I liked this blog on emotion and mood in the workplace. This comes from BPS's Occupational Digest. This, along with their 'Research Digest' blog has got to be one the best psychology blogs around. I've put them both on our news feeds page.

It reminded me about my undergraduate thesis a very long time ago, which was looking at gender differences in the outcomes of social interactions at work (especially stressful ones). In my admittedly pretty rudimentary diary study, I found that women reported more stressful events at work. However, when men experienced stressful events like meeting their boss, they had a much greater, negative impact, particularly on their mood. I've no idea if this has ever been replicated, but the whole area of how people manage or fail to manage their mood at work is fascinating. My hunch is that men struggle with this more than women on the whole.

There's very interesting psychological research going on in the field of emotion regulation. Check out this website on EROS (Emotion Regulation in Others and Self), which explains it all in non-academic language.

Notably, a manager's ability to manage their emotions has been highlighted by research as one the key management behaviours that can help prevent and reduce stress.

Last week I spoke at the Edinburgh branch of IOSH about managing risks to wellbeing in an ageing workforce. The topic generated some very lively comment and debate and, based on the evidence I've found so far, I reckon we all have cause for concern.

The stats about the ageing workforce are scary and unfortunately ageing and illness are intimately linked. So how organizations manage issues like stress as employees age is going to be hugely important if people are going to remain at work, engaged and healthy. I've just started looking into this and hope to run some roadshow events on this topic later this year.

My impression is that most organizations are doing very little about managing the risks to wellbeing as people age at work. Also, the development needs of older employees is often neglected. Many, including Govt policy makers are very concerned,  because of the costs of long-term absence to employers and employees (see this DWP presentation relating to recent report from Dame Carol Black) and the associated cost of disability benefits. At the same time we're all having to work much longer. All in all then, a bit of a perfect storm heading our way before too long. If we (employers, employees, service providers, policy makers etc) don't do anything about this, we're in big trouble. We can't afford not to act, it seems to me.

Anyhow, watch out for events about this. I'm also gathering information and resources and will pass on soon links to where you can access these.

I've just set up a new linkedin group for all people who have a professional interest in the stress management competencies. So if you are on linkedin, please check it out.

So far, more than 500 professionals have attended roadshows and train-the-trainers, and this year we're expecting at least a thousand more, so I expect this will be an active group.

Lots of new events set up in the last few weeks (roadshows and train-the-trainers), and I'm in discussion about several more. All the currently confirmed events can be found on my eventbrite page.

We've got confirmed events coming up in Newcastle, Cardiff, Southampton, Windsor, Chelmsford, Leicester, Ipswich, London, Manchester, Liverpool. All the roadshow events are free. Alas, you have to pay for the train-the-trainer events, but the training is of the highest quality with access to all training materials.