Video: When I Grow Up

2013 February 5 By

Note: If you have trouble viewing the video, you can watch it on Vimeo.

“When I Grow Up” is a short and wonderful video about the power of dreams. The story follows the imagination of a young boy and his dreams for his future. The message is a nice reminder to all of us, young and old, to never stop following our dreams.

Here are lines from the video:

Life is an adventure filled with amazing possibilities.

How about becoming a world famous explorer?
You could be an underwater adventurer.
Maybe even a hero of the untamed wild west.
You could always travel with the circus.

So explore a world that’s waiting to be found.

And though you may fall or the going gets tough, keep pushing on because there’s a world full of mysteries for you to solve.

So fire your engines.
Gather your courage.
Let go of fear.
And dig deep inside.

Because it’s never too soon to shoot for the moon.
So chase down those dreams.

Direction, Animation, & Story by Colin Hesterly.

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Filed Under: Attitudes & Emotions, Coaching, Happy & Unhappy, Meaningful Work Tagged With: ,

An Employee’s Uncivil Behavior Can Harm Other Employees and Customers

2013 January 17 By

word of mouth

Photo Credit: Flickr

More than three years ago (12/13/09 to be precise), I wrote about people with a situational value system. That post in December 2009 was about my experience as a waiter and my story about a rude customer, the wife of a famous baseball player, who snapped her fingers in a demanding way to get my attention.

The situational value system post has become the most visited post on WorkplacePsychology.Net. Over the months, and now years, that followed, I have tried to come up with a follow-up or related post. It’s not easy to do a follow-up to something that has been so well received.

Based on the number of visits and people who have shared the post or clicked on the “like” button, it seems many people can relate to or have their own stories about knowing, experiencing, and/or witnessing someone with a situational value system (i.e., an individual who treats people differently based on that person’s status).

What I have wanted to do since that time was to further explore mistreatment and uncivil behaviors in the workplace. Because my original post in 2009 talked about the impact that one customer had on me (an employee), this post in 2013 will be about the negative effects of employee uncivil behaviors on customers, coworkers, or subordinates (if the employee is in a managerial role). There’s quite a bit of research in this area, although my guess is that by writing about it, it will not be anywhere near as popular.

Harm to Customers Who Directly Experienced It or Were Witnesses to It And the Negative Business Effects

Customers Who Directly Experienced Uncivil Behaviors

Hawkins and Mothersbaugh (2010) outlined three coping strategies customers use when confronted with bad customer service (p. 381):

  • Active coping: Thinking of ways to solve the problem, engaging in restraint to avoid rash behavior, and making the best of the situation.
  • Expressive support seeking: Venting emotions and seeking emotional and problem-focused assistance from others.
  • Avoidance: Avoiding the retailer mentally or physically or engaging in complete self-denial of the event.

The customer might work with the organization to try to resolve the situation (active coping). Other customers might decide to vent their frustrations to the company (expressive support seeking) or they might tell their friends or broadcast it online about their bad experience (negative word of mouth [WOM]). The last case, avoidance, is also damaging because a customer might choose to avoid an organization completely or continue to be a customer but makes an effort to avoid the company (either physically or mentally), in which case the result will be lost sales (Hawkins & Mothersbaugh, 2010).

“Many times, however, consumers do not complain to the company, but instead take actions such as switching brands or engaging in negative word of mouth (WOM)” (Hawkins & Mothersbaugh, 2010, p. 636).

Customers Who Were Witnesses to Uncivil Behaviors

Porath, MacInnis, & Folkes (2010) found that when an employee mistreated or was uncivil (e.g., being rude or discourteous, ignoring or making derogatory remarks, passing blame for their own mistakes, belittling the efforts of others, etc.) toward another employee, customers who witnessed it tended to “make negative generalizations about (a) others who work for the firm, (b) the firm as a whole, and (c) future encounters with the firm, inferences that [went] well beyond the incivility incident” (p. 292). What researchers discovered was that “consumers [were] also negatively affected even when they [were] mere observers of incivility between employees” (Porath et al., 2010, p. 301).

Harm to Coworkers or Subordinates

Pearson & Porath (2009) discovered in their studies that 1 in 5 employees reported being targets of incivility from a coworker at least once a week. About 2/3 said they witnessed incivility happening among other employees at least once a month. Ten percent said they saw incivility among their coworkers every day.

