You may have been told you're "just a really nice person". You're the one who says yes before checking your diary. Who apologises when someone else bumps into you. Who can sense a change in someone's mood from across the room and has already started adjusting before anyone has said a word. People describe this as kindness, and sometimes it is. But if saying no makes your stomach drop, if you rehearse messages for an hour to make sure they won't upset anyone, or if you feel st

Every organisation has one. The person who just gets it done. They reply quickly, they remember the thing from the meeting three weeks ago, they pick up what falls between the cracks and they never make a fuss about it. Managers love this person. Colleagues love this person. Frankly, the whole team would struggle to function without this person. Which is exactly why I'd be a little worried about them. One woman that comes to my mind as I write this blog was an operations mana

There is a particular kind of workplace message that always makes me pause. Please remember to prioritise your wellbeing. It usually arrives with good intentions. Sometimes there’s a reminder about the EAP, perhaps a link to a wellbeing resource, an encouragement to take proper breaks and switch off at the end of the day. Then you look at the reality of the working culture. People eat lunch at their desks. Senior leaders send emails late into the evening. Someone who leaves o

They meet their deadlines. Their work is good. They rarely complain. They might be the person who always volunteers, stays late when something needs finishing, remembers the detail everyone else missed and somehow manages to pull things out of the bag when the pressure is on. So why would you be worried about them? Because sometimes the employee who appears to be coping exceptionally well is using an exceptional amount of energy to make it look that way. This is something I t

Resilience is one of those words that's almost impossible to argue with. Of course we want to be resilient. We want to be able to cope when life gets difficult, recover after setbacks and keep going when things don't quite work out as planned. The problem is that resilience has also become something of a workplace cure-all. If employees are exhausted, overwhelmed or struggling, the response is often to help them become more resilient: perhaps a wellbeing webinar, some mindful