The life your colleagues don’t see

The life your colleagues don't see

I've been thinking a lot recently about what people actually bring to work with them. Not their laptop, their notebook or their to-do list, but life itself. The relationship that's changing, the parent they're worried about, the child who's moving away, the diagnosis they're waiting for. The sleepless nights, the anxiety, the excitement and the grief.

Whatever is happening outside work doesn't magically disappear because we log on to Teams or walk through the office door, yet somewhere along the way we've created this expectation that people should somehow separate the two.

Over the last few months, I've realised that more than ever. Like so many people, I've continued to work, join meetings, answer emails and get on with the job whilst life outside work has felt incredibly heavy. Looking back, what made the biggest difference wasn't a wellbeing initiative, an employee benefit or even a mental health policy.

It was my manager.

We've only worked together for a few months and we're a completely remote team, but she noticed when something wasn't quite right. She didn't check in to ask about a deadline or a piece of work. She checked in to ask how I was. On one particularly difficult day she simply said,"Log off. You need to be well."

A little while later she thanked me for trusting her enough to be honest. I thanked her for making it feel safe enough to.

I've thought about that conversation a lot since. Not because it solved everything that was happening in my life - it didn't, but because it made me realise there have been other jobs where I would never have had that conversation. I would have smiled through the meetings, delivered the work, hit my deadlines and quietly hoped nobody noticed I was struggling.

The difference wasn't me - the difference was the environment.

I keep thinking about it because we spend a lot of time encouraging people to speak up. We tell colleagues it's OK not to be OK, remind them support is available and encourage them to ask for help. They're all important messages, but I wonder how often we stop and ask ourselves a much harder question.

Have we actually created an environment where someone would feel safe enough to do any of those things?

Because speaking up isn't just about courage. Sometimes it's about permission.

Looking back over the last few months, I honestly don't remember many of the conversations we had about work. I couldn't tell you what was discussed in half the meetings I joined or which report landed in my inbox on a Tuesday morning. What I do remember is somebody noticing. Somebody asking how I was before asking about my workload. Somebody reminding me that, for one afternoon, being well mattered more than being productive.

It's funny really. We spend so much time worrying about performance, yet the moments people remember most at work are almost never about work.

Over the last few months I've also realised something else. Life rarely arrives in neat chapters where one difficult thing finishes before the next one begins. Most of us are carrying more than anyone around us realises. We celebrate one moment and grieve the next. We hold joy and heartbreak at the same time. We worry about people we love whilst trying to stay present for the people we work with.

None of us gets to choose whether life comes through the door with us each morning.

The only choice we really have is what kind of workplace we create for the people carrying it.

Questions worth asking

At The ERG Effect, we don't always want to leave you with answers. Sometimes the right questions are more powerful.

• If someone in your team was carrying something incredibly heavy today, would they know they could tell you?
• What have you done recently that tells your team it's safe to be honest, not just productive?
• When you think about the leaders who've made the biggest difference in your own career, what do you remember about them?
• If your team described your leadership in one sentence, would psychological safety be part of it?
• What small act of kindness could someone still remember years from now because you took the time to notice?

Until next month...

If this edition changes one conversation, one team meeting or one leader's perspective, then it has achieved exactly what it set out to do.

Because creating more inclusive workplaces doesn't always start with a new policy. Sometimes it starts with one person choosing to see another a little differently.

Hayley Whitmarsh