Nigel Cassidy: Who cares for HR? How to recognise and reduce the personal toll of managing others through hard working times. I'm Nigel Cassidy and this is the CIPD podcast.
Now, you might say it's ironic that the demands of advocating for everyone to have healthier and more engaging work lives can have quite an unhealthy impact on the personal wellbeing of those in HR. CIPD has found over a third of people professionals have reported their mental or physical health has suffered because of their workload and have considered quitting. It's no wonder dealing daily with lifechanging events for staff like redundancies, grievances, disciplinaries, maybe having to impose decisions that you find morally questionable, do you know when it's really time to push back or set boundaries, and just how do you do that? Or do you keep running on empty, championing employee wellbeing while neglecting your own?
Well, with me to explore resilience and how to look after yourself so you can keep doing your job well, we have first a mental health specialist with 20 years of experience, advising and working with top FTSE, and global companies, smaller businesses and start-ups, all on improving their workplace health. It's Amy McKeown. Hello.
Amy McKeown: Hi.
NC: And from the home team, a senior policy advisor who leads studies on health and wellbeing and strives to ensure the views of the profession inform CIPD thinking on this, it's Rachel Suff. Hello.
Rachel Suff: Hi there.
NC: So, well let's just start with something a bit offbeat first. I just wondered what you both say is your go-to activity when you feel stressed and in need of getting away from it all.
RS: So, my two big pursuits outside of work, first of all I knit, a lot. I find that really helps me switch off and unwind, and I swim. Not particularly brilliantly, but I do find it quite therapeutic for my mental wellbeing.
NC: That's interesting. Presumably you don't do the two of them at the same time. That would be difficult, but… so, how do you recognise it's time to pick up the knitting or go and book a swim?
RS: Well, I'm always picking up the knitting. It's a kind of switch-off, a boundary thing from work, but I tend to have a routine from swimming because then it helps me separate work from home life. I just find it's a nice, kind of, end to the day and it just helps me destress. In my mind, when I'm swimming it's quite meditative.
NC: Sounds good. What do you do, Amy?
AM: Well, I have two young-ish children and a job that means I spend most of my time talking to people, so lying in a darkened room on my own is usually a start, but jokes aside, I like doing things that are creative. So, I like gardening, cooking, things that get me into that kind of flow state, but also I have been practicing yoga for, I've just realised, 30 years, which is a really long time. And I fell into that because just as Rachel described with swimming, when I was a teen it was the only thing I could find that really… kind of, it felt like I was in a system reboot. No one was talking to me. You have to concentrate what every part of your body's doing and it gave me that, kind of, brain body connection which, you know, has really added to my life over the last 30 years. It's something that's kind of been consistent through the ups and downs and the ins and outs.
RS: That's amazing and it's your mind and body as well, isn't it, yoga?
AM: Oh, it's fascinating, like sometimes I would go into yoga when I was totally stressed out and my body would be quite loose, and I'd think oh, that's interesting, and other times I'd go and I literally couldn't move, but I think I was quite calm. So, developing that, kind of, mind body awareness and presence of, kind of, being able to hold yourself emotionally as well as physically, you know, has been a great gift of my life.
NC: Rachel, I mean obviously looking after yourself makes sense, but is it really any more important for HR now than it ever was, do you think?
RS: I think it's really important for everybody. Now is a time where we know there are a lot of work demands and intensity around work. That's been increasing, I think, for many years. We know that the world is a complex place, there's a lot going on in the world, and we're not separate from that, including in HR. And there's a lot of change in organisations right now, and we know that people professionals are very often at the centre of managing change, leading change and that brings with it a lot of responsibility, a lot of caring about other people, other stakeholders in the organisation. HR's always balancing the needs of different groups in the organisation, including looking after the organisation. And that can bring with it a certain tension that can bring pressure, so it's very important for everybody all of the time to be aware of our mental wellbeing and what keeps us well, but I think it's very important at the moment for HR to be aware of that and put in place strategies.
