In a world where a 9 to 5 job is the most detested and not always associated with a quality life and job satisfaction, where the term mostly remains a negative connotation, where a life sustained by such a job is defined as nothing less other than a rat race, a positive work environment is inevitable to mitigate the said inconveniences. Here, the discipline of positive psychology comes into play.
Positive psychology examines a positive working environment as one that is more enjoyable, and productive and also values the employees working there. Multiple psychological strategies can be utilised to foster positive and productive working environments for employees while maintaining their mental well-being.
Read: The Psychology Behind Procrastination
Why do we need a positive working environment?
Much of the research in positive psychology, including work conducted by Martin Seligman, embraces the goal of increasing understanding of how positivity helps people flourish Robert Waldinger, the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, said in a recent audio interview for the Harvard Business Review that while research shows that engaging in meaningful work is one of the factors that contributes to wellbeing, having excellent work relationships is even more effective. In actuality, having a friend at work can increase happiness, engagement, and job satisfaction.
Strategies to maintain Employee Productivity and Well-Being
1. Ensure a smart work design
Employers can bring the work culture of their office space to a point where the employees can find a platform or opportunities to take initiative in work instead of being asked to complete a task. This not only would increase their accountability but would also act as an incentive to remain productive.
2. Building resilience
Resilience can be defined as a process of adapting to difficult and challenging life experiences through methods of mental and physical flexibility and internal or external adjustments to demands. Various psychotherapeutic measures can be undertaken for those employees who find themselves in a vulnerable position within their workspaces. Cognitive behavioural therapy and rational emotive therapy can all be utilised for the purpose of improving the resilient behaviours of these employees.
Read: Toxic Workplaces: Signs, Impact and Solution
3. Increased Mental Health Awareness
The employees should be made well aware of the various mental health shortcomings that they may have to face during their employee years. They should not only be able to identify noticeable symptoms of mental health problems within themselves and others, they also should be desensitized about the stigma around calling out for necessary mental help.
4. Fostering a platform for the employees to discuss their problems
Employers should set up private platforms for their employees to converse about their problems, the ones that they face in private and professional circles. This can be done more effectively by bringing onboard psychologists, social workers and counsellors so that the platform remains in a very professional manner.
5. Encourage diversity and inclusion of differences
Employers should make sure that their workspace accounts for diversity and that this diversity in all sorts of demographic aspects is treated with utmost respect and dignity within the workspaces. This would protect people from any demographic minority from feeling vulnerable at any time in the workspace and thus it would help maintain their mental well-being to a larger extent.
6. To entertain meaningful connections
Employers should maintain meaningful camaraderie with their employees This would put the employees, especially the freshers the office at ease and put them in a position to believe that you are available and would make room for their needs. This would aid their productivity and to know the fact that someone in their workspace would help them out if something goes wrong, destresses them a lot and puts them in a mentally good position.
7. Rewarding employees for their commendable performances
Employees must be tracked for their work in the office and should further be allowed special incentives or rewards for their commendable performances in the office spaces. This would motivate them to remain productive in their work. But if the competition for these rewards gets toxic, there are chances that even if they may produce productive employees, they may not guarantee the latter’s mental well-being.
8. Say a big no to micro-management of employees
Employers should, however, refrain from micromanaging their subordinates. Employees should be trusted with the small or big amounts of work they are being assigned with. They should be given a space to ideate and ponder over their work without having to answer their employers for every small progress they make in the work. This would help them improve their mental well-being as it reduces the amount of resentment that may build up over time. It also helps them feel confident in the work that they have taken up.
9. Encourage employees to take breaks between their work schedule
Employers must ensure that the work schedule of each of their employees is adjusted in such a way that they can avail an adequate number of breaks between their work. This not only accounts for the short breaks that one may take on a daily basis between office hours but also should include the number of leaves they could avail to destress themselves away from the dreading office space. This would significantly aid in maintaining their mental health and every break that they take between their work would help bring them back into work.
Conclusion
The physical and mental well-being of the employees should be the core priority of every organisation. Employers must ensure that their employees have a stable work-life balance and are comfortable in the working conditions provided to them in their office spaces, in relation to their schedules, infrastructure provided, workload that is extended upon them etc. Since ensuring employee productivity is absolutely inevitable for every organisation there is, positive psychology can be put in use to devise such strategies to ensure that the latter’s morale, mental well-being and subsequently productivity are at par with each other to ensure a healthy working space within the 4 walls of the organisation.
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