A survey of public sector employees in the United States found that 71% of respondents reported at least some experience of workplace incivility from a supervisor or coworker (e.g., being treated rudely or discourteously, having a coworker or boss ignore or make derogatory remarks, being blamed for a colleague’s mistakes, being belittled, having someone set them up to fail, being shut out of a team, etc.) during the previous 5 years, and 6% reported experiencing such behavior many times (Cortina, Magley, Williams, & Langhout, 2001).

Lim, Cortina, and Magley (2008) found that (1) “uncivil work experiences also appear to have a direct negative influence on mental health” (p. 104), (2) employees who experienced incivility were more likely to be dissatisfied with their boss and coworkers than with the the job itself, and (3) those personal experiences of workplace incivility can lead to them eventually quitting their jobs.

Take-Away:

An employee who engages in uncivil behavior (i.e., being rude, insensitive, or disrespectful) is harmful to: (1) other employees inside the organization, and (2) customers who are direct targets of such behaviors or who might simply be witnesses (from the outside) to uncivil behaviors between employees.

References

Cortina, L. M., Magley, V. J., Williams, J. H., & Langhout, R. D. (2001). Incivility in the workplace: Incidence and impact. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 6(1), 64-80.

Hawkins, D. I., & Mothersbaugh, D. L. (2010). Consumer behavior: Building marketing strategy (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Lim, S., Cortina, L. M., Magley, V. J. (2008). Personal and workgroup incivility: Impact on work and health outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(1), 95-107. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.93.1.95

Pearson, C. & Porath, C. (2009). The cost of bad behavior: How incivility is damaging your business and what to do about it. New York, NY: Portfolio.

Porath, C., MacInnis, D., & Folkes, V. (2010). Witnessing incivility among employees: Effects on consumer anger and negative inferences about companies. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(2), 292-303.

Filed Under: Attitudes & Emotions, Happy & Unhappy, Incivility, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Behavior, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Book Review-The Orange Revolution

2012 August 22 By

I’m a very picky book reader. Prior to reading “The Orange Revolution: How One Great Team Can Transform an Entire Organization,” I had actually started and given up reading several other business books. But “The Orange Revolution” restored my belief that business books can be entertaining, researched-based, and instructive.

Culling research from a 350,000-person database (employees from 28 industries) by the Best Companies Group, as well as from their own interviews with exceptional teams at leading companies, the authors found that breakthrough teams had not only remarkable leaders, but also team members, all of whom share similar characteristics!

These characteristics comprised what Gostick and Elton called “The Basic 4 + Recognition” (p. 45):

  • Goal setting (knowing where you are going)
  • Communication (wise use of your voice and ears)
  • Trust (believing in others and being trustworthy)
  • Accountability (doing what you say you will do)

Plus

  • Recognition (appreciating others’ strengths)

From the first few pages, Gostick and Elton’s writing style immediately caught my attention. Their story about Thomas Edison’s success in creating the incandescent lightbulb set a beautiful tone throughout the book. Although Edison is almost universally thought of as the one person who invented the incandescent light bulb, it was his team working together under his supervision that made it a reality! That’s right, Edison envisioned it, but it took a team of remarkable “assistants” who made it happen. In fact, Edison searched for men of integrity, who were hungry for knowledge and who expected excellence. He would then put them into small teams, gave them a goal, and let them independently pursue it. Edison did not do it alone. He had help from a breakthrough team.

“By creating an Orange culture that not only expects but also nurtures competency, and then combining it with a high regard for team members, breakthrough teams generate a self-perpetuating collaborative energy” (Gostick & Elton, 2010, p. 42).

A world-class team is not about who is on the team, but rather what the team can do. Gostick and Elton discovered that six core traits defined breakthrough teams: (1) they dream ambitious goals; (2) they believe in one another and what the team can accomplish together; (3) they take calculated risks but (4) measure their results; (5) they persevere even when conflicts or challenges occur; and (6) they tell stories that illustrate what they’re trying to achieve.

Indeed, it is this last trait that, in my opinion, separates “The Orange Revolution” from the sea of business books out there. Stories are amazingly powerful and Gostick and Elton did a masterful job incorporating incredible stories into their book.

According to the authors, all breakthrough teams follow The Rule of 3 (p. 16):

  • Wow—Breakthrough teams commit to a standard of world-class performance.
  • No Surprises—All team members are accountable for openness and honest debate, and each knows what to expect from the others.
  • Cheer—Team members support, recognize, appreciate, and cheer others and the group on to victory.

