How to help your staff amid a wave of “life fatigue”

It’s a tough time for Australians at the moment. The cost of living continues to stretch household budgets, COVID-19 is still impacting our social lives and ability to work in the office and natural disasters are challenging communities.

Not to mention the cost of petrol, interest rates rising and continuing economic uncertainty.

It’s no wonder that many of us are feeling flat. We’re simply exhausted. The unrelenting waves of difficulties we’ve faced over the past few years have left us feeling lost and deeply unsettled.

It’s a theme being seen in workplaces, too. A challenge for bosses is trying to motivate a workforce in a period of uncertainty like this.

But with adversity comes opportunity and now is the perfect time to build resilience in your workforce and equip your employees with a mindset that will help them move out of overwhelm and into solutions.

We’ve seen a 73 per cent increase in the past month of people searching for help with wellbeing and resilience skills.

People are looking for help with overwhelm, anxiety and panic, poor work/life balance and less sleep driven by stress. Those looking for solutions are telling us they’re overloaded and at breaking point – they’ve been experiencing stress and uncertainty for such a long time with no end in sight.

Some young Australians have been particularly affected by the pandemic and loneliness is a huge and unseen problem. They’ve lost sight of what their purpose is and have felt powerless and isolated over the last couple of years.

When you build resilience across your workforce, you’re not only equipping people with lifechanging personal skills – but you’re also creating a rock-solid foundation for your company and helping reduce rates of burnout amongst your staff.

My top tips for building resilience on a personal and professional level:

1. Get connected. Building strong, positive relationships with loved ones and friends, or coaches, can provide you with needed support, guidance and acceptance in good and bad times.
2. Focus on what you can control rather than what you cannot.
3. Limit your exposure to bad news. Take media breaks and unplug.
4. Take care of your emotional wellbeing with greater self care each day.
5. Be proactive and take initiative on one simple goal each day.
6. Tell someone how grateful you are for them.
7. Do a nice deed for someone you care about.
8. Surround yourself with 5 people that are positive.
9. Get a great coach!

Coaching is a great way of helping your staff rediscover their purpose both in their professional lives and in their personal lives which are both more intertwined now than they’ve ever been before.

Personal fatigue can quickly become professional fatigue without the right coping strategies to get you and your staff back on the right track.

If anything, the current challenges society has been facing present a unique opportunity to connect with your staff at a deeper level and to give them the motivation and purpose we all so desperately need.

Victoria Mills is the CEO of Hello Coach