Welcome! This site offers
a summary of Eos services for individuals and
employers and a resource centre
with reports and internet links for our clients
and professional network contacts.
The Eos Life-Work website offers ideas and practical
information about getting the most out of life and work. It also explains ideas
from work and community psychology that raise challenging issues and
opportunities for employers, researchers, governments and the media.
Dai Williams started Eos in October 1986. To celebrate our
22nd anniversary we are offering a special discount for private and
corporate clients, and a free upgrade pack to former Eos clients.
Contact Dai for further details.
Free career briefing notes
include two files in the Life-Work
Themes section - an updated version of our
get-a-life time chart to check
your life-work balance, plus
Fun without fear -
notes about safe and dangerous relationships at work including bullying and
emotional relationships. The Career First Aid and
Transition management
pages may be relevant in many organisations - particularly in the Finance
sector - in the psychological aftermath of the Sub-prime crisis in the USA and
the consequent Northern Rock crisis in the UK
Surviving and thriving in times of
trauma and change: The Community
Projects section includes includes psychological aspects of political
changes. In view of the global financial crisis I have added a collection of
reports about Psychological Effects of the UK
1990's Recession (added Oct 2008) that may be
important in the uncertain economic outlook for 2009. Other sections are
relevant to recent elections in the USA, Israel and other countries and
to the first year leadership transition period for new national leaders
and governments. Similar mass transition periods may also apply to whole
communities or nations after wars and natural disasters. Previous reports also
included psychological aspects of ongoing global security concerns for the
airline industry UK airport security
crisis . And it covers health and safety issues and psychological
aftermaths in war zones (eg Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and the
Israeli / Lebanon conflict ) relevant to aid
workers, peacekeeping forces and media crews as well as civilian communities.
These are directly relevant to recent or ongoing conflicts e.g. in Georgia, Sri
Lanka and Gaza.
Career and personal development and
change
Eos aims to
help individuals and organisations
- to survive and thrive in
the world of work, and
- to balance work performance with
personal development and quality of life.
The site offers practical
information for people about work, study and life issues. We also cover new
developments in work and community psychology that raise challenging issues for
employers, researchers, governments and the media.
The Life-Work themes section
contains articles about some of the most frequent hazards and opportunities our
clients discuss with us. These include career development, coping with career
crises, trauma, change and seeking a healthier work-life balance. e.g.
Career First Aid,
Safe and dangerous organisations and
Managing Life-Work Boundaries. These
may be of interest or encouragement to individuals and employers, or to people
who are concerned about a friend or relative in crisis with their work or
study. Working long hours? If you have Excel on your computer
click here to check your own work life
balance.
Services for employers
Eos mainly works with private individuals but several
employers who intially referred staff in crisis to us have seen the
value of using career and personal development techniques for developing
talented staff and in senior management. See
Organisation Services for examples and
latest updates for international trauma
support contacts.
We often work closely with Human Resources and Occupational Health professionals and
exchange ideas and information, contacts and action research through
Professional Networking between
different professions, between pratitioners and researchers including e.g. the
UK Forum for Organizational Health and
with health and employment specialists in other countries.
We welcome interest in Work Life
Balance in the UK in recent years. This subject goes in and out of
fashion for political parties and the media. But maintaining a healthy balance
between personal life and work demands is a major issue in many industries and
many countries. Key issues are described in
Managing the Life-Work Boundary .
Over 11% of UK staff work over 60 hours a week (plus travelling time). The
physical and mental fitness of staff is far more important to their
productivity than the hours they work.
Gradual changes have enabled organisations to develop healthier
working practices instead the outdated long hours culture. Talented senior
staff in strategic roles are quitting organisations that make excessive demands
on their time. Long hours working increases stress, fatigue and the risk of
serious errors - from strategic errors by top executives to work and driving
accidents for other staff. Healthy organisations are likely to be more
effective and safer. See Safe and
Dangerous Organisations. These hazards apply to many Government
organisations (e.g. health and education) as well as to commercial
organisations - and to Government itself.
The economic downturn of 2000-2003 challenged many organisations and
countries. It required different thinking strategies from the economic growth
of the late 90's. Stock markets have gradually recovered since 2003 but UK
employment rates remains unstable. Recent anxieties in international financial
markets may create new anxieties for people with large loans or mortgages. Eos
career assessments with hundreds of people shows that different personality
types have very different ways of coping with change e.g. some people seen as
misfits or mavericks in old organisations may have new insights into surviving
unstable business conditions. We suggest new ways of working to individuals and
can offer briefings and consultancy
advice to employers who are managing change.