But more than any other story, the one about Patrick Poyfair’s Arsenal Strikers (a second girl’s Double A soccer team created for girls who were told they weren’t good enough to be in the first soccer club) really touched me. It’s in the last chapter of the book so I don’t want to give the story away. Since my summary here won’t do the story any justice, I’ll just briefly say this: The power of cheering for one another transcends the workplace and into the home and our lives outside of work. It’s so inspiring to hear about breakthrough teams, but it is even more empowering to know that we can create and be a part of our own breakthrough teams.

Gostick & Elton (2010) showed that “soft” ideas such as recognition, goal setting, trust, etc. can “actually drive competency every bit as much as technical ability” (p. 45).

Summary: One of the best and most practical business books I have ever read. This is a book I would definitely take with me if I were stranded on an island somewhere and could only bring three books. Well written and witty, with amazing and uplifting stories to inspire and warm the heart. Gostick and Elton have done a wonderful job convincing me, “how one great team can transform an entire organization.” My highest recommendation!

References

Carrots.com. The Orange White Paper. http://www.carrots.com/public/files/whitepapers/Orange_White_Paper.pdf

Gostick, A., & Elton, C. (2010). The orange revolution: How one great team can transform an entire organization. New York: Free Press.

Filed Under: Organizational Psychology, Training & Development, Attitudes & Emotions, Teams, Leadership, Happy & Unhappy, Meaningful Work, Coaching, Executive Coaching, Organizational Behavior Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Lack of Career Advancement Leads to Turnover Despite Training

2012 August 9 By


Photo: movin’ up

According to the American Society for Training & Development, U.S. organizations spent about $171.5 billion on employee learning and development in 2010. But what good does it do a company if the very workers the organization spent money on to train will quit and take their newly acquired training with them?

I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal titled, “When Training Leads to Turnover” and found it interesting. However, it’s important to note that the title is a bit misleading since training (by itself) does not lead to turnover. Rather, it’s the idea that without an opportunity to advance/move up in a company, employees (even those who have received training) are more likely to leave compared to those who have opportunities to advance in the organization. As Silverman later clarified in the WSJ article, “employee turnover can increase after training if a company fails to also provide career development and opportunities to get ahead.”

Kraimer, Seibert, Wayne, Liden, and Bravo (2011) discovered that employees who’ve been trained by their company will leave if they do not see any chance to advance. On the other hand, workers who see a career opportunity within the organization will stick around. Thus, it would have been more fitting to label the WSJ article “When Lack of Career Advancement Leads to Turnover.” But then that wouldn’t be as eye-catching. In fact, the research study the WSJ cited is titled, “Antecedents and outcomes of organizational support for development: The critical role of career opportunities.” Note the last part of the title, “The critical role of career opportunities.”

Training does not occur in a vacuum and, by itself, is not enough to retain employees, if those employees do not see career opportunities in their future.

Researchers defined two important concepts: (a) organizational support for development (OSD) as “employees’ overall perceptions that the organization provides programs and opportunities that help employees develop their functional skills and managerial capabilities” (Kraimer et al., 2011, p. 486); (b) perceived career opportunity (PCO) as “employees’ belief that jobs or positions that match their career goals and interests exist within the organization” (Kraimer et al., 2011, p. 486).

Most notably, the researchers found that development support was associated with reduced voluntary turnover when perceived career opportunity was high, but it was associated with increased turnover when perceived career opportunity was low. In other words, even when organizations provide programs and opportunities to help employees develop their skills, if employees perceive that career advancement opportunity is low, they are more likely to leave.

Practical Implications: “Organizations should seek to manage employees’ perceptions of career opportunity if they wish to retain career-oriented employees. If organizational career paths do not lead to opportunities that match those desired by employees, they may choose to look for alternative jobs in the hopes that another organization will offer more desirable job paths. Given the high costs associated with staffing and turnover, expenditures for development support may be well justified, but only when employees perceive that there are career opportunities within the organization that match their career goals and interests. When many employees do not perceive desirable career opportunities, our results suggest that development support may simply provide them with the mobility capital to leave…” (Kraimer et al., 2011, p. 496).

References

American Society for Training & Development (ASTD). 2011 State of the Industry Report.

Kraimer, M. L., Seibert, S. E., Wayne, S. J., Liden, R. C., & Bravo, J. (2011). Antecedents and outcomes of organizational support for development: The critical role of career opportunities. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(3), 485-500. doi:10.1037/a0021452

Silverman, R. E. (2012, June 25). When training leads to turnover. The Wall Street Journal [Online]. Retrieved August 2, 2012, from http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2012/06/25/when-training-leads-to-turnover/

Filed Under: Organizational Psychology, Training & Development, Teams, Leadership, Happy & Unhappy, Meaningful Work, Coaching, Executive Coaching, Organizational Behavior Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Economic Mobility and the American Dream

2012 July 10 By

This video is from The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project which focuses public attention on the ability to move up or down the economic ladder within a lifetime or from one generation to the next.

