Australian businesses are failing to support employees when it comes to mental wellbeing, with some people alarmingly still being told to “toughen up”, according to new research released today.

The Go1 Workplace Wellbeing 2019 survey polled more than 1000 working Australians on how well their workplace manages their mental health. 

Alarmingly, 7% of bosses tell employees to "toughen up" when they approach them regarding their mental health. Only 28% advise staff to see a doctor, and 40% simply "do nothing."

Only a third of employees are comfortable talking to their manager about their mental health, with 16% "uncomfortable" and 28% "very uncomfortable."

Employees are also more likely to talk to coworkers (20%) or "no one" (32%) about their mental health, than their manager (18%) or HR (10%).

The national survey was conducted in August 2019 by Go1.com, the world’s largest online training marketplace.

GP and Go1 co-founder Vu Tran said the results are very concerning.

"Australian businesses clearly need to do better. We know that more than 40% of all workers have their productivity, health and family stability impacted substantially as a result of high stress at work, and 50% of all employees leave a workplace because of it being a poor mental health environment," Dr Tran said.

He said that the findings showed “employees’ cry for help had fallen on deaf ears” in a large number of organisations, and that workplaces had to do a far better job at supporting workers’ mental wellbeing. 

“As a GP, I’ve seen first-hand how R U OK? Day can save lives. 

“It has helped avoid tragedy and transform people’s lives for the better. This has really changed how I view my role as a team member and a leader within my own company, and the role we all play in supporting each other.

“I urge everyone to take the time to ask your workmates the simple question: R U OK? – not just today, but each and every time you suspect something is amiss,” Dr Tran said.

“It makes a really big difference to people’s lives."

According to Dr Tran, many organisations were eager to address employee mental wellbeing but didn’t know where to start. 

He said there was an increasing demand for the right training and tools to help organisations achieve their CSR (corporate social responsibility) outcomes, with CSR-related training materials by leading experts and courses authorised by social good experts being the most in demand.

Go1’s new Social Impact Program, officially launched today in conjunction with RUOK Day 2019, helps organisations address three questions:

How confident are you that employees can spot signs of poor wellbeing in themselves and co-workers?

Do your employees know what steps to take when something isn’t right?

How do you and your employees actively work towards a healthy workplace?

"Ideally, managers and leaders will start taking the initiative to improve mental health within their organisations before it reaches the point of crisis. This means everyone in the organisation being aware of mental health issues and domestic violence, having robust policies against bullying and harassment, and clear support networks," Mr Tran said. 

"It’s also about actively building resilience and erasing the stigma of mental health. At Go1, we offer many workplace courses in mental health training in partnership with a range of organisations. These give people the ability to recognise mental wellbeing problems, as well as respond to someone who has those issues, including referring them to whomever they need to go to."

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Australian workers’ mental wellbeing ignored, research shows

We are excited to announce the early access launch of Go1’s new content player!

We've reimagined your learning experience on the Go1 platform, with the aptly named 1-Player. This feature enables you to undertake learning across all courses and standalone resources in 1 standardised interface.

The New content player will support the following learning resources:  

SCORM / Video / Document / Weblink / Text / LTI / Quiz / Assignment. 

For Events, users will be redirected to the standard event interface, and Integrations will be supported in a future update.

In its new form, the content player resolves the limitations users sometimes experienced when accessing learning, whilst also introducing a new and more streamlined content player. 

Open resources via the player and view summaries of each item before confirming enrolment!  🎉🎉

The overview panel on the right side makes it easy to see the contents of a course from within the player.

Users can navigate between different items in the course without having to leave the interface!



See clear indications of your completion status

In addition to the status being show in the top right corner, a special screen will also show for each item that has been successfully completed.

An overall simple and consistent experience

Go1 users can check the status of each learning item, as well as complete items more easily and clearly with buttons always being in the same location.

When exiting the 1-Player(using the X in the top left corner), users will be taken back to where they opened the learning item from. This also applies to customers accessing Go1 content in an external LMS. 

This is an exciting upgrade to the platform, so we are making it available through early access to Go1 portals that want to trial it now. We’d love to hear about your experience using the player, to ensure we gather feedback and guarantee the quality of the feature. We’d love to hear about your experience using 1-Player to ensure that it is a quality feature and meets all users’ expectations as much as possible. Please note that currently the 1-Player works best in desktop mode but we would love users to also give feedback on the mobile experience as well. 

Find out more: Early access: Play learning resources via the content player here.

