Learning Center

Seven months ago I lost my spouse of 52 years. My grieving process has been complicated by the isolation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.  The isolation has deprived me of the opportunity to talk face-to-face with people and hug friends which I dearly miss.  However, it has not deprived me of the ability to manage my behavior and emotions with ...

Workplaces are entering uncharted waters as they try to figure out how to protect both the health of their employees and their businesses in response to a looming worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Company responses thus far have include halting non-essential business travel, cancelling professional conferences, having more employees work from home, forming task forces, dusting off emergency response plans, ordering increasingly ...

It’s not a shocker to learn that a blog with a name like stress.health.business. (inaugurated in 2012) has featured more posts about stress than any other topic. However, you may be surprised to see how many different dimensions there are to the stress/productivity/health relationship. So, as we commence our 6th year of the blog, I have anthologized a diverse sampling ...

Next time you start feeling the unwelcome onset of stress and all of it’s debilitating symptoms, take a couple of deep cleansing breaths and apply some of the life saving techniques that astronauts have developed for staying calm in crisis situations. Astronauts have the most stressful, and dangerous, of occupations and their training is the gold standard for successfully managing ...

Work environments have an abundance of stressors, but having a boss who behaves badly may be the worst. The experience of being treated unfairly or rudely is always unpleasant, but when it comes at the hands of someone who has significant power over your income and career it can be devastating. The problem is often compounded by the well-meaning, but ...

People who have a persistent propensity to complain, find fault and judge others harshly can sap your energy and optimism if you are not careful. One of my EAP clients recently compared the effect of a colleague’s unrelenting negativity to a toxic cloud of second hand smoke: irritating, suffocating, and pervasive. It got me thinking about how challenging it can ...

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) provide organizations and their employees an array of  counseling and supportive services to address the negative effects of workplace stress. This is an extremely important mission, and EAPs are uniquely positioned to deliver on it, but I think we should be doing even more. We should be going beyond simply repairing the damage caused by organizational ...

“Anger impedes our ability to be happy, because anger and happiness are incompatible” -Unknown Anger is a combustible emotion which leaves a trail of regret in its wake. The inappropriate expression of anger can destroy a marriage or a career. Unexpressed anger, on the other hand, leads to a different, but equally toxic, set of problems. It can fester and ...

The next time I present a training program for supervisors about using the EAP to help manage performance, I will be referencing a news story that was reported a couple of weeks ago in the Detroit area media. The story focuses on a letter Carolyn Moceri, the City Treasurer of Warren, Michigan wrote to the Director of Human Resources requesting ...

Organizations face daunting challenges when it comes to effectively managing employees whose personal problems begin to interfere with their work performance. Just ask the city of Toronto. The headlines concerning Rob Ford, Toronto’s embattled mayor, have progressed from sensational to almost unprintable in just a matter of days. We have been deluged by a steady media stream of Mr. Ford’s ...

In my role as an EAP consultant I have a front row seat for observing the damaging effects of workplace conflict on individuals and organizations. Destructive conflicts should not be confused with the constructive process of conflict that often propels creativity and innovation. Constructive conflict is based on a spirited competition of ideas and strategies and aims to improve the ...

When conflict becomes mean spirited and starts including personal attacks, group morale can quickly move to the dark side, the bane of every manager.  Recently I was asked to help two employees resolve a conflict that was having a negative impact on everyone around them.  Routine tasks were still getting done but the tension in the group cast a long ...

In an age where we all can be broadcasters and publishers and personal brands and some of us have hundreds or thousands of friends and followers, the idea of humility may seem a bit quaint and dated. However, in an age of always on, always connected and need it a millisecond faster, humility can be a powerful antidote to the ...

At around 9 am this past Friday (8/24) Jeffrey Johnson shot and killed his former coworker, Steven Ercolino, at the Hazan Import Co. in New York City. Minutes later the police shot and killed Mr. Johnson as he was attempting to leave the scene. Mr. Johnson, 58 years old, was laid off last year from his position as a clothing ...