This Working Life

One in five of us are living and working with chronic pain. So why aren't we telling our colleagues and bosses about it?

If you live with chronic pain yourself or someone on your team does, we have the answers for you to help you navigate it in the workplace and learn the surprising key that can help alleviate it.  

Guests

• Dr Duygu Biricik Gulseren - Assistant Professor, York University
• Kathy Hubble - Founder, Amelio Health

And thank you to Keith Wyatt for sharing his story.

Welcome to a special series about your health at work. In Everything's fine... we'll be diving into topics that can be tricky to talk about with our bosses and colleagues, particularly when it comes to our wellbeing. When asked "how are you?" we might say "everything's fine" with a brave smile. Sound familiar? 

From physical pain to mental strain, over five episodes you'll be hearing personal stories and professional advice to help you actually feel fine at work.

In Part One we’re digging into job strain. It happens when your job demands are high and your job control is low. It can make us feel anxious, depressed and impact our physical health. So why is there still stigma around it and what’s stopping us fixing it? 

If this episode raised any concerns for you, you can call LifeLine on 13 11 14 

On average, Australian women are paid $18,461 less than men per year.

The recent report released by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows a gender pay gap across every sector in Australia.

But what’s behind that yawning gap?

Professor Lyndall Strazdins from the Australian National University calls it the “massive unresolved problem of our time”.

It’s been dubbed the ‘Hour-Glass Ceiling’. So what is it exactly and how can we make men work more like women to fix it?

So you may have witnessed some tense conflicts at work. Someone may have even raised their voice at you. But how can we harness the power of conflict at work?

In this episode we dig into how to nail negotiation and conquer conflict at work with William Ury - Co-Founder of Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation and author of Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict.

There's been a lot of talk about the new right to disconnect laws. But what do they mean for you, practically? 

In this episode you'll understand how it'll help you switch off from work (and what that will do for your health and wellbeing) and what you and your team can do to prepare.  

It’s been dubbed the Hollywood narrative of leadership - that leaders are special, and that we can’t work or succeed without them.

This is what Professor Alex Haslam calls ‘Zombie Leadership’.

In their paper, Alex and his co-authors detail what Zombie Leadership looks like and how we can kill these dead ideas that still walk among us.

It’s estimated we make up to 35,000 decisions every day so how can you make better decisions at work? 

Before you start drawing up pros and cons lists, listen to this episode to hear how you can make decisions with less stress and a lot more satisfaction - from small everyday ones, to big ones like changing career.

Friction is everywhere - from our systems to our relationships at work.

But there’s good news - not all friction is bad and if you know how, you can be a friction fixer.

Robert (Bob) Sutton is Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Stanford Business School and co-author of The Friction Project. He takes us through the different types of friction and how we can fix it.

Meanwhile, we hear personal stories from a few This Working Lifers about how they tackled friction in their jobs - thanks to Hamish Thompson, Kate McCallum, and Yashika Nayyar.

Finding it hard to get your brain into gear for the work year?

You might feel your mind wandering a bit, daydreaming of being back on the beach.

To help you get you back on track, one of the world’s top experts on attention, Dr Gloria Mark from the University of California Irvine, explains how our attention spans have declined and what we can do about it. And Sydney University Associate Professor Paul Ginns provides a simple hack to keep you focused through your work day. 

Feeling a little bit stuck right now? Like you want to progress on something but feel a bit glued up?

Why does this happen to us? It turns out getting stuck is not a bug in our system — it's a feature in our success.

So how can we get unstuck? Here are some tips and techniques to help you navigate a breakthrough.