Ready for early access: 1-Player, the new Go1 Content Player

Throughout our lives, and often at pivotal moments, we need support from a guide with life experience. Having a mentor to help you navigate a period of growth can make all the difference, and point you towards decisions that are best for you.  

Everyone can remember that teacher they really clicked with, who showed them a whole new perspective on life, or even ignited their passion for a certain subject.

Mentors are proven to be beneficial in both our professional and private lives. 75% of executives say mentoring has been critical to their development, and mentoring programs are known to add value to larger organisations.

With this in mind, we will be looking in more detail at what a mentor is and how they can help you on your path to professional and personal success. 

In a professional context, a mentor is a person experienced in their field who shares wisdom with a protégé or younger person. They actively take an interest in the younger person’s development. While a mentor doesn’t have to be older than their mentee, this is the dynamic in the majority of cases. 

When defining the role, it is important to distinguish between that of a mentor and a coach. While the concepts are similar, a mentor provides counsel or guidance, whereas a coach will instruct or train. 

The benefits of mentorship are widely documented. It has been shown to improve career outcomes, employee engagement, and employee retention to name a few, and there is extensive evidence that it improves organisations as a whole.  

In his book, Mentors: How to Help and Be Helped, comedian, writer and podcaster, Russell Brand, writes about eight mentors who have appeared in his life.  He reflects on his relationships with them and how they have enabled him to grow. He describes a mentor as, “somebody who can take you to the frontier of yourself.”

1. Highlight where your talents truly lie

Understanding where your true talents lie can be challenging at times.  Professionally, you may be in a position that demands a wide range of skills, not all of which you are equipped for. This can mask our talents and make it more difficult to know where we should direct our energy. 

While you may know where your strengths lie, a mentor can help you to work with this and focus on your natural abilities. They can also teach you how to apply them to your work, or redefine your career to play to your strengths. 

The right mentor can offer you an untapped fountain of wisdom. It is most likely that they have had the benefit of being in your position before, and have been through a process of growth to get to where they are today.  

This experience gives them inside knowledge that can be valuable to you.  Their guidance can show you how to take steps forward, while also carving out your own path.

As human beings, we are susceptible to second guessing ourselves and being afraid to put ourselves out there.  While negative self-talk is useful from an evolutionary perspective to save us from sticky situations, in the relatively safe and comfortable modern world, it can be quite destructive and limiting.  

A mentor can encourage you to challenge your thought processes, especially the negative thinking loops you might find yourself in.

As well as highlighting your strengths, a good mentor can develop your self-awareness and show you when you are at your best.  Self-knowledge is an ongoing and difficult journey throughout life (never not learning!), so having a guide at various points along the way can be very worthwhile.

Your mentor will likely be experienced in the field you wish to progress in, and have years of experience.  Over time, they will have gained a long list of contacts, many of whom could help you develop further.  If you are transitioning to a new line of work, this could be particularly helpful as you are effectively starting out again. 

It is clear that working with a mentor has advantages. But how do you go about finding one?

Unfortunately, finding a mentor isn’t necessarily an easy process.  It often happens organically between two people, and grows into a mentorship without being formalised. As Russell Brand explains, a mentor also needs to be, “somebody you can realistically emulate.” 

Nonetheless, you can first identify an area of growth you would like to focus on, then make connections with people you think could help you to move forward.  Over time, these relationships might develop into a mentor-mentee dynamic.

Many larger organisations run mentoring programs, which benefit both the mentor and mentee.  It can be equally rewarding to share hard-earned knowledge and wisdom, and those taking on mentors might even learn a thing or two from their protégés! Overall, it is a win-win relationship. 

Five benefits of finding your perfect mentor 

One of the most important factors instructional designers consider when developing eLearning material is the user experience.  Online courses are created with the learner in mind - the objective is for them to gain knowledge they didn’t have prior to taking the course.

Despite this, it can be hard to find high-quality, engaging learning content that goes beyond learners ticking the necessary boxes.

When information is presented in an interesting, attention-grabbing way, this can be the difference between the learner being able to apply their new found knowledge, and forgetting it completely after completing the course.  

We recently looked at how to assess learners’ engagement in online courses. Regularly assessing learner engagement is crucial to a successful learning and development strategy.

In this article, we will explore how to select engaging online content and the features you can look for to help with this process. 

Depending on the quality of the learning culture in your organisation, it can be challenging to convince your colleagues that taking time out of their busy schedules for learning can be beneficial. 