NC: Now, you mentioned that tension. I've heard this described often as being caught in the middle. I mean, there is this fairly obvious but, sort of, key aspect of the HR role that people professionals have this duty to the wellbeing of the individual working for the organisation as well as their employer, but of course, Amy, that individual's best interest may clash with what you're having to do to them or with them, courtesy of a management decision which is handed down to you.
Now, you may agree with that decision, but of course maybe you don't. Maybe you're even uncomfortable with it, morally. So, just talk about that situation. Is that one which possibly causes the most stress, the most problems for people, taking their work home?
AM: It's a really interesting point that you raise there, Nigel, in that I do feel, and to echo Rachel's point, that HR can often be in the middle. Now, over the course of my career, you know, a lot of my clients have been HR, but I've also spent a number of months in the employee relations team at Ernst & Young when I was putting in the health and mental health strategy, so I could see, you know, what sort of cases that you're dealing with.
Now, I think this comes from where HR as a profession has come from. So, we've moved from a kind of personnel hiring and firing and bringing in policies into, as Rachel described, this much broader role of caring and advocating, and especially over the past few years we've seen organisations really moving in a really positive direction in terms of inclusivity and mental health. You know, a lot of people go into, or most people I've spoken to, go into HR because they care about people and the role itself can become quite policy driven, quite legalese, quite protective of the organisation.
So, as you just described, you can find yourself… I've been in and around HR professionals who've found that instead of really supporting people, they're carrying out redundancies or dealing with difficult situations with employees. Sexual harassments and things like that, and having to sometimes implement decisions that they might not agree with for often stakeholders who are much more senior than them because they're management- and board-level decisions that have been made. So, I think that can be very difficult for an HR professional because they're caught between are they supporting the individual or supporting the organisation and how do they do their best to do both.
NC: In which case, Rachel, what general advice does the CIPD give people when they are in these kind of situations? Is there anything you can do to just take the pressure off yourself? Because you can't just go on and on being caught up in these really difficult situations that people find themselves in.
RS: I think Amy describes that role and the tension that that role, that unique role that HR has in organisations, very well. I think on the one hand, there's different dimensions for HR. First of all, there's the need to remain detached to a certain level and professional, whilst managing your own emotions and feeling that morally, this is a really difficult situation that you don't want to be in. And I think in that situation, it's important to remind yourself of the standards around integrity and being ethical and so on, but also the need for a certain amount of detachment, and the guidance that we have around looking after your own mental health and wellbeing. We have that for our members so that we recognise, we acknowledge those situations, those challenges that our members can be in professionally.
And it's also about seeking support, good advice from peers, from trusted sources, and just having that constant reminder of looking after your own self care because it does often, or it can just fall between the cracks. And that's very important, but it is the nature, that is the reality of the role of an HR professional, is managing those difficult situations very often.
NC: Okay. Amy, so we've identified the problem, I think, quite clearly. Can you take us a bit further and talk about steps that people can take to start mitigating some of these issues which are pretty upsetting and damaging for people?
AM: Well, I think Rachel articulated it really well. I mean, the words that she described are… and it is the nature of the job in many cases. But she used the word "integrity," which is actually the words I wrote on my piece of paper coming in for this call, because I think where the rub in terms of health and mental health comes from is when you feel like you're actually doing something against your morals, you used that in your introduction, that word "moral," so you can deal with a difficult situation with humanity and integrity.
So, something like a redundancy, for example, you know, business decision that has a very, very real and personal impact on individuals and families, but your role as an HR lead, you know, there's two ways to do it. You can make difficult situations more humane.
NC: I think you mentioned something when we were chatting beforehand that happened to you.
AM: Yeah, so I mean, it's… I've spoken about this a number of times, but I had a very difficult miscarriage and was off work very, very unwell for two and a half months, and then was put through a redundancy process within a couple of weeks of my return. Now, one of the things that stayed with me, I mean, even though that happened many years ago now, is I was unwell and off sick during the redundancy process and asking for an occupational health referral which I didn't receive until the final day of the process. But during that time, I was having letters couriered to my front door in my flat, so I'd be opening the door to a courier who would get me to sign a letter about my job when I was clearly unwell and had been asking for organisational support.
