M8-PSY 355-DRQ
Timesaver4real
M8-DRQ.docxRemember to respond to two peers while being respectful of and sensitive to their viewpoints. Consider advancing the discussion in the following ways:
· Post an article, video, or visual related to employee mental health to reinforce a peer's idea or challenge them to see their point from a different perspective.
· Paraphrase something from the original post. Then consider asking a question or sharing your personal experience.
To complete this assignment, review the Psychology Undergraduate Discussion Rubric . You will also need:
· Norms of Practice for Online Discussion PDF
PEER 1-BR
Prosocial behavior, voluntary behavior intended to benefit another person or society is a measure that organizations may take to improve employee mental health (Tsang, 2020). In a place of work, employees are working together to meet the needs of the jobs being asked, and those needs can’t be met if employees don’t feel listened to and motivated. When corporate give back to their employees, with monetary rewards or other rewards, it encourages their employees to have positive feelings about their organizations and their roles in the company. These rewards can help improve employees’ mental health as well. Workplace Mental Health: How to Support Employee Mental Wellness states that building flexibility in employees’ schedules, providing meditation rooms for mindfulness training or yoga classes, and even encouraging employees to take advantage of their vacation time are also ways to improve employee mental health.
Staglin states that “mental health and diversity and inclusion (D&I) are closely connected. Employees from diverse backgrounds can face lack of representation, microaggressions, unconscious bias, and other stressors that impact their mental health and psychological safety at work” (2020). There is a direct connection between DEI. Mental health resources should always be available to employees, especially those that come from diverse backgrounds. Equity can be defined as “a condition in which the outcomes people receive from a relationship are proportional to what they contribute to it” (Myers, 2018). When looking at the relationship between mental health and equity, inequities are a negative impact on the mental health of employees. Employees of a company may feel discriminated against if they can’t speak up about their ideas or even their feelings. Employees must feel represented and included as well.
Groupthink is defined as, “the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action” (Myers, 2018). Some factors of groupthink are the desire to maintain the status quo, the fear of looking ignorant or wrong, avoidance of disagreement and conflict, and the belief that one’s own input won’t make any difference (Brennan, 2022). Organizations can avoid groupthink by creating a safe space for employees that allow them to express their ideas and beliefs freely without the fear of being judged. This can also create a negative workplace culture and environment. Employees should feel their voices are being heard and companies should be unafraid to make changes to the status quo in the best interest of the organization.
In my opinion, I feel that it is a group effort to promote and maintain workplace well-being. It is important that no matter your job title or experience level, your voice I heard as well as your suggestions to keep the workplace a safe and enjoyable environment. Each organization has its own form of HR that should be able to also help guide team members or employees to make necessary changes. Obviously, higher-ranking positions make the final changes, but the changes start with the lower-level voices.
I think that organizational core values that could promote a prosocial workplace environment include fairness, diversity and inclusion, teamwork, integrity, and even honesty. These core values are all important in our everyday lives and can also help our ways of thinking. These values may also help keep the workplace a positive environment that employees want to be a part of and make them feel safe while at work.
The concept of employee mental health applies to the theme of career connections. I felt that our topic this week best fits this theme because it is important to have companies that out their employees and their mental health first. A business cannot be successful with employees that are in deep depression or unmotivated employees.
References
Brennan, C. (2022, April 28). How to avoid groupthink – tips and tricks. Insperity. https://www.insperity.com/blog/groupthink/
Myers, D. (2018). Social Psychology (13th Edition). McGraw-Hill Higher Education (US). https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781260140569
Rawe, Julie. (n.d.). Workplace Mental Health: How to Support Employee Mental Wellness. Understood. https://www.understood.org/en/articles/workplace-mental-health-5-ways-to-support-employee-wellness
Staglin, G. (2021, December 10). The Essential Role of mental health for a diverse, inclusive workplace. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/onemind/2020/07/14/the-essential-role-of-mental-health-for-a-diverse-inclusive-workplace/?sh=137c1e72ac4d
Tsang., S. (2020, March 13). How prosocial behavior is trickling into the workplace: Anyperk blog. Fond. https://www.fond.co/blog/prosocial-behavior/
PEER 2-LW
To start on this week’s discussion, I think that there are many measures that companies could take to improve employee mental health. One very important factor would be that the employee feels that he/she is treated with fairness and that he/she is appreciated. There should be a healthy and encouraging work environment, where people feel free to communicate their ideas and concerns. If the company creates this positive work environment, the employees will be more likely to be satisfied and happy, and therefore have more motivation to increase their productivity. Should an employee suffer from mental health problems, a company that provides connections through a counsellor, social worker or therapist is very valuable. There should be a designated person, such as an HR representative, that either has qualifications in counselling or can provide resources and connect the employee with them. There should also be awareness and not shame around the topic. The employees should feel able to be open about their situation if they want to. The boss/manager should clearly communicate that mental health is important to them and that they do not stigmatize or even terminate people if they decide to seek help. One specific measure could be that every employee gets to sit down for a 30-minute session with a licensed counselor or social worker every month or every other month. This should be an independently hired person, so that they do not feel like they are endangering their jobs. This person can then help them and provide them with resources.
Mental health has a direct connection to diversity, equity, and inclusion levels of a company. If a company does not appreciate and encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion, it can lead to low levels of happiness and the employees that belong to certain groups not feeling safe. Being afraid to speak up or express any kind of ideas or criticism at your workplace, because you are being discriminated against because of your race, gender, or other factors, is very bad for a person’s mental health. If a company does not take those problems seriously, they just show that they do not value their employees and their mental health. Although companies are profit oriented (naturally), that does not mean that they do not have a responsibility to create a safe work environment, where nobody is at risk of getting mental health problems like anxiety or depression, only because they are the way that they are and problems resulting from that.
In a safe work environment that encourages diversity and inclusion, there should be no need of conformity. Of course, we all must conform to the rules and regulations of the company so that it can thrive and be successful and an efficient workflow is guaranteed. However, these rules should not be made in a way that require someone to hide certain aspects of who or what they are, such as their religion, gender, sexuality etc. Organizations can avoid this by openly communicating that they do encourage individuality and that every decision that is made is made based on the company’s/team’s best interest, and not to conform to any social or societal norm.
I think the responsibility to promote and maintain workplace well-being lays with the management. This starts at the lower-level management like team leaders but ends with the CEO. I think that they should all function as controlling mechanism to ensure that they are all doing their job right and that nobody must go to work afraid or going into a hostile work environment. It might be a good idea if a company had a way of direct outreach (such as anonymous emails/suggestion box etc.) to a higher-level management. Ideally, the HR department of a company could function as that. They could assess the situation and then decide if it needs to be reviewed by a higher-level management.
Examples of company core values that could promote a prosocial work environment are fairness, diversity and inclusion, honesty, and integrity. If those values are followed and taken seriously, they should create a positive and prosocial work environment that encourages free exchange of ideas where everybody feels welcome.
The concept of employee mental health applies to career connections because a company that cares about their employee’s mental health will make them much more likely to stay with them. It also applies to the theme of ethics, because providing a safe and prosocial work environment that contains the values of diversity, equity and inclusion and wants to help people with mental health struggles, is important and should be normal.
Thank you and I hope you have a great rest of the week everyone.
