Tested, modern tools to boost employee wellbeing

Cultivating a positive organisational culture among your employees is a task that some business leaders leave entirely to their HR teams. But, despite so many team-building activities and corporate care events, these workforces still complain of negative working environments. What is a conscientious business to do? Well, perhaps it is time to call in the experts to upskill your staff wellbeing and engagement function.

Talent Tools, a Brisbane-based firm offering workplace psychometric and other assessments, reports, training and accreditation, is all about using the science of wellbeing to cultivate positive cultural changes in businesses. Using positive psychology and scientifically tested approaches, its mission is to promote the science of wellbeing to businesses and then help them implement programs and support employees to be at, and to perform at, their best.

It is a core aspect of the Talent Tools ethos that a large part of any company's success comes from understanding its people. After all, a high-performing team is a company's greatest possible asset and a low-performing team, its greatest liability.

What's more, unlike others, when Talent Tools helps a business to implement a wellbeing program, it does not exit once the contract period ends. Instead, Talent Tools stays engaged providing support, offering new ideas and suggesting tools and techniques to maintain workplace wellbeing and psychological safety. Talent Tools also recommends training some of your people as Wellbeing Coaches to maintain the momentum in-house.

So, that is what Talent Tools does in general. Now let's look a little closer. After reading this article, you'll see how Talent Tools uses positive psychology to help workforces cultivate grit, a growth mindset and self-compassion. Why? Well, staff health and happiness is a worthwhile end of itself, but maximising productivity and effectiveness is high on the agenda as well.

What is Talent Tools

Owner and Master Trainer Sharon Hudson established her wellbeing consultancy, Talent Tools, in 2007 to provide scientifically validated workplace assessments tools for every stage of the employee lifecycle. Some 15 years later, the firm is a highly regarded provider and certification body for the best available productivity-enhancement and workplace-wellbeing instruments.

Recently, Hudson has been focusing on some core products in her broad suite of employee wellbeing tools:

• PERMAH - a tool that provides meaningful measurements of workplace wellbeing
• Extended DISC - a refinement of the classic psychometric assessment approach
• Strengthscope - giving insight into the unique or as-yet-unrealised strengths within each team member.

"With these tools, we're coming more from an approach that people perform at their best when they feel their best, and utilising their strengths at work is how to streamline efficiency and effectiveness. These efforts then support performance and productivity, as well as promote wellbeing," Hudson says.

"Talent Tools isn't focused on employee performance alone. It goes beyond building resilience among the staff into actually finding out who those people are and moulding the working environment around their individual preferences, skills and capabilities.

"Businesses can unlock astounding potential from their employees when they get this right."

Understanding employee wellbeing tools

It's essential to understand that the employee wellbeing accreditations that Talent Tools offers are not, in general, pitched only to human resources departments. Hudson says she will work with any leader within a business who wants to instil a more positive workplace culture, cultivate positive change, or enhance their workplace performance and relationships at the same time.

"We're happy to work with any leader who has a training and development budget and wants to put it to the best use. They could come from anywhere within an organisation. What we offer is wider than just HR: that is a common mistake people make."

Indeed, Hudson says there are many misconceptions about her field.

"Take DISC, it is very well known and some people have tried to become synonymous with the product, but actually no one owns it. However, you will see experts who claim that there is only one real DISC product. Not so.

"In truth, there is a huge range from basic trait tests all the way up to more elaborate systems. What Talent Tools does is carefully search for the best approach for you and carefully train your in-house teams to be accredited on them."

Hudson says this all means that it's important that you educate yourself on the types of assessment tools available in the market and which one will provide the best outcomes for your organisation.

Talent Tools' three leading assessment approaches

1. PERMAH

With an acronym standing for Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment and Health, this tool is one of the fundamentals of the positive psychology and strengths movements. It measures workplace and employee wellbeing and, once the results are in, it then offers guidance on steps businesses can take to improve.

2. Extended DISC

While the DISC model is well known in the business world, Hudson prefers the more thorough version Extended DISC. This tool models human behaviour styles to help businesses understand the persona behind the worker. Hudson explains that Extended DISC gets to the person's natural unconscious behavioural style, and what work roles and environments are the most natural for the person.

"Previous DISC products usually give you a reflection of how the person would like to be perceived, as opposed to revealing their natural style as it is something they may not fully understand themselves."

3. Strengthscope

Going deeper than other psychometric testing approaches, Strengthscope is an ideal starting point for many development programs. It works from an ethos that personal power comes from self-knowledge. It pursues this through creating a forum where participants are guided to undertake open and genuine discussions about what really drives their character, their enthusiasm and their work ethic.

The Talent Tools method

When you work with Talent Tools, the whole process will begin with a step called Appreciative Inquiry. This is a discovery process that engages you and other stakeholders to the wellbeing program about your goals, where you've been successful previously and what the key lessons from those successes will be for the future. From there, Talent Tools will advise on the suitable wellbeing programs on which to train your in-house "team culture" leaders.

Reach out to Talent Tools today

Knowing the type of assessment tools available is crucial when it comes to finding and implementing the right employee wellbeing program in your organisation.

Arming yourself with this knowledge is the purpose behind Sharon Hudson's vision. Because, you can achieve so much when you clearly understand how positive psychology can improve your workers' wellbeing and performance. From there, you really can create a work environment that values the best aspects of their potential.

To find out more, contact Talent Tools today. Call us on 0416 010 701 or 1800 768 569.