Human Resources Professional Association Conference 2016
Last month, I had the honour of presenting “Suffering isn’t always obvious” in one of the break out sessions at the Human Resources Professionals Association Conference.
When I asked the group why they picked my session over other sessions, the answers were inevitably the same, “I want to know how to help people.” What we often fail to acknowledge is while our motivation to help others is rooted in good intentions, we fail to acknowledge our own suffering. When did we forget about ourselves?
Nobody likes to admit they aren’t coping well. We have conditioned society and in particular, workplaces to believe that anything that prevents you from performing is inexcusable and this adds to the stigma.
But guess what? More people are struggling with high stress, unreasonable expectations at work and are challenged with keeping up with a pace that is harmful whether they are open about it to there employer or not.
Employers have really two options. One is to continue to ignore that suffering happens for all of us OR to take an honest look at how the workplace is either contributing or taking away from employee health and commit to making changes that benefit us all.
