What we can learn from the recent election?
There was no change of the government this weekend.
If you were team blue, that is good news. If you were team any other colour, that is not good news.
What has this got to do with office massages? Well, quite a lot actually.
We learned that Australia wasn’t ready for our 11th different PM in as many years.
Sometimes, the pace of change is too much for people: and they vote “no change”.
That is what happened this weekend.
Change Fatigue
Australia is a country that just voted ‘no change’. This may be due to the phenomenon known as Change Fatigue.
Change fatigue is a condition characterised by lingering mental and physical tiredness associated with organisational change. The sufferer feels neither excitement nor optimism about the change. Change fatigue is increasingly prevalent and it’s a cause of much unhappiness, unnecessary stress and productivity loss. It’s commonly caused by ineffective leadership and poor management of organisational change. Of most significance to professionals and managers is that it is entirely avoidable.
For more read here.
Many workplaces are change fatigued.
3 Minute Angels goes into the workplaces that care enough to provide regular massages for their staff. This indicates that these organisations already see the benefit of workplace incentives.
Or put another way, these organisations are aware of the stresses staff are under and are prepared to do something to assist.
This stress is not always work-related. On top of work-related changes, the environment is changing, technology is changing and everything feels like it’s getting faster and faster.
Fighting Fatigue Is The Wrong Metaphor
Change Fatigue can’t be battled, fought for, waged against or some other metaphor for taking head-on.
You don’t beat Change Fatigue with more change. You beat it with relaxation, better mental head space and taking people out of the stress response.
You have to allow space for people to lift their mood from below-average before you can then expect them to cope with change.
The correct metaphor should be lifting fatigue.