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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks a B. And job in.

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Speaker 2: Security is facing a lot of people at the moment.

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Speaker 2: I think unemployment New Zealads at about four point three percent.

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Speaker 2: They're expecting to get about five point three percent. So

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Speaker 2: it's going to be a really tricky twelve months or so.

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Speaker 2: And we wanted to talk to Google Sutherland, a psychologist

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Speaker 2: from Umbrella Well Being, about the different ways in which

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Speaker 2: it impacts upon both employees and employers. And this doogle,

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Speaker 2: sadly is very very topical.

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Speaker 3: Gurda, Yes it is. It's you know, I was thinking

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Speaker 3: that a year, two years ago, we're in this great

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Speaker 3: job market for you know, lots of jobs and plenty

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Speaker 3: of opportunity, and now that's almost done a complete one

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Speaker 3: AC and there's lots of people that are worried about

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Speaker 3: their job, worried about what happened, what might happen for

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Speaker 3: them or for their colleagues. So it's, yeah, it's a

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Speaker 3: completely different ballgame at the monment.

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Speaker 2: And you reckon that job and security can be can

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Speaker 2: be kind kind of relatively easily divided into two big kinds, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, if we ever sort of put too much faith

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Speaker 3: in dividing things into into sort of broad areas. But yeah,

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Speaker 3: one is about losing your job, you know, completely becoming

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Speaker 3: mate redundant, and the other is about losing bits of

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Speaker 3: the job that you really like. And that might be

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Speaker 3: you know, you might be facing some cutback in hours,

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Speaker 3: or it could be that you're changing and working conditions,

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Speaker 3: like you know, everybody has to work from the office now,

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Speaker 3: not at home. Yeah, it might even be that you know,

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Speaker 3: you're worried about losing good friends and colleagues that you

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Speaker 3: work with. And so I think both of those can

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Speaker 3: can you know, manifest in two ways. One you can

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Speaker 3: sort of spend a lot of time worrying about that,

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Speaker 3: and we often call that we often think of that

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Speaker 3: as that time that you spent at work when you

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Speaker 3: were really should be on your working at your job,

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Speaker 3: but your mind is distracted and elsewhere we call that presentism.

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Speaker 3: And then the other thing is, of course emotions. There's

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Speaker 3: lots of emotions that go on with that. And we

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Speaker 3: notice a lot of people overlook the role of or

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Speaker 3: the fact that they might feel a lot of grief

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Speaker 3: around losing their job or losing aspects of their jobs.

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Speaker 2: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, so people aren't necessarily aware that

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Speaker 2: that we feel in grass I mean, anger is kind

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Speaker 2: of understandable, right, and anxiety about about the future, But

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Speaker 2: grief is a significant one as well, and it can

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Speaker 2: have like a really significant impact on relationships among staff, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it can. It's you know, either you're

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Speaker 3: kind of all competing for the same jobs, like if

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Speaker 3: they say, well, we're going to reduce our staff and

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Speaker 3: from ten to sex, well you're all competing. Or survive

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Speaker 3: the guilts another one where you have have ranaged to

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Speaker 3: retain your position, but your friends and colleagues haven't, right,

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Speaker 3: And you can also get into the situation where people

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Speaker 3: want to, you know, if they're feeling insecure. The best

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Speaker 3: thing I can do is be the best sort of

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Speaker 3: worker I can be at work and really shine compared

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Speaker 3: to other people, which there is nothing wrong and necessarily inherently,

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Speaker 3: but it might put you off side with your coworkers.

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Speaker 3: It's seeing to be sort of sucking up and being

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Speaker 3: the teacher's pet and trying to do everything. Don't worry

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Speaker 3: about how I'll work for extra but for no money.

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Speaker 3: You don't have to pay me for that, which which

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Speaker 3: an employer might like, but other employees might You might

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Speaker 3: get on the wrong side.

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Speaker 2: That no love that at all. So what can you

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Speaker 2: do about.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, ideally you would just reduce uncertainty as

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Speaker 3: much as possible, but we don't live in la la land.

