HRM Coaching Blog

Are certain people making life difficult for others at work? London Career Coach Hannah McNamara explains what you can do about it.

Problem behaviour at work affects everyone. It affects the people on the receiving end and it also affects those who are bullying and argumentative in the first place.

But how do you deal with it?

The first step is to take a pro-active stance, take command and control it in a positive way. It used to be that punishment was the only way forward and indeed some form of disciplinary action may be required. But prevention and support should also be provided, along with a strong and positive management style that will go a long way towards preventing such occurrences happening in the future.

Both coaching and mentoring have led to positive changes in such individuals, as they are offered practical and supportive solutions to change the behaviour that has so affected them and their colleagues. While it will take time to get back to a workplace which is more positive in nature, if you can provide leadership that everyone looks to for advice and support you will be setting the stage for that to gradually evolve.

It can be a tricky balance to present a face of management that is both firm yet supportive in the right ways, but it is vital to do so. You should also keep a close eye on how things are progressing and be prepared to meet with members of staff who have concerns or issues about any kind of detrimental behaviour they are experiencing at work.

Many businesses are now turning to neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to produce better results over both the short and the long term. NLP is designed to help you understand the behaviours of others from both audio and visual signs, and can therefore help in two ways. Firstly the offending member of staff will learn how their behaviour affects others in a detrimental way, and secondly they will also learn how to make positive changes that will help to eradicate the problem behaviour altogether.

As far as your role as a manager is concerned it is vital to ensure that you learn to identify problem behaviour as soon as it arises, rather than finding out about it from staff members. By providing a hands on management style you can learn more about how your team works and thus get to know your team a lot better than perhaps you do now.

By looking at long term solutions to problem behaviour rather than quick fixes, you will find that your team works in a more harmonious way as a result.

© Copyright Hannah McNamara 2008

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If you or someone you work with is having trouble with a difficult member of staff, or a co-worker, HRM Coaching can help. Call 020 7939 9910 in confidence and ask for Hannah McNamara or visit www.hrmcoaching.com.

Could Career Coaching help your staff to deal with the prospect of redundancy? London Career Coach Hannah McNamara thinks so.

Working in HR can be a very rewarding career, but it doesn’t get any tougher than having to deal with making other members of staff redundant.

It often falls to HR managers to deal with the fallout of such an event, as the people affected seek help to cope with their sometimes unexpected (and nearly always stressful and upsetting) situation.

The key to being able to help workers faced with redundancy is to be ready and available to offer solutions and advice when they need it the most. Career coaching isn’t something that all members of staff will be aware of or will have thought about, but if you can suggest it to anyone who comes to you for help it can do wonders for their motivation. It is a useful tool for helping them to see that there are other options on the table.

When people are told they face redundancy, they often assume that they are leaving the company altogether. This is not always true however. Before you meet with any employee in this situation, you should investigate the possibility of outplacement; it’s quite possible that their skills can be utilised elsewhere in the business without them having to leave altogether. This can be a good solution for both the employee and the employer when a role disappears.

HR managers can do a lot for employees facing redundancy, both in terms of providing information and providing support as well. An employee’s productivity will understandably be affected by the news, but if you can provide the right resources to help them negotiate the situation successfully there is every chance they will begin to see it as an opportunity to stretch their wings.

This does bring up an important point, since the first thought of many HR managers will naturally be to provide resources such as career coaching in order to help the employee through this period of transition. It is important however to remember that they are likely to be feeling emotional at this time, and may not be very accepting of help in the first instance. It may simply be enough to let them know where you are and how you can help, and to tell them that they can arrange a further meeting to discuss future options when they feel ready to do so.

Redundancy is not a pleasant situation from either side of the fence, but if it is handled carefully by those in an HR capacity then the workers affected will at least know the support they need is there for them.

© Copyright Hannah McNamara 2008

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HRM Coaching in London helps professionals to excel at work and find the job they were born to do. They provide life coaching, career coaching and executive coaching at all levels. You can download their latest e-book ‘10 Ways to Sabotage Your Own Career - are you making these mistakes?’ free from www.hrmcoaching.com/download

Changing jobs?  Small and Medium-sized Enterprises offer many rewards

On Sunday 2nd March The Sunday Times released its annual report on the Top 100 Best Small Companies to Work For.

Ambitious corporate professionals may wonder what working in a small business can offer, but it would be good to remember that the term SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) covers organisations employing up to 249 staff.   In a business of this size, not only can you progress quickly as there is less fierce competition for positions, but many offer real benefits to work within a company where you can make a difference.

