I was happy to be invited to contribute to Jody’s podcast, around vulnerability in shielding. There are three to listen to before today’s episode (on vulnerability, resilience and weakness), in which Jody and I both share thoughts and reflections on ‘wellbeing’. Can you be both sick and well? Many chronic illnesses (including cancer) are invisible, so we miss what many others are dealing with. Just 15 short minutes here:
Yesterday I attended (part of) the MPA Thrive event, which was a really interesting collection of talks about understanding business (and individual) brand, values and culture, in order to seek to develop businesses which have a strong working culture, which benefits staff – and therefore benefits the business. Thanks to Manchester Met for providing some of us some tickets. I collected the tweets here:
I’m pleased to have been invited to join Manchester Metropolitan University’s new Centre for Decent Work and Productivity:
Work that is both decent for workers and productive for organisations, is vital to the success of any good society. Our research centre builds knowledge about the relationship between work quality and performance, and how these can be aligned.
We tackle the key question: “What is, and what causes, decent work and productivity?” through our four knowledge platforms. The knowledge platforms also address the seven challenges, which we believe decent work and productivity face.
The Changing Nature of Work
Workplace Wellbeing
Vulnerable Workers in Employment and Self-Employment
Creating Greater Diversity and Social Mobility in the Workplace
Generating Decent and Productive Work in Small Enterprises
Designing Decent and Productive Work in Health and Social Care
Using Knowledge to Generate Decent Work and Productivity For All
My primary affiliation is with Work and Working Lives: ‘This platform is interested in managing people, worker voice, wellbeing at work, pay and reward, and regulation of work’, related to wellbeing at work in a digital age. I have a secondary affiliation with the Sylvia Pankhurst Gender and Diversity Research Centre: ‘This platform is interested in gender, sexuality, black and minoritised ethnic workers, age, class and caste’, especially related to women in leadership.
Back in July, I found my first #BeeintheCity, outside work (Manchester Metropolitan University):
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Well. I remembered to come and look at my first #beeinthecity ‘To Bee or not to Bee ?’
I remember once finding a few ‘eggs’ in London, a handful of Lambdas in Liverpool, and something else in Norwich a few years ago, but have never had the opportunity to be somewhere where I could go and find ‘all’ of a collection, but this was possible with Manchester’s Bee in the City, created by Wild in Art.
I’m not sure if I hadn’t been looking for free/gentle exercise post-cancer that I would have sought to find all the bees (and even then, I wasn’t necessarily expecting to finish), but it was a nice way to go and find new parts of the city (although some bees were surprisingly challenging to find). I’m afraid I binned my ‘plan out’ paper map as it got soaked, but the map is nicely set out so you can zone out particular areas – outside and inside the city:
Some excursions I only found one or two, other times – like walking through town for a meeting in the Northern Quarter, meant I was able to ‘collect’ several on the way through. When you find a bee, you can check into the app, and ‘unlock’ a bee (using the 4 digit number on the base of each bee):
One of the earlier ones I caught was the ‘augmented reality bee’ (see second photo):
There have been quite a lot of other events around the bees themselves, and it’s been really intriguing watching what has essentially been the gamification of exploring Manchester, and encouraging walking, using the joy of sharing the findings on social media! I could watch the number of bees I’d collected on the app:
The app was largely good, although it had a habit of checking you in when you clicked on a bee to see more about it, and hadn’t actually seen it, and also the map didn’t autolocate to where you were (which is something we’re used to with Google maps).
You’ll see that there were also rewards when you completed certain bees, or certain collections of bees. I wasn’t paying much attention, but the free swim at the Aquatics centre alone would more than pay for the £1.99 paid for the app (of which 50p went to charity anyway). There were other aspects of the app that I didn’t really use, including the ‘Steps’ function (as my phone does that anyway, and I often had Pokemon running whilst walking anyway).
So, Saturday, I finished finding all the bees, with help from my friend Erika, who’d already found quite a few of them, so it was less exploring, and more counting them off, but I enjoyed seeing some new bits of Manchester!
I was however, pretty good for nothing the next day, as I totally broke my ‘steps’ record since chemotherapy (most had been about 15/16k steps!):
So, for now it’s back to the Pokemon, and likely joining the PARiS scheme to build up my fitness and mental well being again!
Read more about them on Manchester Evening News, including how the artists and sites were chosen. The bees are in place until 23 September 2018, and will then be auctioned off.
Today, I was on a panel at The Big Social Conference 2018, on behalf of Manchester Metropolitan University:
The impact of social media in the workplace: creating healthy digital habits
Social media in business is no longer a novelty, it’s a necessary means of communication; to set tasks, promote company profile and build relationships. However, while it can certainly be an advantage to a company’s marketing efforts, social media use can also open the door to numerous risks when not diligently managed. Within this panel discussion our expert speakers will be discussing the pros and cons of social media for business and how to create a good social media policy in the workplace that will benefit your company and employees.
