Conscious Working

So, what exactly is “CONSCIOUS WORKING”?

Despite what you may think, you will be happy to know that it is not some pseudo psychological jargon…despite my job description. In fact, CONSCIOUS WORKING is less complicated than placing your order at Starbucks – particularly when ordering for a group of friends. I am sure some have experienced walking up to the counter, in a cold sweat, while mentally reciting the multiple ways our table expressly want their cappuccinos made. By the time I open my mouth to speak…I draw a complete blank. If it was not so great to be out and about, amongst other real human beings, post-Covid, I would decline any further invitations to our bi-weekly Saturday coffee dates.

However, due to the long hours, most of us nowadays find ourselves working remotely and to an excessive degree. Real human contact is somewhat limited for most these days. I long to have real human contact.

As an experienced Industrial Psychologist, and now a Work Dynamics Shareholder, I firmly believe we can and should make the ‘new normal’ whatever we want it to be. I firmly believe the most important aspect in creating a sustainable, healthy, and successful work environment is all about BALANCE.

Conscious Working in itself is the ultimate way to inspire yourself to create a healthier work-life balance. Creating time for yourself and prioritising time to nurture your relationships, all while driving your career momentum, is a common theme.

“Mindfulness behaviour leads to greater awareness, focus, and efficiency.” A good analogy would be a traffic light. Remote working can lead to a scramble of information overload and exploding to-do lists. Taking on more than we can do well seems to be a default setting these days. Too many of us do not pause long enough to reflect if we can really take on one more thing right now. Wellness builds focus and attention; chaos delivers the opposite.

When no one has a second to communicate, we do not ask questions, prioritise, and work effectively. Collaboration is the key to employee engagement, and that comes from communication, something that satisfies our core psychological needs of making people feel valued. Feeling valued is the driving force behind the discretionary effort of engagement, something that can make employees thrive.

Regulating our boundless world can start in any department and organisation with a conversation about task bottlenecks, deadlines, overcommitment, and the work-life challenges that come from letting devices and blind frenzy call the shots. This is where the concept of Conscious Working comes in.

We are living in a new world and I, for one, am up to the challenge in my openness and willingness to work with reliance at a time when we have to embrace operational agility and workplace improvement. Coming from a millennial, like me, I am incredibly aware of the need to educate both our clients on this very issue, which is often overlooked but is essential to the health and success of all, including the business. I have recognised, as have so many of us functioning in the ‘NEW WORLD OF WORK’, that there is no replacement for humanness. We cannot switch ourselves on and off like our digital devices. We need human connection, down time and conversation. Both work and trust are built through ‘knowing’.

Part of this connectivenes is achieved through digital integration. Well-being in the workplace is paramount  We are committed to achieving this through supportive communication and policy decisions within our own field.

The questions we need to ask ourselves is whether we are losing social skills? What about human interaction skills? How to read a person’s mood, to read their body language, how to be patient until the moment is right to make or press a point?

And that is why we need to remember as human beings’ human connection is vital. People are not just contacts but actual interactions.

Conscious working means literally switching off, and not just by logging out of the business report on your laptop you have been working on well into the early hours of the morning. Set yourself a time and close the tabs, put the laptop away and make the conscious choice to “sign out” mentally.

What would happen if you overloaded your laptop? Just like humans there would not be much space left on your drive would there?

Your MacBook or Laptop would either overheat or drain its battery life. Human beings burn out too. This is why I keep coming back to a healthy balance. Call a friend. Go for a run, read your kids a bedtime story. WE spend three quarters of our lives working…so save some time for being human.

I take pride in my career, I value my clients, I believe in the positive changes our Team at Work Dynamics are making to countless organisations and companies.

I have always wanted to be a force for actual change, which is what led me to a career in Industrial Organisational Psychology. I found it to be the one area where I was able to recognise an appreciable result through dedication and hard work, whether dealing with public service or private corporations.

Together with our new CEO, Dedre Lemmer, our team at WORK DYNAMICS is focused on solutions in order to skilfully navigate our clients’ as well as our own company, through our post-covid world. I believe that our ethos of supporting clients in every step of the way is paramount. The security in recognising both your capability and reclaiming your independence is what every client deserves. And we deliver.

As a Shareholder and Senior consulting Psychologist I intend to leverage on my skillsets and our unique service offering to ensure that we continue developing and implementing solutions that drive self-sustainable “conscious organisations”.