The video shows the difference between two measurements of economic mobility. It’s important to note that there are two ways of measuring economic mobility: absolute and relative. As the video states, each offers an understanding of the health and status of the American Dream; however, neither measure should be taken in isolation for a complete picture of economic mobility in our country.

The example of being on the escalator (starting at the 1:58 mark to the 2:30 mark) is a great visual aid. As the Pew explains:

“For more than two centuries, economic opportunity and upward mobility have formed the foundation of the American Dream, and they remain at the core of our nation’s identity. As policy makers seek to foster equality of opportunity, it’s critical that their decisions be informed by a robust and nonpartisan fact base on economic mobility.”

In addition to this eye-catching video, one might also observe that economic mobility is linked to our salaries or compensations for the work we do. Interestingly,

“Many experts now believe that money is a much more important motivator than was previously believed, more because of its inherent or symbolic value than because of what it can buy. . . . One recent study found that people who are more highly paid have higher job performance because the higher paycheck makes them feel more valued in the organization (i.e., they have a more positive self-concept)” (McShane & Von Glinow, 2010, p. 167).

References

McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2010). Organizational behavior: Emerging knowledge and practice for the real world (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project. http://www.pewstates.org/projects/economic-mobility-project-328061

Filed Under: Organizational Psychology, Attitudes & Emotions, Stress, Happy & Unhappy, Meaningful Work, Organizational Behavior Tagged With: , , ,

Cognitive Dissonance When Firing Family or Friend

2012 July 1 By

Photo: Conflicts

I was contacted by a career advice reporter with FINS.com, the jobs and career website of The Wall Street Journal, for my thoughts for an article about why workers struggle when they have to fire someone with whom they have a close personal relationship. While I’m glad to see my name mentioned, I feel that much of what I shared with her was left out of the article. Two things did manage to make the cut – cognitive dissonance and the mention of the Parker and McKinley (2008) article. However, without offering more details, I’m afraid that readers of that article might miss my message.

Here is what I emailed her:

We spend a great deal of time working alongside others at work. In fact, if you consider that the typical worker spends 8 hours a day at work, it means that many of us spend more face-time with our colleagues than with our own families.

A more specific explanation of why workers struggle when they have to fire someone with whom they have a close personal relationship is something called cognitive dissonance. It’s a state of tension, which we want to avoid, that occurs when we perceive an inconsistency between our beliefs, feelings, and behavior.

So, if we spend a great deal of time with someone and have developed a close relationship with that person, then it is understandable that having to turn around and fire that individual would create conflicts or tensions between what we are required to do (i.e. the act of firing someone) and our feelings (i.e., that person I must fire is a friend or someone I care about).

Parker and McKinley (2008) wrote about how employees who assist in the implementation of layoffs at their organization (i.e., they help the company lay off other employees) experience cognitive dissonance. They maintained that the longer you spend with the employee being terminated, the greater the odds of you experiencing cognitive dissonance when you need to let that employee go.

Parker and McKinley (2008) said in order to help reduce cognitive dissonance, the one terminating (the agent) might subscribe to an ideology of shareholder interest (the belief that shareholder value should be the main criterion for management decision-making). If the layoff agent is a strong believer in this ideology of shareholder interest, he or she would regard the increase of shareholder wealth as the first priority of management and thus back or defend actions that enhance shareholder wealth.

Basically, according to cognitive dissonance theory and the article by Parker and McKinley, the person who must fire a coworker can change the way he or she thinks about firing or letting someone go and rationalize that while the layoff or termination of a coworker might harm that individual employee, it would have positive consequences for the overall organization.

Reference

Parker, T., & McKinley, W. (2008). Layoff agency: A theoretical framework. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 15(1), 46-58. doi:10.1177/1548051808318001

Citation to FINS article:

Eggers, K. (2012, June 29). How to fire your dad. FINS Finance – Career Advice. Retrieved from http://www.fins.com/Finance/Articles/SBB0001424052702303649504577493183038820606/How-to-Fire-Your-Dad

Filed Under: Attitudes & Emotions, Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Executive Coaching, Happy & Unhappy, Health & Wellness, Leadership, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Behavior, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Does Time of the Day Impact Moods at Work?

