Grow your own women
It is expensive to recruit and then lose women to your competitors. How do you ensure they stay and rise through the ranks, effectively balancing your gender profile as they go? If you don’t truly understand why they leave, nothing changes. If you don’t have a plan...The ladder of workable New Year resolutions
Averil and Connie discuss sensible approaches to New Year resolutions using (properly researched) positive psychology and other behavioural techniques. From morning coffee, to Duolingo, to the ladder with an infinite number of steps… Broadcast on Hogmanay. The...Men as Change Agents – of course…
‘MACA’, a new government board, has met for the first time to tackle inequality in the workplace by promoting diversity and inclusion in business. We have been saying for years that “you can’t walk into a room full of successful men and just...
Optimism and life expectancy – are they linked?
The latest research confirms that optimism plays a big part in extending life expectancy. As an expert in Positive Psychology and author of Positive Psychology for Dummies, Averil spent Tuesday taking part in a range of Radio and TV...
Do you have to work with someone you dislike or even hate?
… that’s what BBC radio asked me to talk about. Here’s a snippet of the programme. Key points: Develop some emotional literacy. Check the emotions are accurate – hate ? Really? What exactly are you feeling?Calibrate the feelings on a scale of mildly miffed to...
Looking busy at work
Business school researchers have identified a type of employee, who manages to look busy and successful without actually doing anything useful. You know the one, who talks a big talk at meetings but when it comes to implementation, they are nowhere to be seen. Turns...
Stressing the obvious
In Mental Health Week, we were yet again lamenting the levels of stress, rampant in the UK. The loss to individuals of quality of life, to businesses of skilled talent, through poor functioning presenteeism, or sickness absence and to our economy as a whole, is...
Don’t stand so close to me…
No, not the song by The Police, but the joys of commuting. Averil looks at the psychology of being squashed in a light hearted way on BBC Radio Scotland.
Women in the press . . .
Only last week I brought to the office an article written in the ‘80s about serious work with stressed execs in the public sector. My colleague and I were referred to as ‘executive sweets’. How attractive we were mattered more than our professionalism. The editor of...
Bringing in the bacon and bringing up baby
I answered the home phone and was asked if the caller could speak to the main breadwinner. I expressed some irritation and declined the conversation. Partly I wasn’t entirely sure who was and I certainly wasn’t content to hand over to my husband, if I worked it out to...