Knowing what makes an online course engaging is the key to combating this. When you provide staff with learning they can really connect with, they are far more likely to see the upside, and this will create momentum. When searching for the right content for your team, start by asking the following questions:

Personalising learning is the difference between content being engaging or boring. Content needs to address an individual’s learning needs as accurately as possible, and advancing technology is helping to simplify this process.

Some courses will do this better than others, or perhaps include features which enable you to integrate learning with platforms your workforce uses regularly.

Having to listen to a familiar concept being taught in great detail is neither engaging or useful. When the average employee has only 24 minutes per week to learn, even slightly irrelevant content is a waste of precious time. 

2. Are opportunities for active learning included?

Active learning involves any activities which encourage the learner to participate in learning beyond consuming media, such as text or videos. 

When learners are actively engaged with a task, they will need to use high order thinking skills to complete it. These include applying new knowledge to practical contexts, or using the knowledge they have gained in a creative way. 

An example of an “active” task would be to ask the learner to read a text and record five key points as they do so. It doesn’t have to be complicated, it just needs to go beyond basic consumption of information to be more interesting. 

3. Does the course have clear learning objectives?

Clear learning objectives are essential to any well-designed lesson. Without them, the purpose of the learning can easily go astray, and the learner will become disengaged quickly.

It is also important that these objectives are referenced throughout a lesson, not just at the beginning. This way, the learner can stay on track as they complete each activity, and reflect on whether or not they have achieved that objective. If they haven’t, they might need to revisit a section of learning or do further research.  

When assessing the quality of learning objectives, look for action verbs that describe what the learner will be able to do by the end of the course.

It is also important not to confuse learning objectives with learning goals, which are longer term and less defined. Objectives are included to give structure to a specific lesson or course. 

Practical stories help to put learning in context, and are particularly important for workplace training. One of the main goals of staff training is for the participants to be able to apply their knowledge in a practical context. Acknowledging this during the learning process makes the transition from online to real-life scenarios much easier. 

Stories also give learners a familiar context to work with. This forms a great basis for gaining new knowledge and information, as they can make connections between new information and situations they already understand. 

This might seem obvious but the success of an online course is highly reliant on the quality of visual design. Jorge Reyna, scholar of digital media for learning at the University of Technology Sydney, explains that, “design aesthetics have a profound impact on how users perceive information and learn, judge credibility and usability, and ultimately assign value to an online experience.”

Pay attention to the quality of visual content and the learners will reap the benefits. 

A one stop shop for all things training, Go1 makes it easy to compare the best training options available, and find the right resources for your professional development, compliance and business training needs. 

How to choose engaging content for workplace learning

We are excited to have been recognised as one of the best startups to work for in Australia by LinkedIn.

This is the second consecutive year Go1 has been named in LinkedIn’s Top Startup in Australia list. 

LinkedIn Top Startups is an annual ranking of the hottest startups to work for around the world. The list is compiled by LinkedIn’s editorial team through a combination of proprietary platform data and editorial expertise to spotlight new and fast-growing companies that are attracting attention and recruiting top talent.  

Go1 co-founder Vu Tran said the award recognises Go1’s priority in its people and culture – vital ingredients for being a great place to work.

"We’re delighted to get this award from LinkedIn. It’s recognition of the effort everyone has and continues to put in to make Go1 a supportive and rewarding company to work for,” Mr Tran said. 

“We’re hopeful this award will help us to continue to attract the best talent in Australia and internationally as we expand and create more alliances with partners that share our workplace philosophy. 

"One of our key practices is supporting employees to advance themselves. Pursuing targeted and relevant training is important not just for individuals but also for the success of the organisation. Enabling people to run their own training agenda and go beyond their core training has big benefits for everyone,” he said.

Employee wellbeing and mental health are top priorities at Go1, where staff are encouraged to maintain a healthy balance between work and their private lives.  

"A safe, supportive workplace means healthier employees, better performance and productivity. Awards such as LinkedIn Top Startups are very important for raising awareness of how important a supportive work environment can be, both for attracting new talent and retaining talent. This is all the more critical given the global skills shortage, and the challenge many startups face in attracting the right people," Mr Tran said. 

Go1.com makes it easy for businesses to train their staff, with the world’s largest compliance, professional development and general training marketplace. By providing a single platform that extends from first aid training through to degree bearing courses, Go1 makes it easy to find and compare the best training options available. The marketplace features over 500,000 courses and other learning items created by local and international experts. Customers include SEEK.com.au, Oxford University, State and Local Governments and St John Ambulance.

