At a time of economies, where many high-profile businesses have announced sweeping cuts, any form of investment requires massive justification. Budgets are already frayed, thanks to a range of economic pressures and continuing challenges around the recruitment and retention of workers. As a result, employers need to start considering potential solutions to these challenges, such as mindset management.
What is mindset management?
Have you ever experienced that feeling where you’re presented with a task that you should be able to easily complete, but the mere thought of it fills you with trepidation? It seems beyond your current mental and physical resources. You’d rather walk away than even begin to contemplate it. That’s the power of mindset. It’s not that you can’t handle the task. It’s that you think you can’t and it’s a powerful sensation.
However, with a little bit of psychological programming, the barriers can fall away, turning every obstacle into an enjoyable challenge and allowing you to reach your full potential. And it’s the role of Mindset Management to initiate these changes across your business, helping every employee – from the boardroom to the sales floor – to deconstruct their mental barriers and become their most productive selves.
How does mindset management work?
Mindset plays an enormous part in our day-to-day lives. And for the most part, employers view it as a personal matter. Something for an individual to deal with in their own time. Because, honestly, why would an employee’s mindset be any of their manager’s business? But mindset can dramatically impact both individual and team performance. Even the happiest, most proactive employees can have a mindset block, which can limit both their individual potential and their benefit to the business, and most of us don’t even know that we have them.
Our mindset influences everything, from how we view challenges to how we confront failures and deal with criticism. Which can have a direct impact on our enjoyment of and engagement with our work. It can influence our resilience and our loyalty. So, it’s massively important for businesses and the most successful brands will always be those that take steps to help employees take control of their mindset.
Leaders of mindset can:
Enhance employee engagement
Employee engagement has become a significant point of focus in the last year or so. With ‘quiet quitting’ and the global talent shortage, finding ways to keep team members interested and committed has become a priority. It’s one of the best ways to reduce churn while enhancing productivity and loyalty. It’s also one of the best ways to build a positive mindset. Engagement can be managed in a variety of ways – providing personal development opportunities, encouraging a culture of open communication, recognising individual and team achievements, and providing the right tools, amongst other things.
Mental wellbeing
Mindset doesn’t have to mean mental health but the two can be related. With studies showing that better mental health support in the workplace can save UK businesses up to £8 billion annually, it’s an area most organisations can’t afford to ignore. Especially when there are so many different ways to provide support. It might be providing access to counselling or the provision of mindfulness apps and spaces for all employees, but if someone is struggling with their mental health privately, they will struggle to be their best professionally.
Mindset coaching
Working on an individual or team level, leaders of mindset can coach people to identify and overcome their mindset barriers because for most people, the biggest issue is that they simply don’t realise that the barriers are there. Once they do, they can take steps to resolve the issues.
What are the benefits of hiring a leader of mindset?
The impact of an improved mindset can be hugely beneficial on an individual level. On a team level, it can be transformative for a business. Helping not just with productivity, which is enough of a goal in and of itself. But with a range of other KPIs.
Stress reduction – According to the 2023 Stress Statistics report, 76% of UK employees identify as experiencing moderate-to-high or high levels of stress, while the Health and Safety Executive reports that stress, depression, and anxiety are among the greatest causes of lost work days every year. The average episode results in 18.6 days off work per person. For a business, this can have a number of ramifications. Not only impacts immediate productivity but also increases the pressure on and stress levels of other employees. While some might argue that some stress is motivational, there’s no denying the detrimental impact of too much stress.
Resilience – Resilient employees are generally better able to handle the changes that businesses undergo during the course of a career. It impacts the way a person manages criticism and how they face challenges. Helping each person to do their best in the situation they find themselves in and that’s an integral part of mindset management.
Happiness – Happy, resilient employees with a good grasp of stress control will always be more productive but instilling happiness isn’t easy. You need exactly the right ingredients, including a sense of autonomy and personal power. With mindset management, you can help your team members achieve that.
Working with those that lead changes in mindset not only help businesses to demonstrate the softer side, so attractive to prospective employees but helps to deliver measurable, tangible results, capable of positively transforming the way a business – and its employees – performs.
Lisa Collinson
With a background in HR Strategy development, implementation, and measurement, Lisa Collinson has more than 22 years’ experience in people leadership. An accredited coach and popular speaker and presenter, she has worked across sectors throughout the UK, Europe, and internationally. Supporting businesses with change management, restructuring, and performance management – with an emphasis on behaviourism and why people act the way they do.
