New research from Netta Weinstein and Richard Ryan (2010) suggests firstly that you need to be intrinsically motivated to help in order to derive these benefits for yourself, and secondly helping others when you’re extrinsically motivated (e.g. by reward or the fear of reprimand) is worse for their well-being than if you don’t help them at all.

Clearly this has implications for companies where excellent customer service is at the heart of their business. Are your customer service staff intrinsically motivated to help?

My article on Positive Psychology News this month covers this topic in more depth – read it here.

Image courtesy of D3 San Francisco

Peter gives his own 4-step recipe for finding work when you’re not actively looking for it. I think the words ‘with other people’ should be highlighted in big bold letters. The key thing is that you don’t do the activities you love doing on your own, you find other people to do them with. The reason this is such an important point and one worth saying again and again is that finding a job is all about who you know, not what you know.

A couple of other things worth adding:  this is not about finding things to distract you from worrying about your unemployed status (such as drinking in the pub every afternoon with your mates), and it will take some courage to ‘give up’ a frenzied 24/7  job-search which is probably what your logical left-brain keeps telling you to do. Oh, and you will need to have an understanding partner, since s/he may think you’re just wasting time. And having far too much fun for someone who’s out of work.

In addition to Peter’s advice I’d also stress that you look for ways to engage your strengths during this period of unemployment. If your top VIA-IS strength is courage or curiosity, use it to try new activities and to meet new people. If it’s leadership, use it to organise an activity involving others. If it’s creativity, use it to sign up for a new art or craft class at your local college. If it’s team-work, volunteer your time to a local charity. The reason for suggesting using your strengths in new ways is that this has been proven to increase your well-being. And when you’re out of work, you’re likely to need this more than ever.

Thanks to Senia Maymin for the link.

Image: CarbonNYC

According to Debbie Whitaker, Standard Chartered’s Head of Sustainability, ‘everyone has talents that we wish to leverage’.

This is a bold statement, considering Standard Chartered is a bank with over 60,000 employees in 56 countries. Their reasons for focusing on talent are fourfold:

i) greater growth potential
ii) better people performance
iii) increased employee engagement and
iv) attracting and retaining talent.

Many big organisations are sceptical of applying Strengths at work, yet Standard Chartered’s experience shows that it can make sound business sense.

A strengths-based approach to management has been operating in the organisation for the past 7 years, using Gallup’s StrengthsFinder tool. Whitaker describes a strength as the combination of talent, skill and knowledge, which motivation can transform into world-class performance. In her words, given equal skills and knowledge, talent is what differentiates superior performance from the rest.

So what does Standard Chartered actually do differently to other organisations? Well StrengthsFinder wasn’t designed for recruitment purposes, but it can be used to ensure good role fit and that’s exactly what has contributed to Standard Chartered’s success.The essentials for a salesperson, for example, are good product knowledge and to be able to negotiate and close a deal. But if the salesperson has the additional talents of competitiveness and building rapport with customers, they can become a world-class performer. Not only does Standard Chartered look for specific skills and knowledge, they take innate talents into account too.

It has to be said that there are several definitions of a strength, and the one used here is based on Gallup’s research. The VIA-IS or CAPP definitions are different; as always you need to be clear what you are trying to measure.

Standard Chartered also focuses on building employee engagement, and like Royal & SunAlliance which we featured here, they take volunteering seriously, offering two days paid leave for staff to contribute to voluntary organisations.

What the Standard Chartered story shows is that focusing on strengths can make a big difference to the business and to the people who work there. And applying Positive Psychology at work shouldn’t be something you do in addition to everything else. Look at your existing people-related processes (e.g. recruitment, development, coaching, mentoring and so on) and see how a strengths-approach would make a positive contribution.

According to Debbie Whitaker, Standard Chartered’s Head of Sustainability, ‘everyone has talents that we wish to leverage’.

This is a bold statement, considering Standard Chartered is a bank with over 60,000 employees in 56 countries. Their reasons for focusing on talent are fourfold:

i) greater growth potential
ii) better people performance
iii) increased employee engagement and
iv) attracting and retaining talent.

Many big organisations are sceptical of applying Strengths at work, yet Standard Chartered’s experience shows that it can make sound business sense.

A strengths-based approach to management has been operating in the organisation for the past 7 years, using Gallup’s StrengthsFinder tool. Whitaker describes a strength as the combination of talent, skill and knowledge, which motivation can transform into world-class performance. In her words, given equal skills and knowledge, talent is what differentiates superior performance from the rest.

So what does Standard Chartered actually do differently to other organisations? Well StrengthsFinder wasn’t designed for recruitment purposes, but it can be used to ensure good role fit and that’s exactly what has contributed to Standard Chartered’s success.The essentials for a salesperson, for example, are good product knowledge and to be able to negotiate and close a deal. But if the salesperson has the additional talents of competitiveness and building rapport with customers, they can become a world-class performer. Not only does Standard Chartered look for specific skills and knowledge, they take innate talents into account too.