This is clearly demonstrated in the survey, which shows that ‘there is not a single question in 66 on which the SMEs score worse than the mid-sized companies.  There remains a gulf between the performance of the 100 Best Small Companies to Work For and the 100 Best Companies to Work For.’  Companies were judged on Leadership, Wellbeing, Belonging, Giving Back and Personal Growth.

The report on larger companies is published in next week’s Sunday Times.

HRM Coaching’s Hannah McNamara explores what causes stress for Executives and how to deal with it.

We all feel stressed now and again but for some people that level of stress gets to be a regular feature in their lives.

The mental health charity Mind highlights the symptoms and problems people can experience as a result of stress on its website, at http://www.mind.org.uk.

People in management roles tend to be rather prone to being stressed, often because the higher up the promotional ladder you go the more responsibility you take on and the more your work/life balance tends to be put in jeopardy.

Luckily there are plenty of ways that you can reduce the amount of stress you are feeling, and perform better at work as a result. Try the following methods and reap the benefits:

1. Look at how you deal with conflict. Reacting to a situation before you have had a chance to think about it can lead to feelings of stress and upset. Give yourself time to breathe and cool off first.
2. Don’t bottle up your feelings. Everyone needs to offload occasionally, which is probably why men tend to suffer more from stress than women do; women generally have more female friends and enjoy closer relationships with them. Talking about your feelings and your problems helps prevent you from feeling isolated, which can raise your stress levels.
3. Some people find it easier to talk to people they don’t know, within a secure environment. If this sounds like you, why not consider Life Coaching or Executive Coaching? This can help you get a better perspective on your whole life, instead of simply trying to reduce your feelings of stress directly. Life Coaching London style has become more widely accepted and used by people from all walks of life in recent years, and the trend looks set to continue.

Stress management should be an activity you indulge in every single day of the week, rather than just trying to reduce your stress levels when they become too much to handle. Many people are surprised to learn what a profound effect stress can have on both the mind and the body – not only can it make you feel ill, it affects your quality of work and your quality of life with your family.

The first step towards taking control of your life and managing the stress that we all experience is to acknowledge that you are feeling stressed. From that point on it’s a question of identifying the best way to handle it that works for you.

Whether it’s a case of managing your workload better by delegating to someone else, talking more openly with your family to let your feelings out into the open, or seeing a professional to help you understand how to handle stress more positively, the effects of a pro-active attitude will be felt long into the future.

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Interested in Life Coaching in London? Call HRM Coaching for a free consultation to discuss your current situation. They will then tailor a programme to suit your needs and match you with the expert coach who can help you. Call 020 7939 9910.

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Meetings are often the backbone of most managers’ days. But they have a habit of descending into a spiral of existing just for the sake of it, and can actually end up hampering productivity and performance instead of enhancing it.

Most managers tend to fall into two groups when it comes to meetings. Some love them and hold them frequently, while others avoid them like the plague. The reasons for the often strong reactions for and against meetings all make sense when you consider their uses and how they can be abused.

On the plus side meetings can help to promote a dialogue between co-workers, and bring to light any issues or problems that managers may not previously have been aware of. On the negative side meetings that are poorly planned or even unnecessary can waste valuable time that could be better spent doing something else.

It helps to have some kind of policy in place with regards to meetings – even if it is only for your own personal use. Some kind of regular meeting to touch base with your co-workers is always a good idea, but this should be held no more than once a week.

Every time you consider holding a new meeting, ask yourself what the purpose of that meeting is. Is there a new contract or job that your team needs to be properly briefed on? If so make sure you have time to prepare and set an appropriate time and date for the meeting to take place.

If on the other hand you simply need to alert your co-workers to some new general information, is there really a need to hold a meeting at all? A simple memo would probably do away with a significant amount of the smaller meetings that take place countrywide every single day.

The golden rule for planning any meeting is to ask yourself whether the time you will be taking away from the working day is better spent in the meeting. If it is then you know there is a need for it. If the answer is no, then at least you can stop short of planning a meeting that isn’t required.

For those meetings you do go ahead with, time should still be of the essence. Letting even the most vital meetings run on longer than necessary can be counterproductive. Making sure you stay focused and concentrate only on the subject in hand will help you to conduct better, faster and more productive meetings every single time.

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Planning a difficult meeting? HRM Coaching offers facilitation services which will help you to achieve your objectives for the meeting. We help you prepare and help you to chair the meeting so that all issues are discussed, everyone is heard and that time is not lost going round in circles or on unproductive discussions. Call Hannah McNamara on 020 7939 9910 to find out more.

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