Graeme Cowan, Author at Graeme Cowan

Survey: 4 Greatest concerns transitioning ‘back to the office’?

In a webinar that I presented last week, I asked people to answer this question when they registered: ‘What are you most concerned about in transitioning back to the office?’ The 116 employees from 15 industries answered with one sentence. From these 116 sentences we formed a WordCloud to find out the main concerns. As […]

5 One on One Questions for Managers to Support Remote Staff

In a recent webinar I presented, 71% of managers said the most challenging part of the Covid-19 crisis, was not REALLY knowing how their employees are going at home. When pressed further, one person commented that although they saw their people via Zoom most days, they had no idea what was going on beyond this. […]

Covid 19: 7 mental health hacks if you’re working from home

The pandemic is creating significant stress for many people. A number of employees are going to be working from home full time for the first time. Whilst this can sound attractive – it can also freak some people out. They will be asking questions like: How do get anything done at home with the distractions? […]

Covid 19: 4 daily connection questions to ask a remote team

Loneliness is a greater well being threat than the virus for the vast majority of your team. A good mate of mine, Bernie Orenstein, has been leading a remote group of developers in the Philippines. He has built great engagement by having a 10 minute ‘stand up’ Zoom meeting at the start of each day. […]

How to Build an R U OK?365 Culture

R U OK?365 is about always being ready to have authentic and genuine conversations to help others. BUILDING A MENTALLY HEALTHY CULTURE CHECKLIST – DOWNLOAD HERE These conversations can change lives, teams and workplaces. And there’s incredible advantages in having that culture in any organization. The CSIRO has already identified that rising work stress, and […]

3 Questions Future-Ready Leaders Ask

A future ready leader asks themselves these three questions about their team all the time. Question number 1 is, do we feel connected? Question number 2 is, do we have a shared future? And question number 3 is, do we feel safe? Now the reasons behind these questions are incredibly important for high team […]

R U OK?365 – why everyone should follow the Navy’s example

When Gavin Larkin first planned R U OK? Day, our mission was never just about one day of the year. The one day did provide a point of focus, and it has served us well. We will always have one day that we celebrate, but it is not enough. R U OK?’s reach and impact […]

Burnout is not about you, it’s about us

To pretend that mental health issues are solely due to an employee’s inability to cope, is like pretending that our bushfire crisis has nothing to do with global warming. If we pretend that global warming is not happening and don’t address the root causes, our bushfire issues are likely to intensify. Likewise, with employee […]

Bushfires, mental health, and selfcare – some useful resources

I had a heartbreaking phone call on Monday. A really caring and community-minded woman from the NSW South Coast explained why things were so desperate. In her town, there were still 420 people living in an evacuation centre. Many were dairy farmers who had lost their houses, were without electricity, and many of their cows […]

How to have fierce mental health conversations at work

What do you think of when you hear the word fierce? Fierce can sound savage and aggressive, but in Roget’s Thesaurus, it reveals the following synonyms: robust, intense, powerful, passionate, eager, unbridled, and untamed. I’m really fortunate to have a mentor who is a very successful CEO of an 8000-employee organisation. When we recently met, […]