The Executive's Guide to Summertime Self-Care & Creativity

Why should executives prioritize spending time outdoors during the workday?

Spending intentional time outdoors during the workday drastically increases Vitamin D, reduces baseline anxiety, and according to Stanford research, boosts creative problem-solving by up to 60%. Leaders should immediately begin replacing non-essential video calls with outdoor audio-only meetings.

We’re heading towards summertime, which means barbeques, family vacations, and hopefully special moments with loved ones. Now that summertime is approaching, it’s time to enjoy the sunshine and get outside with intention.

Here are four reasons why it’s important.

- We need our Vitamin D. It’s easy, especially for those of us working from home, to stay inside all day. It is important to get outside every day for our Vitamin D intake. Vitamin D helps regulate the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body, which are needed to keep bones, teeth, and muscles healthy.

Recommendation: One of the best ways to get Vitamin D is to be out in the sunshine. If you can spend even 10 or 15 minutes per day outside in the sun, you'll get that Vitamin D intake and you'll feel so much better. Just don’t forget your sunscreen!

- While you’re getting Vitamin D, you might notice that you feel more creative by being outside. Have you ever been out in nature when an idea suddenly popped in your brain? There's a study by Stanford University that says that walking can help increase creativity by up to 60 percent!

Recommendation: As public relations professionals, we are constantly brainstorming new ideas. Next time you need to get creative around strategic planning or writing new story angles, get outside with a pen and notebook that fits in your pocket, get moving, and those juices flowing.

- Being outside can reduce stress and anxiety. Spending time around trees and nature helps reduce my stress, makes me feel less anxious, and ultimately puts me in a better mood. There’s research behind this as well!

Recommendation: This summer, identify parks, forests, or greenspaces that you can access within minutes so you can take a call or spend a well-earned break by yourself. Not near a park? Find a nursery or garden center close by. You will thank me later!

- Finally, new research from Microsoft titled “Research Proves Your Brain Needs Breaks” has shown that joining fewer back-to-back video meetings can have a positive impact on your stress levels. This means that for every meeting you have on video, the following should be audio-only. And what better way to conduct such a meeting than by being outside!

Recommendation: Every week, look ahead to your series of meetings. Identify those meetings that are on video and turn as many meetings as possible to audio-only. Also, schedule short breaks to reduce as many back-to-back meetings as possible. Do it not just for yourself but for your participants as well.

Designing Your Personal Wellness Crisis Plan

How can executives maintain their health routines during a crisis?

To maintain their health routines during unpredictable crises, executives must proactively design a "Plan B" wellness protocol. By anticipating disruptions and pre-determining alternative micro-habits—such as a 10-minute walk instead of a canceled fitness class—leaders can protect their physical resilience without succumbing to frustration.

As public relations professionals, we train for managing a crisis. As we have lived through COVID, I have witnessed you lead in communicating timely, accurate, and essential information to the public, and that information has saved people’s lives. Thank you for all you have done, and we are continuing to do so during this time.

As we witness vaccination rates increasing through the spring and summer, it’s time to turn our attention to ourselves. Because we have been spending so much of our mental and physical strength writing, rewriting, and executing crisis plans for our clients and our organizations, it’s time to focus on our well-being.

How? Let’s start with applying techniques we already use when writing crisis plans for others and apply those to ourselves. Let’s design our wellness crisis plan.

Why do you need a personal crisis plan? Think back to the times you told yourself you wanted to go on a run or a hike or make time eating healthier meals, and for whatever reason, it just didn’t happen. It could be because you received an urgent call about a work crisis, or you spent that time with your children to help with homework, you felt sick, or something else got in your way to not allow you to do something that was going to better yourself mentally and physically

Especially in the COVID era, we have managed many obligations in our personal and professional lives. I want to empower us to take the know-how that we have in developing crisis plans for organizations and know how to apply those same theories for ourselves.

Because much like work crises, how we respond to the situation is more critical to the problem itself, so here are three things to think about when designing your crisis wellness plan.

Prepare for the worst. Are you looking forward to that exercise class or healthy meal you’re making time to prepare? I want you to think about various scenarios in which you might get held up from following through. What is going to get in your way?

Anticipate how you’ll react. Next, I want you to write down how you might respond when you can’t make it to that class or create that meal. Are you going to feel frustrated or upset? Will you feel like you have ruined your day? Or will you be prepared to say, “that’s OK,” and give yourself some grace. If you can prepare for disappointment or frustration now, you will be better prepared to deal with it when it happens.

Design your Plan B. Finally, I want you to write down what you’re going to do when you can’t do what you originally intended. For instance, if you are planning to go to yoga this evening and either the class was canceled, or you had a last-minute personal or professional conflict come up that impacted your ability to attend that class, what are you going to do instead? You can tell yourself, “that’s OK. I’m going to take the next one” or, “OK, I’m going to go walk around the neighborhood without my phone and take in some fresh air,” or “OK, I’m going to set my alarm early tomorrow morning and attend the next class available.”