2012 June 21 By

Photo: Monday again

It’s probably safe to assume that most, if not all, of us have at one time or another, wondered whether our moods are influenced by the time of the day or the day of the week. Well, wonder no more.

According to Robbins and Judge (2009), people are more likely to be in their worst moods (i.e., highest negative affect and lowest positive affect) early in the week and in their best moods (i.e., highest positive affect and lowest negative affect) late in the week.

What about time of day? Does it make any difference if someone is a “morning” person versus another who might be an “evening” person? Robbins and Judge said that no matter what time we go to bed in the evening time or when we wake up in the morning, our levels of positive affect peak about midway between the time we wake up and the time we go to sleep.

Watson (2000), in his book “Mood and Temperament,” said this:

“Although different people reach their acrophase [peak time or time at which the peak of a rhythm occurs] at different times and show somewhat different curves over the course of the day, our analyses have demonstrated that this basic circadian rhythm—that is, low Positive Affect at the beginning and end of the day, with a peak occurring somewhere in the middle—is remarkably robust and generalizable across individuals” (p. 116).

What implication does this have in the workplace? Well, as many of us can already confirm, Monday morning is not a good time to deliver bad news. And in terms of time of the day, employees will tend to be more positive from about midmorning going forward and (certainly not surprising) later in the week.

References

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2009). Organizational behavior (13th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Watson, D. (2000). Mood and temperament. New York: The Guilford Press.

Filed Under: Attitudes & Emotions, Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Happy & Unhappy, Health & Wellness, Meaningful Work, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Behavior, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Book Review-The Advantage

2012 April 11 By

I was excited when I received Patrick Lencioni’s “The Advantage” on my doorstep. I eagerly opened the box, removed the book, and began reading. Truth be told, I initially struggled because I am accustomed to theories and research-based books and had to fight off that mentality because Lencioni’s “The Advantage” isn’t based on research, and wasn’t meant to be. As he explains, “Because I’m not a quantitative researcher, the conclusions I draw here are not based on reams of statistics or finely crunched data, but rather on my observations as a consultant over the past twenty years” (Lencioni, 2012, p. xvii). I appreciated his upfront honesty.

Lencioni said that most organizations have plenty of talent, intelligence, and expertise to be successful. What’s more, he contends that almost every organization has access to the best ideas and practices about technology, strategy, and many other topics because information is everywhere and easy to locate. However, what many organizations lack is organizational health.

Organizational health is about integrity—whole, consistent, and complete. An organization is healthy “when its management, operations, strategy, and culture fit together and make sense” (Lencioni, 2012, p. 5).

Healthy organizations have the following qualities:

◾ Minimal Politics
◾ Minimal Confusion
◾ High Morale
◾ High Productivity
◾ Low Turnover

What “The Advantage” is, is a call to action and a blueprint about how to go from an unhealthy to healthy organization. It’s simple and practical, and it won me over. The real-world examples and true client stories were particularly compelling because they reinforced the concepts and brought them to life.

Lencioni offered his “Organizational Health Model” which consisted of four disciplines: (1) Build a Cohesive Leadership Team; (2) Create Clarity; (3) Over-Communicate Clarity; and (4) Reinforce Clarity.

In addition to the emphasis on creating and maintaining a cohesive team, Lencioni contends that there are six critical questions that a leadership team must rally around and clearly answer. They include:

◾ Why do we exist?
◾ How do we behave?
◾ What do we do?
◾ How will we succeed?
◾ What is most important, right now?
◾ Who must do what?

“Most organizations are unhealthy precisely because they aren’t doing the basic things, which require discipline, persistence, and follow-through more than sophistication or intelligence” (Lencioni, 2012, p. 148).

By eliminating politics and confusion from an organization’s culture and environment, a healthy organization will almost always find a way to thrive and succeed because, without politics and confusion, it will tap into and use every ounce of “knowledge, experience, and intellectual capital that is available to [it]” (Lencioni, 2012, p. 11).

Whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the pastor of a medium-size church, or the president of a small volunteer group, Lencioni’s “The Advantage” is your road map to both the ins and outs of what healthy organizations do and the costly mistakes that unhealthy organizations make.

Reference

Lencioni, P. (2012). The advantage: Why organizational health trumps everything else in business. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Disclosure: Although I received Lencioni’s “The Advantage” as a complimentary gift, my review and recommendation were given as if I had purchased it.

