Commuting? No thanks.

Commuting? No thanks.

Hey everyone

 After a short summer hiatus, the germs have returned to the Heagren household with a vengeance. We’re back to at least one child at home most days of the week - and two seriously flagging parents! I hope for your sake you’re spared.

Office Shm'office

I have been to London three times in the last ten days. 

Not that unusual I know. 

But leaving in the dark, rainy mornings to stand on a platform surrounded by dreary-looking suits and wasting three hours of my life moving from one place to another has made me thank my lucky stars that I don’t have to do this every day. 

Each time, I have been up at 5:30 a.m. and not been home before 8 p.m. Actual work time? About 3 hours. These were three very good hours during which I built relationships, delivered talks, and had an impact, but I’m not in a rush to do it again, especially not every day. 

Companies demanding employees get back to the office five days a week are putting people through this for no good reason. Two to six hours of wasted time travelling each day. Amazon said they did it because they wanted their teams to be joined at the hips. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need to be joined at the hip with anyone for 7 hours a day. I think rather than improve my working relationship it might well ruin them! 

Also, when are we meant to work?! Most of us aren’t in meetings or working with people all that time. 

I find it mind-boggling. 

Yes, I sound like a broken record. 

But I simply don’t understand it. Yesterday I spoke at the Happiness Index Annual Happiness Conference and heard two stats that slammed it home:

Happy employees are 16% less likely to churn than unhappy ones.

Engaged employees are 12% more productive. 

The keys to happiness and engagement? Safety, great relationships, energetic connections, inspiration, clarity, enablement, personal growth and, my personal favourite, freedom. 

Freedom to me means choice. It means autonomy over my time. It means making the right decisions about how I spend my time. Whether that's with my children or at work or doing something else. It's definitely not waking up in the dark to travel on dirty, expensive trains with throngs of sad-looking people though.  

I believe in valuable time together face to face. Really I do. But I also believe that great cultures and happy employees come first. And that, my friend, is why I do what I do.

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Interesting things to check out

Read The Happiness Index which explains engagement and happiness far more eloquently than I do - 

Watch 12 Million Lessons in happiness if you prefer a vid

Listen to Becoming Michelle Obama's autobiography if you need to restore your views on the US  (I love an audiobook, I listen to them when I'm cooking, travelling, sorting out washing or anything else I do alone!) 


This week it's time to stock up on Vitamin C and start Christmas shopping. We only have six weeks! Eeeek! (I love Christmas by the way but will try and stay calm for you)

 Jess

 

PS A few people have asked if they can book me for speaking in 2025 and use up a bit of end of year budget. The answer is a definite yes!



Ballet class or Careers After Babies talk? 


Rebecca Price (FCIPD)

Senior HR/People Leader | Leadership Coach and Advisor | Specialist in Building Efficient & Effective Foundations for Businesses to Accelerate their Growth | HR/People Team Structure Guru, Advisor & Mentor

1mo

I totally agree with this! Your talk yesterday was so insightful - I went from this to a networking event in the evening where I had a white, middle aged man tell me why they have made the decision to bring everyone back in the office from next week. He went so far as to say that if people didn't like it, then they weren't the company for them... it's an up hill battle isn't it?!

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