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Speaker 3: It's there's lots of uncertainty at the moment that people

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Speaker 3: just can't control. I think for employees two key things

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Speaker 3: is one, focus on the aspects of the situation that

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Speaker 3: you can control, and that might be that might be small,

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Speaker 3: and it might even be things like preparing your CV

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Speaker 3: for you know, you may have been a job for

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Speaker 3: ten years or so it haven't actually had to refresh

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Speaker 3: your CV, but at least you can console that. And

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Speaker 3: when people have a sense of control, it can reduce

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Speaker 3: that feeling of worry that they have. And also the

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Speaker 3: other thing I would say to employees is as much

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Speaker 3: as possible, we notice when your attention has got shifted

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Speaker 3: to that the black hole of the problem. I'm going

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Speaker 3: to lose my job. I'm going to lose this and

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Speaker 3: move it to focusing on what could happen after that,

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Speaker 3: because you probably can't do much about that uncontrollable black hole.

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Speaker 3: But there are things you might be able to do

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Speaker 3: about the future, and it can just give you a

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Speaker 3: little more sense of hopefulness if you're focusing on the

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Speaker 3: future a bit more.

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Speaker 4: What about employers, Well, employers again we realize that sometimes

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Speaker 4: you know, managers and ces, they might want to reduce uncertainty,

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Speaker 4: but it's not always possible because you're answering to higher powers.

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Speaker 3: I think two things. One is trying to give people

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Speaker 3: as much certainty and informations as you can. Sometimes when

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Speaker 3: organizations are going through change, they tend to sort of

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Speaker 3: drop down on communications because, oh, well, there's nothing new

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Speaker 3: to tell people, and therefore what's the point. Actually the

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Speaker 3: information that you can convey in that situation is there's

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Speaker 3: still no news, that's still the same because I'm sure

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Speaker 3: you've had it too. That in that void of information,

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Speaker 3: that's where rumors and all sorts of speculation can start

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Speaker 3: to growly and that's not particularly helpful. So communicating even

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Speaker 3: when you haven't got anything much to communicate about, and

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Speaker 3: focus on trying to maintain relationships and trying to make

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Speaker 3: the workplace as comfortable and as supportive as you possibly care.

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Speaker 3: We saw a bit of those actually with organizations around

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Speaker 3: COVID I think that when they did things like they said, hey, look, well,

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Speaker 3: actually sorry not covid to so much christ to its earthquakes. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: quite a lot of leniency in workplaces saying hey, look,

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Speaker 3: we realize it's really difficult, you know, to get hold

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Speaker 3: of your insurance company, so take some time during the

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Speaker 3: day to do that if you need to. And that

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Speaker 3: sort of flexible approach can help. Just it's a bit

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Speaker 3: more human and recognizes that, actually, you've got humans that

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Speaker 3: are worried and need to do things in their life,

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Speaker 3: and we need to make some allowances for that. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Do you find that people like I'm just trying, I'm

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Speaker 2: trying to put myself in, you know, the shoes of

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Speaker 2: people who are facing uncertainty with their jobs at the moment.

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Speaker 2: Is it must be really easy to catastrophize, like I

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Speaker 2: think I would. I think I would really freak out

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Speaker 2: and be like, oh my gosh, you know where am

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Speaker 2: I going to you know, like pay for the mortgage

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Speaker 2: next week kind of thing, and like look at stuff

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Speaker 2: in a really kind of short time frame, and maybe

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Speaker 2: it can be hard to get perspective. Is that something.

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Speaker 3: You you say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, And

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Speaker 3: I'd be in that boat as well. I would be

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Speaker 3: one of those people that's, oh my god, we'll be

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Speaker 3: living in a shoe box out the back box somewhere. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: if I lose my job, Yeah it is. I think

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Speaker 3: often sharing those thoughts and worries with somebody else who's

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Speaker 3: a little bit more removed, whether that's a senior colleague

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Speaker 3: or you might or just just a good friend who's

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Speaker 3: that slight but removed, can make a different take the Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it can help take this thing out of it, and

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Speaker 3: they can help be a little more realistic because they're

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Speaker 3: not quite as emotionally tied up in it as you are.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good advice. Hey, thank you, Dogle, I really

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Speaker 2: appreciate it. That is Dogle, Southerland. He is a psychologist

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Speaker 2: with Umbrella Wellbeing.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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Speaker 1: to news talks 'd be from nine am Saturday, or

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