It has to be said that there are several definitions of a strength, and the one used here is based on Gallup’s research. The VIA-IS or CAPP definitions are different; as always you need to be clear what you are trying to measure.

Standard Chartered also focuses on building employee engagement, and like Royal & SunAlliance which we featured here, they take volunteering seriously, offering two days paid leave for staff to contribute to voluntary organisations.

What the Standard Chartered story shows is that focusing on strengths can make a big difference to the business and to the people who work there. And applying Positive Psychology at work shouldn’t be something you do in addition to everything else. Look at your existing people-related processes (e.g. recruitment, development, coaching, mentoring and so on) and see how a strengths-approach would make a positive contribution.

According to Debbie Whitaker, Standard Chartered’s Head of Sustainability, ‘everyone has talents that we wish to leverage’.

This is a bold statement, considering Standard Chartered is a bank with over 60,000 employees in 56 countries. Their reasons for focusing on talent are fourfold:

i) greater growth potential
ii) better people performance
iii) increased employee engagement and
iv) attracting and retaining talent.

Many big organisations are sceptical of applying Strengths at work, yet Standard Chartered’s experience shows that it can make sound business sense.

A strengths-based approach to management has been operating in the organisation for the past 7 years, using Gallup’s StrengthsFinder tool. Whitaker describes a strength as the combination of talent, skill and knowledge, which motivation can transform into world-class performance. In her words, given equal skills and knowledge, talent is what differentiates superior performance from the rest.

So what does Standard Chartered actually do differently to other organisations? Well StrengthsFinder wasn’t designed for recruitment purposes, but it can be used to ensure good role fit and that’s exactly what has contributed to Standard Chartered’s success.The essentials for a salesperson, for example, are good product knowledge and to be able to negotiate and close a deal. But if the salesperson has the additional talents of competitiveness and building rapport with customers, they can become a world-class performer. Not only does Standard Chartered look for specific skills and knowledge, they take innate talents into account too.

It has to be said that there are several definitions of a strength, and the one used here is based on Gallup’s research. The VIA-IS or CAPP definitions are different; as always you need to be clear what you are trying to measure.

Standard Chartered also focuses on building employee engagement, and like Royal & SunAlliance which we featured here, they take volunteering seriously, offering two days paid leave for staff to contribute to voluntary organisations.

What the Standard Chartered story shows is that focusing on strengths can make a big difference to the business and to the people who work there. And applying Positive Psychology at work shouldn’t be something you do in addition to everything else. Look at your existing people-related processes (e.g. recruitment, development, coaching, mentoring and so on) and see how a strengths-approach would make a positive contribution.

It has been suggested that the absence of employee well-being and/or the presence of stress is often caused by the conflict between the individual’s values and beliefs and those of the organisation or system that they work within – see Fr Dermot Tredget and Barbara Wren’s comments here.

If this is the case, it must be in the employer’s best interests to minimise the source of conflict by trying to align personal and organisational values.

Sometimes, this alignment can come from unexpected sources, and happen almost by chance. Take the Corporate Responsibility initiative launched by Paul Pritchard at Royal & SunAlliance last year.

You’ve probably come across many people who say that they are different people inside and outside the workplace – when they go to the office, they might put on a suit or a uniform (armour?), leave a large chunk of their personal life at the gate and behave in a way they think fits the corporate culture. An intriguing example appeared in a survey at R&SA, which revealed that employees’ have greener behaviour at home than they do at work (e.g. 94% switch off lights at home, whereas only 66% do so at work). Feedback suggested that employees would be greener at work if R&SA led by example.

As a result Pritchard set up project which resulted in R&SA going carbon neutral in December 2006 - in fact, it was the first UK insurer to achieve carbon neutral status. Employees were so impressed by this commitment to the environment that in the follow-up survey 63% said it changed their behaviour in the office. That’s a pretty substantial move towards aligning values I think.

The company then went one step further by reviewing its relationship with the charity sector and in particular, how it could get employees more involved. Rather than dictate which charity to support, the Senior Team decided to try a more novel approach, through a National Volunteering Week, where employees were encouraged to spend one day working for the charity or community organisation (e.g. school) of their choice.

Some 750 employees participated in the scheme, and as you’d probably expect, the vast majority (83%) said they volunteered because they wanted to benefit the charity or community organisation in some way; only 23% said it was because they themselves wanted to learn new skills.

What’s fascinating about this initiative is that after the day spent volunteering, 67% of the volunteers said they learnt new skills, and 100% said they wanted to do it again and would recommend it to their colleagues.

I don’t think that R&SA conducted any research into whether employees knowingly used their strengths on this day out, but the fact that they had a choice about what voluntary work to do suggests that they probably did. That looks like a win/win to me – not only do your employees do something aligned with their own values which is of benefit to others, they have the opportunity to use their strengths, they come back to work more enthusiastic and engaged, and with some new skills too. It’s a no-brainer isn’t it?

Congratulations to Paul Pritchard, his team and the volunteers at R&SA for such a positive contribution.