Since launching in 2015, Go1 has grown to be a world leader in online learning and education. Local and overseas investors include Y Combinator, SEEK, M12, Tank Stream Ventures, Black Sheep Capital, and Our Innovation Fund.

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Go1 named one of LinkedIn's 2019 Top Startups in Australia 

The partnership will see intelliHR customers able to access Go1's online courses, enabling a seamless learning and development flow between the two platforms. 

Go1 is pleased to announce our partnership with intelliHR, an Australian HR people management platform. This partnership will bring together two of Australia’s fastest-growing technology companies to provide an integrated HR solution for global workforces. 

intelliHR is an analytics-first software-as-a-service platform with local and international customers, recently expanding into ten countries. They work alongside an array of clients to maintain a real-time handle on performance, create workplace culture aligned with business strategy, and enable decision-making with data-driven insights.

The partnership will see intelliHR customers able to access Go1's online courses, enabling a seamless learning and development flow between the two platforms. Go1’s elearning and platform will complement intelliHR’s people management tools, and allow intelliHR’s clients to easily access Go1.com for induction, compliance and professional development learning purposes through the Go1 portal to provide a greater engagement with the workforce.

intelliHR's Founder and Director Rob Bromage, recently explained the integration, “as intelliHR's people management tools help customers identify individual skill gaps, users can then be immediately linked to one of Go1's online training courses.”

 “Conversely, the integration allows intelliHR customers to capture completed Go1 training details giving them piece of mind that the intelliHR platform provides a 'single point of truth' of all HR records for customers.”

Go1.com Lead Distribution Partner Manager Simon Yeowart, was pleased to be partnering with a company that shares a similar vision to transform the learning and development ecosystem. 

 “At Go1, we’re excited by this partnership, which will strategically benefit both organisations and enhance the learning and training capabilities of intelliHR’s clients.”

"Go1’s off-the-shelf eLearning library, has a large variety of courses that can increase employee performance and business outcomes for intelliHR’s clients.” 

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Go1 and intelliHR join forces in new partnership

As those responsible for workplace training know, it can be difficult to find high-quality, engaging eLearning content. 

It can be equally challenging to know whether your colleagues find the learning process insightful, or if they are just ticking the necessary boxes.

When looking at how to address a growing need for learning within an organisation, regularly assessing learner engagement is crucial to a successful learning and development strategy.

If employees find the learning content interesting, they are far more likely to take new information on board and be able to apply it to practical situations. 

With this in mind, we have looked at the best ways to measure learner engagement, and which strategies you can use to assess the quality of a learning experience.

What does an engaged learner look like? 

Learner engagement reflects the quality and quantity of a learner’s participation in their courses. It is a measure of how successful a learning experience is for each individual. 

When reviewing how engaged your colleagues are in a course they are taking, look out for the following signs that they are both enjoying the process and on track to learn something new. An engaged learner will be:

Actively engaged - when a learner is enjoying a course, they will actively take part in the process. They might ask questions, or do further research of their own to explore a concept. 

Eager to participate - there are a few signs that a learner is excited to take part in a course or lesson. If you are present while the learning is taking place, their body language and general attitude will give you very quick feedback as to how they are finding the process. If they are completing the learning in their own time, well-structured follow up surveys and feedback will also give you clear indicators.

Willing to expend effort - an engaged learner will go beyond the bare minimum to participate in training. They will strive to do well in the course they are taking, and log in to the training platform regularly. 

Motivated - if a learner is motivated, they will be both willing to expend effort and are eager to participate without too much extra encouragement. They’ll be keen to find out what they’re learning, and eager to engage with new material.

Inspired - this can be a little more difficult to achieve when there is so little time for learning at work, but there is nothing better than a colleague being inspired by a course or lesson they have taken. Being given the opportunity to learn something inspiring will also make them feel valued and happier in their work. 

While data on the LMS dashboard will tell part of the story of learner engagement, the following strategies will give a more in-depth understanding of the learning experience in your organisation:

As your colleagues start engaging with an online course, organise a time to catch up with a few of them to ask key questions about their learning experience. Ask them to be as honest as possible! While surveys are useful, conversations with a few, carefully selected people will provide you with a more in-depth understanding.