So, that's a situation where actually I feel that the organisation got this wrong. You know, redundancy processes was clearly a business decision that somebody had made more senior but I don't think couriering letters to somebody who's seriously unwell at the front door, you know, so I couldn't avoid them whilst not getting me the occupational health support that I had repeatedly requested, is an example of where that could have been handled better.
So, it's about, kind of, being able to finish situations in a humane way with integrity and I think for the HR professional, as Rachel said, that's partly the nature of the job but it's also quite a difficult position to be in because, you know, we see from mental health and we see from wellbeing that actually, if we're being pulled out of our comfort zone and our integrity then that's where the problems lie. So, that's an example I think where we can manage difficult decisions, but actually by practicing our self-care, but also being true to our morals it's slightly easier.
And the other thing I would like to say is that, you know, a redundancy round or a disciplinary, like, they're often… well, a redundancy round is a business decision. Some of the things that we see HR having to get involved in are slightly more complicated things like your sexual harassment cases and sexual assault cases that can happen in the workplace, and you know, the news on a weekly basis seems to have yet another example of organisations that have, you know, asked people to sign NDAs to cover up situations and covered up bad behaviour at a senior level. And HR are involved in the middle of those as well.
So, it's being able to use organisations like the CIPD and our support and our peers to really self-check, hold our integrity, but also being able to be put into a position where we're challenging the organisation in some of the decisions being made or the approaches. Because that is a really tough position that HR find themselves in, with often that power differential of if I speak up because I know this isn't right then that could affect my career because the people making these decisions are a lot more senior than me.
NC: So, you seem to be saying that to maintain your own wellness, Rachel, it may well be a case of being brave and going back to senior management and pointing things out.
RS: Yes, definitely, and it takes courage but as a people professional, we would expect our members to act with that integrity where they feel that there is a moral imperative to challenge. We can't prescribe for every situation that occurs in a workplace. Workplaces are so complex. Sometimes situations do happen where they don't follow a good practice model, they aren't very humane, and HR really should be there as a moral compass, really, and that does take personal, professional courage and it's difficult, but that's why we have our map of the profession. Our standards, where we do want our professionals to act as that moral compass and bring compassion, humanity and challenge where we feel things aren't being done properly.
An example of that would be cases, for example, around unfair treatment in the workplace, alleged harassment, discrimination and so on. And it's really important that these things aren't pushed under the carpet.
NC: And while we're with you, Rachel, can I just ask you about what your members are telling you about what causes them to be upset, to feel their mental health is suffering because of the role?
RS: I think it's everything that we've talked about and that difficult conflicting situation that our people professionals are sometimes in when they're trying to balance the needs of different stakeholders, but I think more broadly as well, I think what can also bring pressure to bear on our people professionals is that sense of responsibility that they have for people in the workforce, for their health and wellbeing. We saw this really acutely during the pandemic, the sense of responsibility for people's health and wellbeing, keeping people safe. People felt that in the profession very strongly and also, it's the amount of purpose and passion that our people professionals typically bring to the role.
We know that actually it's the roles that bring the most sense of purpose, where there's the most investment that can, in a way, ironically, lead to stress and even burnout. Because you're so invested and you're not drawing those boundaries. You're investing so much, you're really compromising your own health and wellbeing.
NC: And part of this, Amy, is that HR professionals know they need to act as role models for health and wellbeing. Does that in itself create more pressure on them?
AM: I think so, in many ways. I mean, there's a number of points to unpick on that which is that if you are, as Rachel said, you know, coming into the profession with purpose and passion and because you care about people, then it's really easy to overstretch those boundaries and to feel, kind of, invested in every decision and in looking after people.
A lot of my experience, and this is not all, but a lot of the people I've encountered within HR are also female. So, you've got the, kind of, aspect of women coming in and often there's a lot of research now talking about women's roles as, kind of, often putting their needs last to families, to friends, to caregivers, and if you've got that as well as in your day job then that can be a real problem. Because you're not looking after yourself or doing those self-care things that you talked about before.
