Meet Dan

Meet Dan.  Dan is Head of Communications at Lovely Cake Cornwall Ltd, a role that he is enormously proud of and worked very hard to achieve since starting work with Lovely Cake seven years ago as a school leaver.  18 months ago his boss retired which created the perfect opportunity for Dan to apply for the job of his dreams.  And, guess what? He got it, and it is a dream job.

Dan is allowed to work one day a week from home, he has a team of three super people who are dedicated and available to help him deliver the communications strategy of his employer.  On top of this he is paid above market benchmark rate and leaves work at 3pm twice a week to collect his little boy from nursery, relieving his mother in law who picks up Jack on the other two days.  On top of this he regularly gets free cake from Lovely Cake’s suppliers which lives up to its name of being lovely!

So, all should be well in Dan’s world?  Well, actually no.  Dan is stressed.  He regularly works in the evening which makes him tired.  He also doesn’t feel that his team give him the support he needs and, on top of this, his new boss Joe, who is Managing Director of Lovely Cake, is out of the office working from home and in meetings himself a lot which means that he doesn’t have enough time to check that his work and strategy is in line with Joe’s expectations.  This makes Dan nervous and so he lacks confidence about the decisions he is making day to day.

Lovely Cake Cornwall Ltd have clearly spent a lot of time working on their inclusiveness and diversity issues by giving male and female employees the freedom they need to work around their personal commitments.  They also support a pay and benefit structure which is above quartile.  However something still isn’t right.  So what is going wrong?  Whilst Lovely Cake have their workplace structure and remuneration right, they haven’t addressed the behaviours of their employees within this structure.  It’s a little bit like taking a horse to water.  You can offer the right structure to enable your employees to make the right decisions and change their behaviour but you can’t make them change.

So how do employers change behaviour? It’s difficult, however it can be done.  Putting in place a framework which forces employees to think about their actions is a start.  Getting them to change their actions is the next step.  Reflecting on those actions and how they have helped is then vital to sustained change and brings about cultural shift.

The HYLI model focusses on employees making four daily choices which are logged in a small private journal.  One choice is to improve their health; one is to do something for themselves (“You”); one is to help others (“Love”) and one is to increase their Intelligence.  Simple in design, when practised daily this frame work can lead to employees making decisions which lead to a more balanced and stress-free life.

Let’s think about Dan again.  It is known that he is tired, however possibly feels guilty about taking time out for himself, eg to lie down for an hour on his day working from home when the house is quiet, or going to bed early.  This “You” or “Health” choice fits in with HYLI and addresses the tiredness. Not understanding his boss’ needs could be addressed by Dan considering what is needed to make him more able to do his job.  This could lead to him asking for more face time with Joe to discuss strategy.  This “Intelligence” choice addresses the nervousness he feels about day to day decisions and reduces stress.

Finally, thinking about how Dan could support his team, the “Love” choice” could lead to them providing better support to him, again increasing efficiency’s.

None of this is inherently complicated or difficult, however, in the course of being busy employees quite often forget to take a step back and reflect to make better choices.   HYLI provides a framework for this.

For more information about corporate training with HYLI contact info@hyli.co.uk