [...]

Have you ever sat back and thought about where leaders come from? If you were asked what a leader is, you could probably rattle off some traits or characteristics that an individual may possess that would make them a leader. You likely have identified these leadership traits as something you wished you possessed so you could be a better leader. Maybe you’ve read books by John Maxwell, Patrick Lencioni, and Simon Sinek so you can grow as a leader. Leadership has become a billion dollar industry with books, videos, trainings and workshops offered all over the world. While these authors and [...]

You wake up before the alarm goes off, you feel refreshed. The sun is shining, birds chirping, coffee brewing. The kids are off to school, and your spouse is headed to work. You breathe in and think to yourself, “It is going to be a good day.” Then you remember you have a staff meeting at 10 am. Your attitude begins to change as you realize your first meeting of the workday is about conflict between several team members. As you head out the door, you spill your freshly brewed coffee. Now you’re going to be late. Traffic is horrible, and you get frustrated with drivers cutting you off. What [...]

Job pressure. Money. Relationships. Politics. These are some of the top causes of stress, something we all experience and can affect our mental health. We can't change all the circumstances that cause our stress, however we can become more aware of the indicators of stress and how we can begin to manage our stress effectively. It starts with improving our emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence, or EI, is the ability to recognize and understand emotions in oneself and others. For years, we've heard how we need to see things from someone else's perspective or have empathy to another's [...]