We’re coming to the end of a year that has changed the way we work, view the world and go about our lives. We wanted to firstly say thank you – we’re grateful for the opportunity to work with you and your people. We’re also grateful for you helping us continue to fulfil our social purpose and provide meaningful, life-changing support to vulnerable children and families, particularly at this time of the year.

We can all acknowledge it’s been a tough year. The holiday period has its own challenges for many people even in the best of times, let’s be even more mindful this year. This week we turn our spotlight to managing expectations during the festive season, as this is an important part of self-care. We've created two new tools for you, Self-care is for leaders too and Managing Festive Expectations. Find our wide range of Leader Tools and Personal Tools, in the Employer and Employee Login Areas of our website.

We would also like to share with you the power of giving, especially at this time of the year when people less fortunate than ourselves often do it tougher than usual. Our social purpose is to support programs to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families. Over the past year, the primary beneficiary of our charitable giving was the H.O.P.E. Foundation. Please watch these short videos to learn more about this amazing program through the stories of the young mums who have changed their lives and the lives of their children.

Watch the stories of brave new mums who have come through the H.O.P.E. Program.

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Published in ABC News 15th December 2020

At AccessEAP, our vision is for each person to be their best at life and work. It’s important to us, and we have developed a program of works to ensure we can support this vision by working with you and your people. This includes empowering our people, connecting with people and excellence in all we do. These strategic themes guide our pathway for innovation and bring innovation to life for us every day.

We partner with you to create mentally healthy and thriving workplaces and communities. Our latest wellbeing innovations directly support our vision and mission by allowing us to strengthen our partnership with you and connect directly to you and your people wherever they may be.

I am very excited to announce the launch of our new app AccessMyEAP, alongside our online Booking Portal and AccessChat instant messaging service.

This trio of online services put you and your people in control of your wellbeing journey.

AccessMyEAP app

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AccessEAP wishes you all the best for the Festive Season. We appreciate the opportunity to work with you and look forward to a brighter 2021. We would like to thank you for continuing your partnership with us. Through supporting your people through this challenging year, you have helped make the lives of more than just your people a little easier.

For more information about the H.O.P.E. Program, supporting vulnerable children & families, see here.

Please be assured our counselling and onsite services are available 24/7, 365 days a year however our other business functions observe the Australian public holidays and a short break from 25th December to 8th January 2021.

COVID-19 continues to surprise us with how quickly things can change. Last week, our government leaders were talking about bringing down all interstate travel restrictions in time for Christmas. Now, as Melbourne emerges from their extended physical distancing, our thoughts are with those people in South Australia as they go into their own heightened physical distancing. The stand-out lesson for all of us throughout the year is a constant need to adapt quickly to what's going on around us. Our ability to cope with change, be resilient and deal with uncertainty and the unknown have been front and centre for everyone.

Appropriately, flexibility is a word with many meanings.  What flexibility means to you and your people is important to discover and define. Everyone can benefit from building their flexibility, as being be flexible helps us draw on our other strengths, such as resilience. As leaders, demonstrating that we are flexible and responsive to each of our people and teams, and drawing on this strength improves our people's work/life balance, levels of trust, creativity, productivity and ultimately retain and grow our people. We've created two new tools that highlight the benefits and challenges involved with strengthening flexibility across a number of personal and organisational areas. Find our wide range of Leader Tools and Personal Tools, in the Employer and Employee Login Areas of our website. 

Earlier this month we turned our spotlight to highlighting the real issue of domestic and family violence, I would like to acknowledge the observance of White Ribbon Day this month and a very special announcement - AccessEAP has received White Ribbon Accreditation. To achieve accreditation, we successfully met 15 criteria under three standards and are now recognised as a workplace that is taking active steps to stop violence against women. Learn more here.

To say workspaces are evolving in response to the pandemic is probably an understatement. Flexibility is just one aspect which has been accelerated. Reach out to here at AccessEAP. As always, our people are here to help support you and your people be their best in life and work.

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AccessEAP is proud to announce that we have successfully completed the White Ribbon Australia Workplace Accreditation Program.

The program, facilitated by community service organisation Communicare, involves a whole of organisation commitment to address issues of gendered violence and sexual harassment against women.

It’s a great honour to be a White Ribbon Australia Workplace and to play our part in responding to and ending violence against women. We took part in the accreditation process because we wanted to equip our staff with the knowledge and resources to better understand what gendered violence is, how to identify it and what they can do to prevent it. Whether in the workplace, or broader community, we all have a responsibility to stand up and speak out against behaviours that contribute to gendered violence, support women affected by it, and hold perpetrators accountable.

At AccessEAP, we strive for an inclusive and safe working environment for staff at all levels of our organisation. The White Ribbon Australia accreditation process has strengthened that internal culture.