Although some eLearning courses will come with in-built feedback features, you might like to design your own surveys to ensure that the learning content is meeting the specific needs of your team. While the majority of content is targeted to specific industries, each organisation is unique and the learning might need to be adapted to suit your context.

Your LMS dashboard is a great place to assess learner engagement. The login and completion rates can be helpful, as if these are low, it could be a sign that the content isn’t quite the right fit. 

If you are seeing low numbers, a few other issues could be the cause. The content might have been engaging, but perhaps the learners found it difficult to use. Maybe they didn’t have enough time to complete it. You may need to do some further digging, but finding out will be beneficial in the long run.  

Although time constraints are a factor with workplace training, finding opportunities to observe learners using their new knowledge or skills in a real-life context can help to determine whether a course has been successful. For example, if you have organised a course for compliance in your hospitality business, look for practical opportunities to check whether your colleagues are able to apply the new knowledge. You could do this through observing their process at work, or chatting with them informally as they complete a task. 

How to assess learners’ engagement in training

Welcome back to our monthly round up of all things Go1! We've had some great articles come out in the press that you might find interesting, so we’ve put together this round up of links for you to read over. We encourage you to catch them now if you missed them earlier, or re-read them to see if there’s more you can learn! 

LiveTiles share price higher after announcing partnership with Go1.com

Via Dynamic Business featuring Scott Cooper, VP of Marketing at Go1

Go1.com and Rosterfy set to redefine global training and workforce management in new partnership

Via Logan City Council featuring Go1 co-founder, Vu Tran

News Xtend partners exclusively with world’s largest workplace training marketplace Go1

Via News Corp featuring Go1 co-founder, Andrew Barnes

Stay tuned for some more amazing things to come in September!  

Let's take a look back at some of the great things Go1 has been involved with in August 2019. 

When the average employee has only 24 minutes per week to learn, there is an increasing demand for learning to be delivered in manageable, easy to access formats.

Micro-learning is defined as the breaking down of information into topical, bite sized chunks. By engaging with information in such short bursts, the likelihood of retention is increased, making the time spent learning more efficient. 

Having already been hugely beneficial in the fast-paced corporate training arena, micro-learning tools are continuing to shape the ever-changing landscape of learning in the digital age. 

Micro-learning is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of corporate training. Around the same time the first smartphone was released, quick snippets of information in the form of videos, quizzes, interviews and talks were becoming increasingly popular. 

The formats and tools used for micro-learning are wide-ranging, including infographics, PDFs, eBooks, flipbooks, animated videos and whiteboard animation.

These tools have benefits over more in-depth eLearning courses, as they are more digestible and easier to complete quickly. They can also be accessed anytime, anywhere.  

Additionally, they are better value and low-cost to produce, which is great news for learning and development professionals with tight budgets to consider! 

Globally renowned industry analyser and research analyst, Josh Bersin, describes a new paradigm emerging in corporate training. He labels this, ‘learning in the flow of work’, which means presenting employees with opportunities to learn through platforms they are already using to work.

The advent of micro-learning tools is paving the way for such advances, as they enable employees to quickly view new material while they are logging in, or engaging with a regular activity in their daily routine.				      										

How to make the most of micro-learning tools

There is no doubt that micro-learning is already having a massive impact in the corporate training sector, but how can learning and development professionals support employees to use the tools effectively? 

These tips will help your colleagues to make the most of the learning tools on offer to them, while respecting the limited amount of time they have:

It is important for learners to take ownership of their training where possible and identify topic areas they may need more assistance with. Using the diagnostic assessment tools available on the LMS dashboard, either instructors or learners can decide which pieces of information they need to view next, and gain knowledge in a targeted way. 

Micro-learning tools are designed to be easy to engage with and snappy. This makes the information easier to digest, but recording the key points after watching a video or looking at an infographic will help learners to further embed the new knowledge. Your colleagues can do this by putting the information into their own words, perhaps by taking notes, creating an audio recording of their thoughts or drawing a mind map.  Encourage them to pick a tool that works best for them. 

An important part of learning new information is engaging with it actively. Watching a video to learn something, while beneficial, is a fairly passive activity, so it is important to engage with the information on another level. Encourage your colleagues to ask questions, or to be curious about the information they have just learned. Do they agree with it all? Or do they have further questions?

Talking about learning with others or sharing knowledge is also an important part of embedding new information. Where appropriate, it might be helpful to give staff opportunities to share and discuss what they have been learning about that week as an opportunity to extend the learning further and swap new thoughts and ideas. 

