Here we are, lined up towards our workstations. Flippers and goggles remain in the summer photos leaving room for backpacks, PCs, meetings and school routine. Let’s put on the clothes of transformative workers, parents, athletes, passionate creative talents and viveurs again. In this carousel of duties, commitments and responsibilities, our professional identity often coincides with our personal one and the reason is simple: we spend a lot of time at work which outlines and enhances our personal effectiveness but above all it is (Spoiler Alert!) A TOOL for live and support ourselves.

In addition to healthy snacks and headphones, we carry in our backpack the biases of capitalist society according to which it is difficult to dissociate the concept of work from that of productivity and sacrifice to replace it with that of work-rest-greater efficiency. Yet this is one of the purposes of Trainect Wellbeing which could be imagined as courageous as the “Liberty leading the people” by Delacroix in spreading the psychology and culture of well-being; on this example, the international management consultancy firm Mckinsey & Company has provided a report on company costs, claiming how much a rested employee can perform better, also ironically stating that “he who sleeps catches fish and acquires leadership”. A gamble? Or a non-sighted vision of how rest, especially at work with flexible hours, can be the turning point for a decidedly healthier and more sustainable work life balance?

This is confirmed by data from the National Institute of Health, which has estimated that in Italy the sleep deficit causes companies to lose productivity by up to 5 billion euros per year, a percentage that corresponds to 0.5% of GDP.

So how can we redeem the culture of rest without being considered lazy? In a preventive and continuous manner: “make sure to rest, before you really need to”, working by priority, allowing employees to work from home, increasing breaks, trying to adopt solutions such as “power nap or nap room” to encourage rest, preferably between 1pm and 3pm and lasting between 20 and 30 minutes. In fact, it has been demonstrated that the power-nap can constitute a sort of energy booster, improving the activities of the right hemisphere and creativity.

As a counterbalance to this context, workaholism, the concept of life centred on work, burn out and consequently moving like drunken tightrope walkers between work, passions and duties creeps in, giving rise to multitasking stuntmen. This term derives from information technology, but we are not laptops, we do not work, we are not machines, we do not produce; intentionality, thinking, choosing, deciding is what characterises us. Working in “urgency” is a trap, an illusion, not everything can be urgent, not everything can be a priority. Prioritizing makes you more aware and improves efficiency, however, this is possible when there is an underlying culture of corporate well-being. The company is not a generic entity but a sum of individuals, therefore CEOs, owners and managers must apply the “People centre” lens. The true transformation will only happen by putting people and their needs at the centre, understanding the emotional resonance that the right work pace has in their lives.

Thus, we arrive at awareness and mea culpas: we are always ready to accept English neologisms to make any initiative more sophisticated and attractive, but let us prove ourselves equally welcoming towards those initiatives that might seem strange, but perhaps necessary, let us try to welcome “courageous” solutions which characterise leading companies such as Google, Zappos, Cisco, P&G. Let’s start with small businesses because inspiration from certain working archetypes makes all the difference in the world.

Let’s restore priorities: treating work as A TOOL to buy free time, working with and for people who have full knowledge of this truth is the new revolution of which Delacroix would make a banner and perhaps he would paint that Liberty that runs hastily more relaxed.

The English expression “Busy as a bee” is interesting. Honestly, bees have always been unpleasant to me, however I recognise them as the founders of teamwork, organisation and focus on goals. We borrow these principles from them, because good choral work makes us less busy but more present and active in our human ecosystem.

source
Marika Lupi