The questions we were asked to think about (based on suggestions I/other panellists made) were (and my thinking notes):
I’ve got a book chapter coming out in the Autumn, from which I share a short extract:
Challenges in the Workplace
The ubiquitous nature of digital has also raised new questions for both employers and employees, requiring a redrawing of boundaries. A 2015 survey highlighted that 87% of people check work email outside of work, and 50% check it on vacation;[1] few countries have gone as far as France in 2016, which introduced a ‘right to disconnect’ law, enabling employees in larger companies to fully relax in their time off. [2] There is also the question of employees accessing the internet for personal reasons during work time. This could be either on their work machine, in which case the employer is entitled to monitor usage,[3] or on personal mobile devices, either of which could have a profound effect on productivity, especially if someone is spending excessive time internet shopping or dealing with family issues. For any employees engaging in gambling or accessing pornography at work, there may be bigger questions that human resources departments need to deal with, including addiction and financial concerns. There are also questions as to the kind of content that employees are posting online, including publically expressing grievances.[4] Companies need to develop responsive and flexible policies on the use of digital tools at work, and make these clear to employees. The use of social media could be banned altogether, but this fails to recognise that social media is a legitimate communication tool for some, or that work-life balance is important for staff morale, especially when staff are putting in hours over and above what they are paid for. ACAS suggests that it can be helpful to set guidelines on ‘reasonable use’, in consultation with any unions, to make expectations clear, and in a way that is seen as fair.[5]
So far we have looked at questions that have a legal aspect, but there are also questions of etiquette, and one that concerns many is the use of laptops, tablets or mobile phones during face-to-face meetings. This is also a question that has occupied those within higher education. Taneja, Fiore and Fischer summarised how digital technologies have become ‘necessary to do the work at hand’ and that laptops have been ‘found to improve students’ attentiveness and engagement in class’, although it is also possible that this can lead to people undertaking off-topic tasks.[6] In 2015, Lewis considered the use of computers within the classroom in an annual media-literacy training course:
In the early years of MediaLit, some delegates found the continuous presence of laptops within the classroom overwhelming, although the increasing use of mobile devices has made the ‘barrier’ laptop lids less problematic. Over time, the presence of technology has become more normative, although conversations continued to arise as to what technology was bringing to, or taking away from, the classroom experience. Taneja, Fiore & Fischer (2015) noted that students look to others within their group to understand ‘acceptable behaviour’. If social pressures to engage with material unrelated to the course are strong, students are more likely to ‘cyber-slack’.[7]
A lot of educationalists and pastors have accepted that, if the content is engaging enough, people will engage. That engagement, however, may include looking up related content online, sharing material, or the digital equivalent of doodling. For those who don’t understand what others are doing, this can appear as disrespectful or distracting, leading to frustration. This may require conversation, being prepared to explain what one is engaging with, or not jumping to conclusions as to what others are doing. People learn and engage in a range of ways, sometimes in ways that can be seen as multitasking, of which we can define two types:
- Constructive: having Instant Messenger, music or search open, which contributes to something the user is working on;
- Distractive: watching TV on demand, videos, or playing games, which pulls users away from the current focus.[8]
It is appropriate to have conversations about expectations for meetings, and, at times, to indicate that the content requires engagement without a digital presence, or reassurance that the meeting’s purpose is being respected by participants.
[1] Reaney, P. (2016). ‘U.S. Workers Spend 6.3 Hours A Day Checking Email: Survey’. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/check-work-email-hours-survey_us_55ddd168e4b0a40aa3ace672
[2] Ruiz, M. (2016). ‘The French Girl’s Guide to Not Checking Your Work Email’. Retrieved from:
http://www.vogue.com/13440376/france-work-email-banned-on-weekends/
[3] Citizens Advice Bureau. (2016). ‘Monitoring at work’. Retrieved from: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/rights-at-work/basic-rights-and-contracts/monitoring-at-work/
[4] ACAS. (2016). ‘Social media, discipline and grievances’. Retrieved from: http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=3378
[5] ACAS. (2016). ‘Social media and managing performance’. Retrieved from: http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=3376
[6] Taneja, A., Fiore, V. and Fischer, B. (2015). Cyber-slacking in the classroom: Potential for digital distraction in the new age. Computers and Education 82: 141–51.
[7] Lewis, B. (2015). ‘MediaLit: Engaging Faith and Media in a Digital Age’. Retrieved from:https://www.academia.edu/13281147/MediaLit_Engaging_Faith_and_Media_in_a_Digital_Age
[8] Lewis, B. (2014). Raising Children in a Digital Age: Enjoying the Best, Avoiding the Worst, p. 170.