And the solution, really, is to get to know yourself well. I mean, you asked Rachel at the start how she knew when she needed to go off and, sort of, have her swim and have her knit. For me, I've found that if I start to check the news or spend too long on social media, it's a real red flag to me that I'm away from my balance, you know, that I actually need to go and unplug. I… it's noticing behaviours in ourselves, noticing things that we do to realise that we're off balance that then enable us to, kind of, bring ourselves back to that balance through understanding what works for us in terms of self-care and looking after both our physical health, but our emotional health.
NC: Comfort eating, that's a bad one.
AM: But it's all linked. You know, I've got a six year old and a ten year old and I basically lost it with them last week when they were watching some utter nonsense on Netflix, and I was pointing out to them that what you put into your brain is as important as what you put into your bodies, right? So, kind of, self-care is making sure that we eat the right amounts of food, of the right food, drink the right water, get the right sleep.
NC: Yeah, what reply did you get when you put that to them?
AM: Well, I mean, my parents… my children have known me for six and ten years, so they're quite used to their mother now and actually, they've also seen my partner book me into a yoga class and kick me out of the house when he can see I'm not balanced. So, we have these conversations a lot.
I'm a psychiatrist daughter, right, so this was how I grew up and my father banned The Big Breakfast from the house all those many years ago, saying that it would reframe our brainwaves wrong for the whole of the day and actually, that was before social media and apps existed. So, these are, sort of, conversations we have in our house.
NC: Yeah.
AM: But from a self-care point of view, you know, really important that we know ourselves, we know we're looking after ourselves. There's a lot of talk now about checking the news and checking emails and boundaries, and Rachel talked about that work life boundary, but what I also found interesting is the activities that she mentioned, you know, crafting, knitting, what we often see is what feels good, the science then catches up with. Knitting is known to take you into a different brainwave state. It's a, sort of, single point of focus into your delta brainwaves which kicks off your parasympathetic nervous system which relaxes you.
So, those things that feel good for self-care are often the things that science then tells us are good. So, being able to recognise your cues as to when you're often balance and to have, kind of, a number of different things that you know all regain into that is the way to look after it.
NC: You were talking about social media and the demands on people. I mean, Rachel, we do have this always-on culture. I know the government is seemingly dropping the idea of restricting employers' out-of-work demands on us. How do you maintain a healthy boundary between your professional and personal life? Because clearly, this is a source of the kind of stress we've been talking about.
RS: Really important to set boundaries, and it's something I've struggled with over the years. I got a lot better at it during Covid when I was working continually at home, because I realised that it was all just blurring into one and if I didn't consciously set that line between work and home, it was all going to be quite an unhealthy mountain of pressure, really. I really needed to be self-aware.
So, I think first of all, it is building that self-awareness, it's knowing yourself, it's understanding the kind of triggers that are going to provoke poor mental health, it's understanding the importance of having short breaks and long breaks. So, do take your annual leave. But day to day, it means having a healthy, sort of, work life habit balance. It means consciously setting that line between work and home, so I shut down the computer, I have a cup of tea, I take the dog for a walk.
But there are models, there is evidence that can help us with setting those boundaries. For example, using the… there's a DRAMMA model, it's not our model, but it's very evidence based. It's having that detachment. Amy talked about what taking part in those kind of activities can do, why it's healthy for our mind to, say, knit or whatever it is that helps you to switch off. Make sure you have time for me, because when we're outside work, a lot of us can have a lot of responsibilities, be juggling a lot of other people's needs outside work as well. It's important to carve out some time just for yourself, so you are taking part in something that's meaningful for you.
I think, think about what activities you're doing. Are they things that give you meaning? Are they enabling you to relax and unwind, to switch off, to have detachment? If you look at the DRAMMA model, D stands for detachment, then we have relaxation, autonomy, meaning, mastery and also affiliation, which is really connecting emotionally with people socially. Having a social activity and so on. There's all these different elements that make up a, kind of, healthy work life balance and making sure that we have… make the most, really, out of our relaxation time.
NC: But it's going to be different for everybody and people have just got to find the right thing that works for them.
RS: Exactly.