Like the crisis plans we write for our organizations, thinking about our wellness plans in advance will set us up for success when things don’t go our way.

Why Every High-Performing Team Needs a Workplace Wellness Charter

How can managers set healthy work boundaries for their teams?

To prevent endemic burnout, managers must collaborate with their employees to document a concise Workplace Wellness Charter. This structural document explicitly defines core working hours, establishes communication boundaries, and details exactly how the team cross-covers for each other during paid time off.

I love springtime. After a long winter, it’s a welcome to bring on the fresh smells, crisp rain, bright flowers, and a renewed enthusiasm.

It’s also a great time to look at a special kind of plan I want you to consider developing.

I was recently chatting with a communications director for a global company. They’re building a brand-new team and asked for my thoughts on best practices to keep up team morale. They’re concerned about their team burning out, and they want to do what they can to ensure they are showing their team that they are prioritizing their wellbeing.

I recommended to them, and you, to develop a workplace wellness charter.

No matter if you’re a team of one or a team of 10, you need a set of norms that help set boundaries around work expectations. Such a charter is a short document and should be no more than one page.

Some of you might be thinking, “Mark, you’re crazy. There’s no way I can set guardrails around my work. I’m needed 24/7!”

I disagree. I’m challenging you to establish agreed-upon expectations with your teams. Getting buy-in from your teams will show leadership, demonstrate that you care about their wellbeing, and ultimately could see a reduction in employee turnover which will positively impact your firm, consultancy, or company.

Things that should be included in such a charter include:

A clear definition of “work hours.”

When I started my career, I received permission from my manager to work from 7:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Pacific Time, so I could contact media on the east coast before their deadlines and beat the afternoon traffic when commuting home.

What are the “core” business hours of your company? When should your team be expected to be available? Is it 9:00-11:00 a.m. and 1:00-4:00 p.m., for example, and other times are flexible so team members can make personal arrangements to go to the doctor, pick up their children from school, and eat lunch? What are the expectations for working on nights and weekends? Our profession isn’t 9-5, but I’ve witnessed a lot of people burn out because they believe they’re supposed to be available all day, every day. Is that truly the case? Discuss this with your team.

Establishing your core business days.

I have written and spoken in the past about how we as public relations professionals are not taking our paid time off. Set guidelines that empower you and your teams to take time off.

This isn’t just for in-house and agency teams. Consultants: consider including your bill of working rights with your clients.

During an event recently with the PRSA Independent Practitioners Alliance, one member said that they write in their contracts with clients that they will not work between Christmas and the New Year. I love that idea!

An actionable back-up plan.

How is your team ensuring that their established schedules and boundaries will be respected? How is your team cross-trained and equipped to effectively back each other up when taking much deserved time off? How does your team know that their manager will go to bat to ensure time off and boundaries are being respected outside of the team? Make sure there is time scheduled on a routine basis to ensure your team is prepared to cover, not just in the case of emergency, but also so your team can take a guilt-free and well-deserved vacation!

A defined purpose for scheduling and running meetings.

We are in too many meetings. Many of them are essential, however too many are nonessential or poorly run. What is your team’s decision process for scheduling, deciding who attends, their role, and preparing them for a successful, strategic, and actionable meeting? Documenting that for your team will go a long way to helping your colleagues reduce burnout.

Use this charter when onboarding new team members and in the interview process. Are you interviewing prospective candidates? Show them you are thinking about their wellbeing from day one by showing them this charter.

Finally, I’m not asking you to become an HR manager and set formal policies. Make sure that anything that is set up is per your company’s HR policies. All this said, having a plan in place will improve morale and set yourself and your team up for personal and professional success.

Have a wonderful March and the start of your spring.

Why Internal Communicators Are the Key to Wellness Benefit ROI

How can internal communications reduce employee turnover?

55% of employees have left jobs for better wellness benefits, yet nearly half don't understand the perks their current employer offers. Internal communicators can drastically reduce turnover by partnering directly with HR to drive awareness, pilot wellness programs, and visibly model the usage of corporate benefits.

Internal communicators, my dear friends, we need you now more than ever to lead the discussion on the importance of your employees staying mentally and physically resilient.

Why? It’s inherently tied to dollars and cents, and in an industry in which we public relations professionals are constantly evolving our key performance indicators, a surefire way to show your value is to demonstrate how your role can positively impact business results. But how? Through playing an active role in partnering with your HR team on improving awareness of and activating the use of corporate wellness benefits.

According to a survey by Randstad:

42 percent of employees say they are considering leaving their current jobs because their benefits packages are inadequate.

55 percent have left jobs in the past because they found better benefits or perks elsewhere.

94 percent want their employers to ensure the benefits offered have a meaningful impact on their quality of life.

48 percent of employees report knowing all the perks their employers offer, and only 40 percent say their employers help them understand the available benefits.