Filed Under: Attitudes & Emotions, Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Executive Coaching, Happy & Unhappy, Health & Wellness, Incivility, Leadership, Meaningful Work, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Positive Mindset and Happy Attitude Help You Succeed at Work

2012 March 8 By

“happiness is” by Melissa Deakin

In his book, “The Happiness Advantage” (2010) Shawn Achor asserts that happy employees can actually help improve an organization’s bottom line. Achor says we often think that if we work hard and become successful, then we’ll be happy. But, he argues (convincingly I might add) that the formula is backward. Instead of success first and happiness second, it should be happiness first, and then success.

In a related Harvard Business Review article, Achor (2012) cites a meta-analysis of 225 research studies that found happy employees have about 31% higher productivity, 37% higher sales, and three times higher creativity! As he says in his book, “happiness leads to success in nearly every domain, including work, health, friendship, sociability, creativity, and energy” (Achor, 2010, p. 21).

The best part is that we can all adopt a more positive way of thinking and a happier attitude. The human brain is amazing because it possesses something scientists call neuroplasticity, a big word meaning that our brains are malleable—capable of changing and adapting throughout our lifetime.

One great tip Achor offers in his book is a technique called “The Tetris Effect,” a way to train the mind to concentrate on the positives instead of the negatives in our daily life. He recommends this:

Write down THREE good things in your job and life that happened today (do this each day). This forces your mind to look back on your day for positives, potentials, and possibilities. These three things can be simple, small things—things that made you smile or laugh, things that brought a sense of accomplishment or hope, etc. It doesn’t have to be anything deep or profound, only specific.

While this exercise might seem silly, Achor (2010) cited a research study that found people who “wrote down three good things each day for a week were happier and less depressed at the one-month, three-month, and six-month follow-ups” (p. 101). That’s incredible!

The lesson is this: The better we become at scanning our world for good things to jot down, the more good things we’ll see, by habit. To help you stick to this exercise, pick the same time each day to do this.

References

Achor, S. (2012). Positive intelligence: Three ways individuals can cultivate their own sense of well-being and set themselves up to succeed. Harvard Business Review, 90(1/2), 100-102.

Achor, S. (2010). The happiness advantage: The seven principles of positive psychology that fuel success and performance at work. New York: Crown Publishing Group.

Filed Under: Attitudes & Emotions, Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Executive Coaching, Happy & Unhappy, Health & Wellness, Leadership, Meaningful Work, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Virtual Workplaces and Telework

2011 December 21 By

“Railay Beach Office” by EvanLovely

I saw an article on Time magazine’s website today called, “The Beginning of the End of the 9-to-5 Workday?” (Schawbel, 2011). The article maintained that companies need to embrace workplace-flexibility programs. The author of the article stated that “between new technology and global workplace dynamics, companies are implementing flexible work arrangements for everyone.” The article also quoted a flexibility-strategy leader who said: “This notion of an eight-hour day is rapidly disappearing, simply because we work so virtually and globally.”

While this all sounds great, several important caveats were left out of the article. In this post, I’ll delve into the many terms that cover virtual work. I’ll also discuss trends (there’s an interesting change for 2010). Finally, I’ll talk about some important things to consider for both the employees who telework or who might consider telework, as well as for the organizations that currently have telework or might be considering it in the near future.

TERMINOLOGIES

According to WorldatWork (2009), there are several different, but related terms to describe virtual work. These include:

Telecommute: To either periodically or regularly perform work for one’s employer from home or another remote location.

Telework: To perform all of one’s work either from home or another remote location, either for an employer or through self-employment.

Employee Telecommuter: A regular employee (full or part time) who works at home or another remote location at least one day per month during normal business hours.

Contract Telecommuter: An individual who works on a contract basis for an employer or is self-employed, and who works at home or at a remote location at least one day per month during normal business hours.

Employed Telecommuters: Individuals (either employees or contractors) working at home or remotely at least one day per month during normal business hours; the sum of “employee telecommuters” and “contract telecommuters.”

STATISTICS AND TRENDS

According to WorldatWork’s Telework Trendlines (2009):

  1. More Americans, and a higher percentage of Americans, telecommuted in 2008.
  2. Occasional telecommuting is on the rise.
  3. The most common locations for remote work are home, car and a customer’s place of business.
  4. Today’s telecommuters are most often 40-year-old male college graduates.

