How often to do we hear the phrase ‘there are just not enough hours in the day?’ A common complaint in the world we live in with ever more increasing demands on our time, focus, roles and commitments.

How much time and investment do organisations place into time management programmes, effective delegation, work life balance programmes and policies?

Ultimately, managing time is never going to reap the rewards we need. Time is finite – we cannot create more despite all our efforts to save it, cheat it or cram more activity into each minute.

The key to optimising our performance lies in managing our energy. Human beings all have endless supplies of energy – much more than we acknowledge or respect.

Managing our energy enables us to ensure that all our resources are optimised and we are using our internal strength and agility for the best purpose.

Consider how often we ‘train’ for life. What would that look like? We all have some awareness of the benefit of training to keep our bodies in our shape, but what about our minds and our hearts? How often do we take time to consider our direction and what we are working towards, really working towards, beyond the weekend, pay day or our next holiday?

Managing our energy effectively to be physically energised, mentally focused, emotionally connected and spiritually aligned guarantees a life that is connected, purposeful and fulfilling both at work and at home.

Increasingly organisations are not only acknowledging that they are constrained as to the level of financial reward they can offer employees, but that offering more holistic rewards has an incredibly beneficial impact on the all important employee engagement level.

Optimising energy is more than a wellness programme, more than time management, more than an employee assistance programme or providing internal coaching services. It offers employees a chance to develop their own personal potential which benefits both their work and private lives.

Let’s look at each dimension in turn:

Physical energy
The foundation to extraordinary energy. Understanding how to use our bodies to their ultimate resourcefulness doesn’t mean we all have to be athletes.

Simple principles reap massive reward:

• Understanding how our natural body rhythm oscillates during the day is fundamental to our wellbeing. Having an awareness of when and how we need our energy and when to replenish it allows us to plan our activity to match our energy levels
• Regular movement throughout the day taps into our rhythms and restores our energy levels
• Great nutrition and knowing what to eat, how to eat it and when fuels our systems to drive energy
• Hydrating our bodies enables us to support our physiology effectively
• Sleep and recovery gives our bodies, minds and heart time to replenish and review
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Mental focus

• Focusing on only what moves us forward is an attribute admired in our most successful individuals. This is attainable by all and requires us to develop strategies to know what to focus on, how it fits into our overall purpose and how to deal with things that take us off course
• Multi tasking is counter-intuitive. Mindfulness enables us to be present in the now and energise our minds to the most important task
• Understanding what our beliefs prevent us from achieving is crucial. Very often what holds us back is what we tell ourselves to be true based on our upbringing, environment and culture. Aligning our beliefs to our direction is a powerful combination

Emotional connection

• Development of emotionally intelligent individuals and organisations builds an inclusive and engaged culture
• Using our brains effectively optimising both our logical and emotional ability builds inspirational relationships and teams
• Customer service excels in an environment of mutual respect, value and engagement.  Development of an understanding of how our behaviour impacts ourselves and others builds fascination and an unstoppable energy to provide the best service

Spiritual alignment

• Quite simply this is about understanding and being aligned with a purpose that is more than yourself
• Knowing your direction of travel gives individuals and organisations traction to plot their course, focus their activity and emotions and allocate their energy in the most expeditious way
• Understanding our own purpose also enables us to connect with the company vision and values – seek alignment and commonality and therefore be fully engaged.

Organisations which adopt this approach benefit from:

• Self determination and accountability for change
• Development of self efficacy – the belief of an individual to effect their own change
• Optimal energy being utilised at work to improve performance, contribution and results
• Greater satisfaction and balance across work and home
•  Significantly raised levels of employee wellbeing – nutrition, sleep, mental focus, emotional well-being and physical fitness
• Development of effective and enhanced relationships both at work, with clients and customers and in personal life
• Higher commitment to purpose and organisation – increase in engagement measurement criteria
• Development of intrinsic motivators – i.e. not dependent on financial reward or external factors

Fundamentally, this programme offers a step change in the style of reward being offered to an employee. All the evidence so far is showing that employees and organisations welcome this change. Ultimately the effects are longer lasting and tap deeper into the core of what drives a human being’s motivation and engagement, than purely financial rewards can do: expect to see more of this type of reward in the coming years. 
 

Tracy Skyrme is a Director of TWP, the behavioural change specialists. For more information about this type of training email success@twpartnership.co.uk. Also visit TWP’s website at www.twpartnership.co.uk.