International networks
Internet users from 144 countries have visted the
Eos Life-Work website since December 1999.
Welcome back if you have visited before and greetings if this is your first
visit. To read the site in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese,
Chinese, Japanese or Korean go to
Babelfish
translation, enter the Eos URL http://www.eoslifework.co.uk and
choose your language.

Communities in crisis
Since 1993 I have used some of the practical techniques that help
individuals to manage loss, stress, and change to study how communities,
politicians and governments cope with trauma and change. See the
Community Projects section for studies
about the UK, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, USA and Afghanistan. Early
projects included working with self-help groups coping with unemployment
during the last UK Recession (see CSGU Handbook
for support group leaders). And the Professional Networking page includes links to international Trauma Support
organisations.
Over the last 6 years I have been considering the likely
psychological aftermath of the traumatic and tragic events of the September
11th attacks in the United States and the War on Terrorism. The
concept of transition is a powerful factor in understanding how humans
respond to trauma and change see Human
Responses to Change. It is essential in career psychology and for employers
managing organisation change. The same process may be vital to governments and
countries affected by terrorism or war. This is considered in the report
Psychological Aftermath of
September 11th - is there a 9-11 Transition? including reflections from a
visit to New York in September 2002.
Some of these issues may be relevant to employers managing the
indirect consequences of 9-11 for people in many other countries e.g. working
in American companies overseas, or in countries disrupted by the war in
Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, or may indirect effects of conflicts such as
mass movements of refugees. These issues may be very important for employers
sending expatriates on assignments in recent or new combat zones.
In view of the tragic and continuing violence in the Middle East the
Community Projects section contains two papers which analysed psychological
aspects of the Balkans war in April 1999: Rising global tension and Fear and violence in stressed populations . Both papers are
still relevant in the unstable international climate, especially in the Middle
East and south Asia since 2001.
In 2004 we added a new topic
Living with fear & trauma -
psychological aspects of global terrorism. This includes a presentation to
the IATA AVSEC 2004 aviation security conference in Vancouver on psychological effects of terrorism on airline
passengers and staff. These topics became relevant again in July 2005 with
the 7-7 terrorist bomb attacks in London. These events are important for the
public and for employers and staff in all organisations affected by terrorist
attacks in London in July 2005. The aviation security issues came up again with
reports of new terrorists threats against flights between the UK and USA on the
10 August.
Transition psychology appears to be a natural process that
usually enables humans to survive and thrive after major trauma or change. This
offers hope and encouragement to many communities that experience major crises.
Some may suffer sudden traumas - from terrorist attacks and wars
to natural disasters like floods, tsunamis and hurricanes.
Other communities in crisis may have suffered lingering
traumas from epidemics like Foot and Mouth disease for UK farming
comunities, or the SARS outbreak in Asia. Longer term disruption also comes
from economic disasters e.g. Recession and unemployment.
Community psychology is not recognised as a distinct field of
practice or research in the UK. But many psychological theories and technques
from other fields e.g. Occupational Psychology can be applied to analysing
community needs and supporting community recovery and development of healthy
communities. The disastrous effects of Hurrican Kristina on the city New
Orleans and neighbouring communities illustrated the importance of Community
Readiness programmes as part of disaster response strategies. The chaos and
disruption that actually occurred in New Orleans in 2005 was equivalent to the
Eos worst case scenario for potential hazards of the Y2K Millenium bug scenario
in December 1999. The Eos Community Readiness
principles suggested then are equally relevant in other large scale
community disaster scenario planning.
We hope this website may give encouragement and practical advice to
individuals and employers in similar situations around the world. We would like
to exchange ideas with other researchers and professionals that help
individuals and communities to cope with periods of trauma and change, and to
harness these for personal and community development.
Awareness of transition psychology may help rural and urban
communities in crisis to find new hope for recovery and growth. People who are
still coping with trauma and loss may find new hope and energy when some other
major change affects their lives. Emotional support and economic
security are key factors to psychological recovery after traumas and change
- see Life Events and Career Change.
But these factors are desparately scarce in poorer countries and communities
traumatised by war or natural disasters. Some more powerful countries
deliberately sustain fear and poverty in victim countries - not realising that
these will only extend the experience of crisis and breed the most violent long
term consequences as proposed in the Power or
Peace project.