My primary takeaway from this survey: Americans have a long way to go to activate the corporate benefits offered by companies. How does this impact the bottom line? According to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), it costs on average more than $4,000 to hire a new employee. And that’s not just a hard cost. Other time-intensive resources are spent by HR teams recruiting and onboarding.

If you as internal communications experts can act as a great partner to your HR teams, it can mean a real difference on the bottom line and subsequently your impact on the organization.

Remember, you are an employee also: You are in a unique position to use your employee experience to solve employee problems.

Here are three ways to lean in and partner with your HR team to improve awareness and activation of wellness benefits.

Audit your activity and lead by example. Ask yourself: are you taking advantage of your corporate wellness benefits? One of the best ways to build rapport with your HR teams is to show them that you are supporting the resources and benefits that they have worked hard to secure for their employees. Whether it’s a mobile application with meditation exercises or stipends for gym memberships or at-home exercise equipment, learn about the benefits offered by the company, use them, and report back to HR your experience.

Pilot, test, and iterate. Are you aware of a particular department of your company with extremely high turnover and/or stress and burnout challenges? Offer to partner with HR to run a pilot program that involves increasing awareness of (and subsequently, activating) your corporate wellness benefits to test proof of concept.

Demonstrate your results. Was the amount of turnover of your organization reduced? Were more employees using wellness benefits year over year? Don’t be shy when touting your efforts by playing a critical role in communicating with employees. This doesn’t mean superseding the smart and hard work of your HR department; it’s about elevating your role in impacting business results.

Working with your HR teams will have a win-win. It will show your value, it will show the HR teams that you want to help amplify the work they are doing, and ultimately help you and your fellow employees illustrate that your companies truly value their wellbeing.

For internal communicators, this is your time to shine! Your relationships within your organization and your skills are never more important than they are today! Thank you for all that you’re doing.

How to Protect Your Team's Well-Being During Daylight Saving Time

Does Daylight Saving Time affect employee productivity?

Yes. The "Spring Forward" time change disrupts sleep patterns and significantly lowers life satisfaction for weeks. Leaders can mitigate this productivity loss by actively encouraging teams to wake up incrementally earlier leading up to the change and establishing clear "home network only" boundaries in the evening to optimize sleep.

Happy (almost) Spring 2021. Time for flowers to start blooming and excitement for warmer and sunnier mornings ahead. While we are working through COVID, as professionals we still have the opportunity to lead by example and show up with confidence. One way to do so is to mentally and physically prepare for the upcoming time change. For a majority of Americans, Sunday, March 14 will be the start of Daylight Saving Time (DST). A time change can impact us mentally and physically for several days or weeks. Research suggests that “individuals in both the UK and Germany experience deteriorations in life satisfaction in the first week after the spring transition.” I am here to help you prepare for this change and implement techniques to make this experience more positive. Here are three things you can do for yourself – and suggest to your teams - starting today to prepare for this change and ultimately “Spring Forward.” Shift your mindset: Typically, we get sad or stressed about “losing” an hour when we “Spring Forward.” I want us to reframe our thinking. We are not “losing an hour” as a result of the spring clock adjustment. We are “adjusting an hour.” There are still 24 hours per day ahead of you. Waking up at your “normal” time on Sunday, March 14 is critical to having a successful sleep pattern to get you through the week. - Recommendation: Schedule something today that you can look forward to participating in on the morning of Sunday, March 14. Make time to get outside and exercise, visit with friends (physically distant, obviously), or schedule a springtime photoshoot with your family. Stay away from phone and computer screens as much as possible; if you must work on the weekend, spend that work time on Saturday, March 13 instead. Encourage your colleagues and teams to do the same. Make small changes week over week: Making habits permanent doesn’t happen overnight. When I started my 150-pound weight loss journey in 2007, I started examining my breakfast and my breakfast only. The same approach works with how we can thrive during a time change. Start slow and with purpose. - Recommendation: Over the next few weeks leading up to the start of DST set your alarm to wake up five minutes earlier. If you typically wake up at 6:00 a.m., set your alarm to 5:55 a.m., the next week at 5:50 a.m., and so on until you wake up 15-20 minutes earlier. Spend that extra time on YOU. Read, meditate, journal, exercise, or get another kind of a quick, early “win” that can set your day off right. Create your “home network only” time every evening: Studies show that time on our smartphones late at night has negative effects on our sleep patterns and daytime productivity. Focusing exclusively on your immediate home network – your family - in the evening can help you sleep better at night and feel more refreshed in the morning. Trust me, your social networks and all your notifications will still be there in the morning! - Recommendation: Set a reminder on your phone every evening that starts your “home network only” time. No more email or scrolling social media endlessly every evening! Please take these recommendations to heart so you can start the next few months of the year on the right foot. Have a wonderful start to the spring, everyone. Be safe. Be kind. Be well.