The number of Americans who telecommute or work remotely at least once per month increased between 2006 and 2008. In 2006, approximately 8 percent of Americans telecommuted at least one day per month; in 2008, that number increased to just over 11 percent. In the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, as many as one in 10 workers are part-time telecommuters. In the Greater Washington Area, more than 450,000 employees telecommuted at least one day a week in 2007, 42.5 percent more than in 2004, according to a survey by Commuter Connections, a regional network of transportation organizations coordinated by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. The percentage of employees who telework surged to 19 percent from 13 percent during that time period (Kotkin, 2008). In the five years from 2003 to 2008, the total number of teleworkers rose 43% to 33.7 million Americans, most just part-time (WorldatWork, 2009).

WHY IS TELECOMMUTING INCREASING?

This trend toward more telecommuting is due to a combination of factors, including:

  • The increase in number of high-speed and wireless Internet access making it less costly and more productive to work remotely
  • Improvements in virtual workspace technologies (Vickers, 2007)
  • Rising fuel and commuting costs
  • The trend by employers to embrace work-life balance concepts (WorldatWork, 2009)
  • Government policies influencing the trend. In 2000, the U.S. Congress ordered federal agencies to allow employees to work from home “to the maximum extent possible without diminished employee performance” (Vickers, 2007 citing Bridgeford).

TELECOMMUTING DECLINED IN 2010

It is quite interesting to note that, according to WorldatWork (2011), telework in 2010 declined.

“For the first time since WorldatWork began studying the telework phenomenon in 2003, the number of teleworkers has dropped. The total number of people who worked from home or remotely for an entire day at least once a month in 2010 was 26.2 million, down from 33.7 million in 2008.”

The Telework 2011 Special Report (WorldatWork, 2011) stated that the decline is likely due a combination of factors: fewer Americans in the workforce over all due to high unemployment, higher anxiety surrounding job security, and lack of awareness of telework options.

THINGS TO CONSIDER

Six crucial aspects of the next level of development for teleworking are:

(1) Overcoming the teleworking stigma of no face-to-face time. A Futurestep poll of 1,320 global executives in 71 countries found that 61% of senior managers think telecommuters are not as likely as conventional office workers to be promoted, despite the fact that over three-quarters also think teleworkers are equally productive as (42%) or more productive than (36%) their office-dwelling colleagues (Vickers, 2007 citing Bridgeford). Managers might recognize that teleworkers are productive, but they are still accustomed toward face-to-face interactions. Therefore adapting to the world of telework requires both managerial and organizational adjustments.

(2) Employment screening and training of teleworkers (Vickers, 2007).

(3) Equipping management with the teleworking mindset and management skill sets to properly and effectively lead virtual teams and teleworkers (Vickers, 2007; Cagle, 2008).

(4) Teleworker’s own initiative, responsibilities, and accountability (Cagle, 2008). Interestingly though, Cagle discovered that, “a number of studies, including one performed by Sun in 2007 showed that one of the older stereotypes of teleworkers as people who would tend to do a little work then skip to some other activity, watch TV or surf the web actually proved to be something of a myth – for the most part most teleworkers actually tend to put in longer days working than they would in the office.”

(5) Safeguarding business, customer, and personal information and ensuring a high level of protection from theft or loss – from computer viruses to stolen laptops (Cagle, 2008).

(6) The last factor to consider is legal regulation. For example, where does a teleworker work? The answer will have implications for states with income taxes (Cagle, 2008).

Suggestion: With regards to organizational climate and culture, it behooves organizations to create both a climate (perception/feeling/affect) as well as culture (what’s written down/effective/values) to clearly outline support for and understanding of face-to-face and teleworkers (Landy & Conte, 2007).

Note: Information for this post was adapted from an assignment I completed for a class.

References

Cagel, K. (2008). Is Telework the New Face of the Agile Workforce? O’Reilly. Retrieved from http://news.oreilly.com/2008/08/is-telework-the-face-of-the-ag.html.

Kotkin, J. (2008). Skipping the Drive: Energy Costs May Fuel the Growing Telecommuting Trend. The Washington Independent. Retrieved from http://washingtonindependent.com/100/skipping-the-drive.