Health and safety
in war zones
Occupational psychology includes aspects of Occupational Health
and Safety as well as trauma and change. 17 years in the oil and
construction industries has made me alert to toxic materials and curious about
health problems faced by troops and civilians involved in combat zones,
particularly since 1991 e.g. Gulf War Syndrome. In February 2002 I added a
study on potential health and safety hazards associated with suspected
uranium weapons for civilians, troops and expatriates in Afghanistan. These
potential hazards are important for international employers and aid
organisations and countries involved in a series of Post-Conflict support
programmes and International Peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan, the
Middle East and Africa. The report Mystery
metal nightmare in Afghanistan? was particularly intended for
Occupational Health professionals and UN and other international aid
agencie.
Many of the new weapon systems used in Afghanistan were also used in
the second Gulf War in Iraq in 2003 and in ongoing operations in Iraq
e.g. Fallujah and in Afghanistan. Until environmental contamination, and the
medical condition of troops and civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq are
investigated these hazards raise serious health, safety and legal
responsibilities for employers and governments. This new threat was explained
in Hazards of suspected Uranium weapons for Iraq (Sept
2002) in the Community Projects section. This analysis plus recent findings
from the US Patent Office and preliminary medical test results for Afghan
civilians were published in a second report
Hazards of Uranium weapons for
Afghanistan and Iraq (October 2002). In view of recent concerns about US
weapons used in Falluja a new downloadable version of this report was added in
Nov 2005.
These issues were debated in the European Parliament on 12
February 2003 in Strasbourg and a resolution calling for an moratorium on
these weapons was passed. A new
slide show
summarises recent investigations and potential radiation hazards from
new US weapons for civilians and troops in Iraq. Two weeks later a
briefing in Westminster was offered for UK
MPs, Peers and NGOs to these hazards).
The start of the Iraq war despite
widespread international concern placed immense strains on international
relations and the world economy. It involves specific health and safety
concerns for civilians, troops and other expatriates in Iraq, with major
public and occupational health implications. Each new crisis in an already
unstable world is a challenge and an opportunity for community, peace and
political psychology. A first post-war assessment (March 2002) considered key issues
for United Nations uranium testing plans in post-conflict Iraq. To date (April
2004) UN testing in Iraq has still not been allowed to start.
In July 2006 the latest Israeli/Lebanon conflict started
another post-conflict trauma cycle for communities in the Middle East.
Unfortunately many of the weapon systems used were similar to those used in the
Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq - with similar potential long term health, safety
and environmental hazards. On 30th August 2006
these concerns were discussed
UN priorities for investigating uranium and other
suspected illegal weapons in the Israel/Lebanon conflict. I visited Lebanon
in September, described in the Eos weapons
study in Iraq, September 2006 - interim report and again in November 2006.
These studies led to a number of discussions with UN staff and NGOs in Geneva
and other concerned organisations groups in Switzerland, Austria, UK and the
Middle East. A combined Lebanon
report for 2006 is also available.
Other Eos pages list trauma support
resources and the powerful transition periods
that follow major traumas (such as natural disasters, wars and terrorist
attacks like 9/11) described in the Community Projects
index. We hope these may be useful for traumatised communities in both
Israel and Lebanon, and for aid programmes working with them.
About Eos
Eos Career Services is
named after Eos, the Greek goddess of dawn and symbol of hope. It is an
independent consultancy based in Surrey, UK. It was set up in 1986 by Career
Consultant Dai Williams, a Chartered Occupational
Psychologist. The Eos Life Work
project aims to increase awareness and to offer practical advice
for topical
issues in the world of work. It covers our action research and
international networking activities via the Internet. We liaise with other
specialists in work and organizational psychology, human resource management
and occupational health. We offer comprehensive career management, personal
development and career crisis support programmes.

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site
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To contact
Eos
Dai Williams, Chartered Occupational Psychologist
Eos Career Services
32 Send Road, Send
WOKING, Surrey GU23 7ET,
UK
To Email your comments or questions
to us click here >
eosuk@btinternet.com
Phone within UK:
01483-222017 outside UK: +44-1483-222017
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Public domain and
copyright
Eos Life Work is a division of Eos
Career Services which retains copyright for all information on this
site excluding links to other organisations and references to other authors. It
is offered as fair use, public domain information - free to individuals,
education, academic research and community organisations provided Eos copyright
is acknowledged. Prior permission is required for commercial use or
publication.
page updated 14 February 2009
Copyright © Eos Career Services 2009
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