According to recruitment software developers, Logic Melon, these are the top ten issues HR professionals have to deal with:
- Recruitment and selection
- Hiring and retaining the best talent
- Employee relations
- Communicating with the team
- Retention and Termination
- Staff motivation and development
- Career Development
- Employee Benefits
- Performance Evaluation
- Employee Wellbeing
And you’re now thinking, “Tell me something new”.
Ok. I can do the heavy lifting for eight and a half of these. Sorry, I can’t take the full weight.
Recruitment and selection. Not my strength. This is your area of expertise.
Hiring and retaining the best talent. This is my half and half. Yet again hiring is your field of knowledge. Retaining is something I can help with. If they feel undervalued, not listened to, constantly under pressure I can make a difference.
One way I can help is if you create psychological safety your talent can feel listened to. I’ve written a blog about this here.
To make it work, amongst other things, you need the following:
- Confidence to speak up in front of others
- Understand what assertiveness is - that you have a right to boundaries. For example, you don’t have to answer emails at the weekend just because someone is churning them out to push work along.
- Feel comfortable being uncomfortable when others say things about you.
I can help you with all of these points.
Employee relations. Talent needs to feel appreciated. Listened to. It’s part of the above and psychological safety. And a combination of other things. And all parties understand work isn’t a popularity contest, sometimes it's hard work.
It’s here where I can work on mindset and resilience - letting events matter less: learning to crack on.
Communicating with the team. There are two main parts to this. Public speaking and the fear of being judged by your peers. And, secondly, the one-to-one conversations. These go both ways, either through motivation and praise or when someone is coming up short. They have to understand it’s not personal, it’s about the observable fact.
My role? Making you, or your talent, comfortable speaking to the team, department, clients, and the company so you feel a relaxed version of yourself.
Or if it’s one-to-one so you and the other party understand it’s about performance. Not personal. Some people are quick to get emotional. We can role-play this so you get your point across and feelings are dialled down.
Retention and termination. Helping with retention can take several forms. For example, making talent feel your workplace is the ‘place to be’. They’re growing. I can help with corporate coaching, dialling down the stress and focusing on their leadership skills.
Termination. This can be hard. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have an attachment to some staff. And not everyone is going to take the news well. It can get through. Also, you’re always the one in the middle between the company and the employee. We can work on any stresses that you feel and remember there is a reason why you do what you do.
Staff motivation and development. Keeping everyone happy is a relentless task. And there’s an overlap here with Employee Wellbeing. You can take care of the physical environment, but if you notice absenteeism is on the rise, more and more people are being signed off, as you walk around the office heads are down, there’s an oppressive silence, these are all things I can help with.
Career Development. This is for your talent - and for you. Recognise what you or your talent need to progress and I can then help. We can also make you feel more comfortable in the workplace. Mistakes will happen, but they don’t have to be the end of the world.
To another point: executive coaching. This can become tricky. It’s sensitive and talent can feel vulnerable at this level. Senior executives/C-suite/board level can feel they have to know it all, are being judged (they are) and struggle with their new role (what got them to the top, doesn’t always keep them there). And, hard to admit, it gets lonely: who do you turn to when you’re expected to have all the answers? I can dial all these things down. It’s at the very core of what Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy is about. In effect, you admit a vulnerability and come out the other side stronger.
Employee Benefits. Pay scale, salary, working hours, annual leave, travel allowances. You can take care of all of these. Where I can help is making talent see that they can progress, lead, be part of a team and be heard.
Performance Evaluation. When it gets stormy I can be of use. You have to balance the needs of the company department and the employee. If there are gaps I can help close them. Not industry-specific. I’m not necessarily an expert in your industry sector. But all the interpersonal skills that are needed are where I can help. For example, where talent doesn’t feel it’s being listened to, alternatively the talent isn’t listening to its team/department, confidence is dropping in a member of the sales team, talent feels ‘put upon’, basically anything that has an emotional attachment.
Employee Wellbeing. It’s called work and sometimes it’s hard work. And you will be asked to deal with the consequences of this. Hand them to me. The stresses and strains that work takes home and home brings to work can’t always be contained. And why should they be? They’re best dealt with, not suffered.
And who am I a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist to offer help to HR departments?
I spent 30 years in the corporate world working in New Zealand, Singapore, London and Amsterdam.
Heading up departments of hundreds of people. Sometimes we were greater than the sum of our parts, sometimes heads went down. It was my job to keep everyone happy, trusting me and winning new business.
And what I learnt was this.
When everyone felt valued, they were calm. And when they were calm they, in turn, would make better decisions. It was a state of mind that ran through everyone.
Fast forward to now and I’m a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist and my client base includes endless stressed-out executives from all industry sectors.
I’ve developed a way of using Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy as a way of coaching.
It’s my style. We analyse your self-talk. Then through hypnosis and role playing, I teach those in business to be calmer and be a better version of themselves.
This is my corporate ‘pitch’.
My company is called The Gentle Mind. Why? Because I believe that when we’re calm we’re a better version of ourselves.
I’ve worked architects, management consultants, accountants, civil engineers, commodity brokers, and even NHS Trusts.
I have rooms in Leeds, York, Lincoln and Louth. Or I’m happy to come to your place.
Contact me at jamesthomas@thegentlemind.co.uk or call 07787563099.
