Dr. Bill Howatt

The Emotional well-being of Leaders and Employees is determined by the amount of time they spend in pleasant emotions (e.g., flourishing) and unpleasant emotions (e.g., languishing).

Languishing is not a mental illness. It is a negative mental state that drains emotional well-being. When stress, uncertainty, or fear occupy the mind, this increases the risk of living in a constant state of languishing (i.e., feeling ‘blah’). An estimated 60% of the workforce is stuck in a chronic state of languishing that negatively impacts their employee experience, productivity, and mental health. The longer a person is stuck in languishing, the greater their risk of sick time, disability, and resignation.  Mental health (e.g., behavioral health) is not intuitive; it is a trainable skill.

The majority of employees have never been trained or supported to mature intrapersonal self-care knowledge and skills required to flourish. Dr. Bill, a leading expert in workplace mental health, provides participants with practical steps to discover and maintain a flourishing mindset. He leverages his clinical, corporate, and personal experiences to offer learners insights into why people languish in the workplace, barriers to moving forward, and how mental fitness can transform how they feel and think. Like with physical health, there are no magic solutions or shortcuts. But with the knowledge and skills, a personalized mental fitness plan, and repetition, new habits can transform how employees think and feel.

Learning Objectives

• Define languishing and flourishing
• Discover how and why people experience long periods of languishing
• Understand how stress, mental health (e.g., behavioral health), and mental illness are linked
• Evaluate learners’ risk of languishing and how it impacts their work and home life
• Examine behaviors that facilitate the cure for languishing

Since the pandemic, workplace mental health has been top-of-mind for more boards, CEOs, and senior leaders. This is happening because of the growing understanding that workers’ mental (behavioral) health is related to retention, attraction, disability costs, productivity, sustainability, and quality of life.

80% of the employee experience can be directly attributed to the leader-employee relationship. The future of work suggests a critical success factor for employers’ sustainability will be people management. Leaders must discover it is not always WHAT they are doing that matter the most it is HOW they are doing it.

The goal of this talk is to provide leaders with a short cut for HOW to become a psychological safe leader. This presentation will provide leaders with four core competencies must be in place to be successful as a psychological safe leader, and with coaching tool for the kind of key performance behaviours that when mastered will create the habits required to facilitate a psychological safe and inclusive workplace.

Learning Objectives

• Understand workplace psychological health and safety and the leader’s role.
• Explore four core competencies and KPBs that facilitate psychologically safe leadership.
• Discover how leaders can move towards psychologically safe leadership, one interaction at a time.

RESILIENCY is not intuitive, it is a trainable skill. Corey Keyes’ ground-breaking research on mental health found workers who are flourishing (i.e., feeling good) compared to languishing (i.e., feeling blah) are on average much healthier, less at risk for mental harm or mental illness, are more engaged and productive.

Standalone workshops are excellent for providing workers with AWARENESS. However, without follow-up there is a lower probability for habit development because of the forgetting curve. This program is designed to help move learners from AWARENESS to ACCOUNTABILITY with the goal of creating daily habits that promote mental (behavioural) health.

This Jump Start solution is focused on engaging workers in the benefit of daily mental fitness. MENTAL FITNESS are the behaviours that facilitate mental (behavioural) health.

This approach is also designed to minimize the forgetting curve by supporting workers with extra learning materials and follow-up sessions.