To achieve accreditation, we had to meet 15 criteria under three standards to create a safer and more respectful workplace which is taking active steps to stop violence against women. The program is internationally recognised and to date has reached more than 600,000 employees nationally. As explained by White Ribbon Australia Executive Director Brad Chilcott, “Violence against women impacts on the health and safety of employees, their wellbeing and their productivity. It also has a negative impact on workplace culture, organisational reputation and bottom-line profit and loss."

At AccessEAP we are proud to join more than 240 Australian workplaces who have achieved accreditation. We stand by White Ribbon Australia who urges all Australian workplaces to undertake the accreditation process and demonstrate a culture of zero tolerance of violence against women. White Ribbon Australia is a part of a global social movement working to eliminate gendered violence, striving for an Australian society where all women and children are safe, including in our workplaces.

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• Relationship development focus
• Let your passion and commitment shine

Due to continued growth, we are expanding the clinical services team and need a passionate and committed professional to help ensure the provision of best practice counselling and ancillary services that meet or exceed customer and client expectations.

Your role will be to develop strong relationships with key customers to understand their needs and work on tailored solutions to solve specific or complex people issues.  You will provide a range of clinical services including: Face to Face, telephone and emergency counselling, mediation, manager support, critical incident response, EAP briefings and webinars. Additionally, you will work with the broader team to build relationships and provide quality services such as consulting, coaching and reflective supervision.

With a degree in Psychology or Social Work and professionally registered, your track record of success will reflect your impartial and insightful thinking capabilities. You will be adept at engaging with a broad range of people, comfortable working autonomously, and respond well under pressure to balance multiple priorities.

Your key skills will include your rapport building, analysis, judgment and outstanding interpersonal skills. Most importantly you will enjoy working in a team environment that is driven by respect, collaboration and accomplishment. AccessEAP takes the health of employees seriously and you will be working in an environment that genuinely cares about the wellbeing of all employees.

For more information call David Williams on 0414 551 795 or to apply to send your resume to dwilliams@kurtispaige.com.au.

This year due to the pandemic NAIDOC Week was celebrated from November 8-15th; however, some groups decided to celebrate at the usual time in July. We are certainly in need of reasons to celebrate and NAIDOC week provides a great opportunity for all Australians. NAIDOC Week marks an important time for First Nations Peoples as it’s a time of celebration and connection with each other, community and country, symbolising respect, sharing of culture, a time of reflection, healing and pride for all Australians.

Non First Nations leaders in Australia can feel unsure and worried about how to develop cultural sensitivity and ways to learn and nurture relationships with cultural respect. With Cultural Awareness, listening, learning and making a commitment to increasing our knowledge and cultural sensitivity are important steps toward building confidence and cultural competence. It is a journey and requires commitment, patience and effort with great rewards.

This week the spotlight is turned on strengthening understanding of the rich cultural history, heritage and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and celebrate together with First Nations Employees or organisations. Our new tools focus on how you and your people can move forward in the area of cultural competence at an organisational level but also on a very practical personal level. Find our wide range of Leader Tools and Personal Tools, in the Employer and Employee Login Areas of our website. 

As part of our journey toward cultural competency at AccessEAP non First Nations Employees completed Arilla Cultural Competency training earlier this year. We found that straight away we were better equipped to understand that cultural competency is an ongoing journey. This led to the launch of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Dedicated Support Line, which I encourage you to make use of and learn more about here. 

Reach out to here at AccessEAP. As always, our people are here to help support you and your people be their best in life and work.

AccessEAP acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land we work on and their continuing connection to land, culture and community. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and future.

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There is undoubtedly a sense of relief as we see our friends and colleagues in Victoria getting many of their freedoms back. We have seen a rise in feelings of optimism and more positive emotions replacing feelings of disempowerment, isolation or hopelessness experienced in recent weeks. What we’re also seeing is a rise in more complex conflict and to a greater degree than what’s been experienced before. Conflict over more issues simultaneously, and increasingly shifting from person to person to team-based conflict.

Great leaders know how to foster and manage conflict in ways that help individuals and teams realise that conflict when engaged in positively, can be enormously empowering for individuals and teams. However, left unchecked and unresolved, it can lead to frustration and reduced productivity. As a leader, when to step in and when to let the team learn and grow from conflict is not an easy call to make.

As a leader, it is vital to role model positive behaviours, manage your emotions, listen to your people, understand what is driving stress and be open about what those drivers are. You are then better equipped to have open conversations, try to simplify the issues and use conflict situations to move forward. We have spoken recently about harnessing conflict for positive change; however, this week’s leader and personal tools address team-based conflict and strategies for your people to apply in situations where complex conflict is becoming a problem. We've created new Tools focusing on team-based conflict and strategies for dealing with conflict. Find our wide range of Leader Tools and Personal Tools, in the Employer and Employee Login Areas of our website. 

If we can take something positive from the events of this year, it may just be that we have had to adapt quickly and take a good look at the way we work; what works and what we can leave behind when we imagine the new work environments we will create post-COVID. Reach out to here at AccessEAP. As always, our people are here to help support you and your people be their best in life and work.