AM: What I would also add to that, which I think is absolutely bang on, is you know, we're in an unprecedented time of the work life where flexible and hybrid working has really, you know, been done in ways that it's never been done before and you shared your experience, Rachel, of setting boundaries. For me, I work from home, I have two children. I wouldn't be able to have the career that I have if we didn't have flexible and hybrid working, so you know, I'm… like all of these things, it's how you use it.
But we were talking about boundaries ourselves between our home and work life. Something I see repeatedly in my work with mental health and wellbeing within organisations is also the boundaries we have with different colleagues. So, I was thinking this as you were talking because HR do get invested in the personal stories of the people that they're dealing with through their day-to-day lives. So, as well as having boundaries between work and outside of work, it's being "boundaried" in how you support people and where the line is drawn, and whether people can contact you at certain times and how invested you are into the story of colleagues.
NC: I mean, are you implying there that it's difficult to get peer support sometimes when you're down?
AM: No, no I don't think that. I mean I think peer support is an excellent thing. I think the CIPD does that really well. I think HR needs… you know, can support each other more. What I'm talking about, and it's especially true when we're seeing, sort of, mental health, is if you're dealing with somebody who's going through a difficult situation, the HR role has expanded from, sort of, disciplinaries to dealing with quite complicated situations of illness, of reasonable adjustment, of neurodiversity, of all sorts. The role and what we're dealing with in the workplace has expanded to be farm more of the human condition than it was before. You used to have your home and work. Now we're trying to figure out where the boundaries in the workplace in home and work are, and often HR are brought into dealing with stories or cases.
So, it's drawing that boundary there. I saw this a lot with my mental health work where people who had lived experience or had dealt with situations in their family were often the most passionate about supporting others, and I spent a lot of time putting clear governance and boundaries in for themselves and for others. That's obviously a mental health situation, but with HR we've got people who joined because they care about people. It's only natural that they're going to find purpose from helping and supporting people, but it's also that boundary between themselves and colleagues because I think that is often somewhere where you're trying to do the right thing for so many people that you… you're overstretched.
RS: I think that's a really important point, a dimension of having those boundaries, then also understand that HR can't fix everything and definitely not in people's personal lives. Your, kind of, empathy, compassion, recognise that sometimes there is no separation between people's work and home lives. That actually, what you're there to do is help primarily with the work aspects of the situation and guideline managers to do that as well. You know, have as much support as you can available to help with other challenges that people might be experiencing outside of work as well.
But if you don't have an appreciation of those boundaries, then the impact can be quite damaging, I think, on people professionals.
AM: Yeah, and I remember my father, a psychiatrist who was one of the first psychiatrists to specialise in stress, anxiety and depression, but also bringing mental health into the workplace, you know, teaching as part of his training that you don't need to be friends with work colleagues. You need to have respected professional relationships.
And I feel that because there is that blend and there's the more casualness in some way to work, that actually, I remember when I was at Ernst & Young designing our mental health programme for graduates, realising that this was the first generation of people coming into the workplace with social media. And we had to give them some basic, what I thought was basic training about emotions and relationships with colleagues. That this is not the same as university, these are professional contacts of yours that actually you're going to be going up through your careers with.
So, how you behave and interact with these people is not the same thing.
NC: Yes, I remember a senior HR person who said to me that she was a hugger. And I thought well, you know, I'm sure you're very good at your job, but I don't know that I want you to hug me, particularly.
AM: Also, if you were a man and you said that, that would be a…
NC: Oh, well absolutely. I would rightly be carted off.
AM: Yeah.
NC: Actually, that just brings us to another aspect of this. I just wonder, Amy, are some people more naturally resilient and can you teach people to be resilient through being better at this self-care?
AM: Well, the first question, I'm not sure. We could argue that some are and some aren't, but in terms of resilience, again, one of the things that I had, you know… we used to talk about frequently with my father, was that you can be doing the same job for 30 years and then one day you get out of bed and you can't do it. Or you can put two different people into the same situation and one can cope better than the other.