Finding out what your employees think of the eLearning process in your organisation is also crucial to their ongoing engagement. If a particular course was too easy or too difficult, it is unlikely that they will take an interest in the rest of the content. 

With learning content becoming more condensed and widely available, staying focused without getting distracted is important.  There might also be a temptation to use learning tools to procrastinate. Avoid this by tagging learning time onto the end of particular routines or activities employees are already completing.  

Learners can use diagnostic data to understand if there are any topics they need to learn more about. They can do further independent research if necessary, or perhaps complete an additional online course.

If training is disseminated in large groups, it is unlikely to have the same impact as a more personalised approach. Micro-learning tools are helping to facilitate a more tailored learning experience for different individuals. 

The benefits of micro-learning tools for employee learning

You are about to deliver a team presentation and have been anticipating it for the last month. Although you are well-prepared, a feeling of dread washes over you - at least it will be over in an hour’s time!

This situation will be familiar to many, and while you can learn to become a more confident public speaker, you’ll still need to practice and learn to sit with the uncomfortable sensations. 

No matter how you feel about addressing a large group, research suggests that one of the quickest ways to improve your confidence in any situation is to make small alterations to your body language. 

It is tricky to be aware of how you hold yourself, especially if you sit at a computer for most of the day. Nonetheless, checking in and making a few small adjustments could make you both feel better, and communicate to others that you are self-confident and have a positive mindset. 

Social psychologist, Amy Cuddy, discusses how body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves.

In her popular Ted Talk, she argues that “power-posing” - standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don't feel confident - can boost feelings of confidence, and might have an impact on our chances for success.

In her study, participants sat either in a high-power pose (in an expansive position) or a low-power pose (leaning inward or legs crossed) for two minutes. Cuddy found that those who sat in high-power poses performed better in mock interviews than those who had adopted the low-power poses. 

The two key takeaways from her research were that those who sat in high-power poses not only felt more powerful, but that the poses actively changed their body chemistry.

The New Zealand rugby team performing the haka before every international game is a great example of expansive, powerful body language in action.  

How your team can build confidence through body language

Most people can agree workplace communication is very important to a business. After all, when providing a professional service, clear and concise communication with prospects and existing clients is essential. Excellent communication skills are just as crucial when dealing with internal staff. So, how can your team put the science of powerful body language into practice? 

In her book, Presence, Amy Cuddy summarises her research and experiences, offering the following tips to get started: 

This sounds simple, but isn’t always easy to do. If you are performing a task or role, and deep down you don’t believe that you are equipped to do it well, this will come across in your body language and others will pick up on it.  

If you suffer from imposter syndrome in certain situations, yet your boss or somebody else has chosen you to perform a role or task, do your best to challenge your thoughts and tell yourself a different, more positive story about yourself.

2. Being present - presence begets presence

A great way to be aware of the position of your body and your internal dialogue is to stay present in the moment. Cuddy also explains that presence begets presence, meaning that once you are able to start being present, your will gain momentum and find yourself spending more and more time living in the moment. Mindfulness training is a proven way to train yourself in this skill. 

If you notice that your self-talk is negative and your confidence is low, you can make simple changes to your body language to interrupt this negative thinking pattern. A gesture a simple as smiling, no matter how you are feeling or what state of mind you are in, has been proven to interrupt negative feedback loops in the brain, and turn them in a more positive direction.

Again, this action might sound simple, but, like smiling, tweaking your posture can really make a difference. It is easy to start slouching when you are sitting down, particularly when your attention is focused on a computer screen or phone. The more you can check in with yourself and readjust, the more you will reap the benefits of having a better posture.

Cuddy identifies a few poses which are helpful for boosting confidence. These are proven to make changes to the body and mind as a whole, so perhaps try a few out before your next public speaking gig! The images in the top row show “high-power” body language, and the bottom row shows “low-power” body language.

Images courtesy of Amy Cuddy, Harvard University

Good communication plays a key role in maintaining staff productivity, job satisfaction and positive staff morale. It’s also central to the effective dissemination of information across any organisation, and vital for building relationships of trust and commitment.

In Go1 Premium, you’ll find courses on many aspects of workplace communication, including negotiation, delegation, and how to make meetings as productive, engaging and efficient as possible.

This guide from Toastmasters, a non-profit organisation that teaches public speaking and leadership skills, also gives a detailed explanation as to just how much your body speaks. 

How to build self-confidence at work through body language

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