Landy, F. J. & Conte, J. M. (2007). Work in the 21st Century: An Introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Schawbel, D. (December, 2011). The Beginning of the End of the 9-to-5 Workday? Time Moneyland. Retrieved from http://moneyland.time.com/2011/12/21/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-9-to-5-workday/

Vickers, M. (2007). Adapting to Teleworker Trends. American Management Association’s Moving Ahead Newsletter, 2(10). Retrieved from http://www.amanet.org/training/articles/Adapting-to-Teleworker-Trends.aspx

WorldatWork (2009). Telework Trendlines 2009. Retrieved from http://www.workingfromanywhere.org/news/Trendlines_2009.pdf

WorldatWork (2011). Telework 2011: A WorldatWork Special Report. Retrieved from http://www.worldatwork.org/waw/adimLink?id=53034

Filed Under: Happy & Unhappy, Health & Wellness, Meaningful Work, Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Using Reappraisal to Handle an Angry Face

2011 November 25 By


“Thinking” by Hans Kristian Aas

An interesting study by a team of researchers (Jens Blechert, Gal Sheppes, Carolina Di Tella, Hants Williams, and James J. Gross at Stanford University) has found that when you tell yourself (i.e. reappraise) that someone is mean to you is simply having a bad day, you may be able to fend off bad feelings.

Reappraisal isn’t anything new. It goes by the name of reframing and is used by cognitive-behavioral psychologists to help clients reframe a distressing problem using a more positive perspective, making it a more a manageable one.

Professor Gross discussed this idea of reappraisal in the book “Developing Your Conflict Competence” by Craig Runde and Tim Flanagan. In it, he talked to one of the authors about using cognitive reappraisal by challenging the way you initially interpret things you see. “Cognitive reappraisal involves using alternative interpretations of the meanings about situations” (Runde & Flanagan, 2010, p. 50).

Runde and Flanagan (2010) said: “Reappraisal (also known as reframing) involves a cognitive process through which the facts underlying a conflict are reexamined for nonthreatening, alternative explanations” (p. 49). Incredibly, brain imaging seems to support this and indicate that, with practice in reappraising/reframing your thinking, your negative feelings will be reduced while more positive feelings will surface (Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002).

Ask yourself the following:

  • “Is it the only way of seeing the situation?”
  • “Are there rational, nonthreatening ways of understanding the matter?”

In the study by Blechert and colleagues, participants were shown a series of angry faces and the reactions of the participants were assessed. When participants were told that the angry faces had a bad day, but that it had nothing to do with the participants personally, the participants were able to fend off bad feelings the next time they saw that same angry face. However, when the participants were told to only feel the emotions brought on by seeing an angry face, they remained upset by that face when it was shown to them again.

Bottom line: Blechert says, “If you’re trained with reappraisal, and you know your boss is frequently in a bad mood, you can prepare yourself to go into a meeting” and not be negatively affected by your boss’ bad mood.

References

Association for Psychological Science. (November, 2011). Press Release. The Brain Acts Fast To Reappraise Angry Faces. http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/the-brain-acts-fast-to-reappraise-angry-faces.html

Ochsner, K. N., Bunge, S. A., Gross, J. J., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2002). Rethinking feelings: An fMRI study of the cognitive regulation of emotion. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14(8), 1215-1229. doi:10.1162/089892902760807212

Runde & Flanagan, (2010). Developing your conflict competence: A hands-on guide for leaders, managers, facilitators, and teams. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Weisul, K. (November 2011). How to handle an angry boss. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57329138/how-to-handle-an-angry-boss/

Filed Under: Attitudes & Emotions, Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Executive Coaching, Happy & Unhappy, Health & Wellness, Incivility, Meaningful Work, Occupational Health Psychology, Stress, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Employees Misbehave When They Are Bored

2011 October 22 By

Bruursemaa, Kesslerb, and Spector (2011) conducted a study in which they found that employees who were bored are more likely to also misbehave. Previously, counterproductive work behavior (CWB) were viewed as made up of five types: abuse against others, production deviance, sabotage, withdrawal, and theft.

In this study, the researchers added a sixth type, horseplay. Bruursemaa, Kesslerb, and Spector (2011) studied responses from 211 participants recruited via email in North America. They discovered that being prone to boredom (boredom proneness) and job boredom was strongly associated with certain types of counterproductive work behavior (CWB).

This is actually not surprising to me. In my previous job consulting with educators about classroom management, special education issues, and students with behavioral problems, one of the first things I do when I observe students in the classroom is to watch what they do when they are bored. It never fails because once boredom kicks in, whether it’s because the task is too easy, too hard, uninteresting, etc., the student will almost certainly find a way to misbehave.

Reference

Bruursemaa, K., Kesslerb, S. R., & Spector, P. E. (2011). Bored employees misbehaving: The relationship between boredom and counterproductive work behavior. Work & Stress, 25(2), 93-107. doi:10.1080/02678373.2011.596670

Filed Under: Attitudes & Emotions, Coaching, Coaching Psychology, Executive Coaching, Happy & Unhappy, Meaningful Work, Organizational Psychology, Teams, Training & Development Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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