When I think about the statistics on domestic and family violence, it’s hard to understand the numbers. It’s even harder to think about the real-life impact of what has occurred and is occurring right now. If at least 1 in 6¹ women is affected, there could be victims and perpetrators somewhere in any of our workplaces or personal lives. Could it be that they are very good at hiding what is going on? How do we make sure that as leaders we are doing all we can to ensure that those impacted by domestic violence feel psychologically safe and able to seek support? Last week our spotlight was on trust. Trust is vital in helping support our people who may be impacted by domestic and family violence. Our role is to facilitate support, we are not expected to have all the answers, and in many cases there will not be a solution.

This week we turn our spotlight on supporting people across all organisations to respond to domestic and family violence during the pandemic.

The 25th of November is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women with White Ribbon Day on Friday, 20th November.  At AccessEAP, we strongly support these awareness days, particularly with the severity and frequency of domestic violence reported increasing as a result of the pandemic². Often the workplace is known to provide a safe place for victims of domestic and family violence. Working from home and other restrictions has increased isolation and the natural circuit breaker that leaving the home provides for both victim and perpetrator. Organisations have a vital role to play by raising awareness of this issue, understanding when and how to offer support, and addressing attitudes in the workplace which perpetuate domestic violence. 

We recognise that this is a topic which causes unease and we appreciate you taking the time to think about this very hard topic. However, there are things you can do that will help and make it easier for victims as well as those supporting victims, we've created two new tools to assist you. Find our wide range of Leader Tools and Personal Tools, in the Employer and Employee Login Areas of our website. 

At AccessEAP, we are sensitive and equipped to deal with the complexities of all forms of violence (domestic, family and intimate partner) that may occur. We encourage you to reach out for support, especially at this difficult time given the unique pressures created by the pandemic. We offer Psychological Counselling and 1-1 Support, as well as Domestic and Family Violence training offerings.  Reach out to here at AccessEAP. As always, our people are here to help support you and your people be their best in life and work.

References

1 https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/behaviours-risk-factors/domestic-violence/overview
2 https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-07/sb28_prevalence_of_domestic_violence_among_women_during_covid-19_pandemic.pdf

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This week we are really pleased to see restrictions eased in Victoria. We want to acknowledge the sacrifices that people have made, as it has been a very challenging time. It’s also important to call out the strengths that people have shown throughout this - resilience, endurance and trust. Victorians in workspaces across the state have had to reach out for help and trust that their colleagues including those in other states would be there for them. 

This experience in particular, and the pandemic in general, highlights the importance of trust. We have seen world leaders rated in terms of trust and the success of their efforts fighting COVID-19 directly relate to whether their people trust that they are equipped to successfully lead them. We have seen how invaluable having the trust of your people is when uncertainty and change are the only constants.

We're turning our spotlight on trust and building trusting teams.

The positive traits are great foundations to build upon. Optimism, realism, hope, self-belief and trust are traits that help us survive and then thrive. Trust is a critical leadership lifestyle and one that can not be switched off and on. As leaders, we need to consistently support an environment where our people can trust us and each other. Allowing people to be their natural best, displaying vulnerability and asking for help when they need it builds on the strength and potential of individuals and teams.

We've created new Tools focussing on ways to build trust and the importance of self-trust. Find our wide range of Leader Tools and Personal Tools, in the Employer and Employee Login Areas of our website. 

At AccessEAP, we work hard to ensure we are trusted to provide confidential support in a safe environment where people can be their authentic self and ask for help without fear of judgement. Reach out to here at AccessEAP. As always, our people are here to help support you and your people be their best in life and work.

It is an unfortunate part of the current economic situation that difficult decisions relating to redundancies may need to be made. Redundancies often cause anxiety and uncertainty. How your organisation handles redundancy can send a powerful message on how you value your people. At AccessEAP, we recognise the difficulties faced at this time and can support you to lead your people through change with respect and compassion.

Right now, those facing redundancy and job loss are particularly vulnerable as they may already be experiencing a household with reduced income and mental health issues related to the pandemic. Combine this with potentially restricted job opportunities, and people may need additional support to get them into a position where they feel more confident to prepare for a new job opportunity or search.

Our Career Transition and Redundancy Support services help people deal with change, position them to thrive in the future and offer practical support so that they feel more confident to enter the job market.

In the Employer Login Area of our website you will find details on our Career Transition and Redundancy services. Please feel free to contact your Realtionship Manager for more information or to discuss these services in greater detail concerning your specific needs.

See our 10 Tips on Self-care and Managing Stress below. 

It is important to remember that feeling anxious, fearful, stressed, angry or irritable are common and normal feelings during uncertain times like these. It is important to monitor your own physical and mental health.

For assistance or more information on our Stress Awareness and Building Resilience Training offerings, speak with your Relationship Manager today. To download a copy of this Wellbeing Postcard and more visit the Employer and Employee Login Areas of our website.