So, I think with these things, it's very subjective. So, are some people more resilient? I'm not sure. You can definitely teach resilience through some of the self-care techniques that we've talked about, learning yourself, environments, situations. What I would say, though, I used the analogy of forests when I was putting in the mental health strategy at Ernst & Young because it seemed to make sense to me that, you know, you can have… you know, an organisation is a forest and each individual is a group of… is a tree in that. And what I mean by that is that you can have a really resilient tree in a part of the forest that doesn't have light. You can have a tree that's…
So actually, with all of these things it's a lot more complicated than whether people are more resilient or not. It depends on the culture, the situation you're being put in, your environment, what's going on in your home life, which is one of the reasons that there's been so much discussion about home versus work-related stress over the years and how to support people at work.
So, everything we've talked about and all the great examples are about building resilience. But even the most resilient person in a toxic culture or being pushed into doing things that they know are wrong is going to struggle with that.
RS: I really like the analogy of a forest, and I always think of… Resilience, because there's a lot of emphasis put on people's individual resilience, I think, today. And I think of course individual resilience is part of it and it's important, and I think it can fluctuate just as our mental health and wellbeing can, absolutely. And it's important to put in place to shore up our resilience, but it's also important, I think, to see it as part of an ecosystem where it's also interdependent on the resilience that you can have within an organisation, within your team, from colleagues and so on.
It's important, I think, for organisations to view resilience as that ecosystem so it is putting in place all the, sort of, policies, support, culture to boost everyone's resilience within that. Because if we just view it as an individual trait that can be trained for where we can bounce back from things, it's not necessarily very helpful and can feel quite isolating. So, we must see it as an ecosystem.
NC: Let's just try and draw this together, as our time's almost coming to an end. Just a couple of top tips maybe from each of you. Best tactics for easing your own mind and looking after yourself better so you can do your job well.
AM: Well, we've talked a lot about self-care. So, knowing when you're triggered, knowing yourself well enough to know when you're off balance and knowing how to do it. The other, kind of, thing I've cultivated a lot over the last few years is to, sort of, fly in the face of the culture we're in. You know, I don't check the news every day. I've watched the evolution of, you know, the news used to be on for half an hour at 6.00 pm and 10.00pm, to apps, to live news to now often two three new live news stories at the same time, and I can feel the impact that has on society. Everything seems much faster and everything seems to require an instant response, right? You know, like I wish Amazon had a button was… I want to buy it but don't kill anyone to get it to me tomorrow. I can have it whenever, it's not a rush. There isn't that button.
So, where I say this for myself is I often don't answer emails straightaway. I'll go and think about it, and if necessary and if an answer is required, I'll just say, "Give me time. I'm thinking about it." Because I think in the rush to do everything yesterday, we've lost human emotion, human processing time, human thinking time, and actually the response we give is less nuanced and thoughtful or helpful for the person.
So, it's about really holding ourselves in check with that and keeping our own balance, but then also being able to hold that balance in a world that seems very off balance right now.
RS: I definitely agree with Amy, and sometimes stepping back, reflecting is really important. Not everything can be resolved immediately and I think in an HR role, you can feel a pressure to resolve situations very quickly because you can see the effect that that situation's having on other people. But actually, because of the complexity involved in a lot of situations, resetting expectations, stepping back, reflecting, getting advice, we shouldn't be afraid to get advice, discuss situations confidentially with peers, with our own management, with our own manager don't forget. I think that can bring more wisdom to situations. We need to act with compassion as well as wisdom.
And then finally, I just wanted to say don't be afraid to seek early support if you feel that things are too much. It's not a sign of weakness. Actually, it takes courage. I've been there myself, but it's important that we practice what we preach in terms of seeking support when we need it because it can really help and stop things from escalating.
NC: And it's really not an admission of some kind of personal failure.
RS: No, it really isn't.
NC: Great, well let me thank you both, independent consultant Amy McKeown and CIPD's senior policy advisor, Rachel Suff. Really helpful, practical conversation, I think, and I think it's come over loud and clear that a healthy workplace really does start with each one of us.
You'll find some useful resources on supporting your own wellbeing on the CIPD website. In the meantime, till next time, from me, Nigel Cassidy, and all the team, it's goodbye. In the light of today's podcast, do look after yourself.
