I’m almost positive without research being done, (which is a big no no in my future field to assume, however, I’m going to anyway) that a majority of working individuals have hated at least one job they’ve had. In my own case, I’ve hated about half of every job I’ve ever had. I have worked with children the majority of my life. I love my first job and I was lucky to be there from teenage years up until adulthood. Of course, there were aspects of it I didn’t like such as waking up at the crack of dawn or rude parents, but I loved the environment and the students.
There were many reasons I didn’t like coming to work at other places of employment I had. The majority had to do with leadership. I’ve had hostile managers, that I felt like loved to berate me. I’ve had supervisors that wouldn’t support the team but will take credit for the accomplishments of the group. I also had supervisors that had no idea what they were doing.
One way to avoid those unfortunate environments is to find something you enjoy. Job satisfaction is an important factor in whether or not you’ll stay at a particular place of employment. Job satisfaction according to Gruman, “can be defined as a person’s attitude toward his or her overall job as well as toward various aspects of the job; it is a predisposition to respond to one’s work environment in a favorable or unfavorable manner.” In other words, it is the ways to determine what causes you to like your job.
When it comes to looking for a job you can gather if the work will be mentally challenging from the ad a company puts out for the position. Equitable rewards are usually noticed after working there and sometimes is labeled in the company’s benefits policy which most find out in great detail after being hired. Supportive working conditions and supportive colleagues is what you can figure out before you accept the position by asking some key questions in the interview. You can also get more information about the work’s challenges in the interview as well. Asking these questions could help with your own person-job fit model. The person-job fit model argues that job satisfaction will be higher when there’s a pretty good matchup between your personal characteristics and the nature of the job (Gruman, 2017). The key is to not be too intrusive. Make these question flow into the interview like conversations as to not put off your future employer.
Asking what the companies’ values or mission statement is very important. This let’s you know what environment you will be entering into. A related question is what is the office culture like? These answers will let you know if this organization is something you want to run away from depending on your personality. An eclectic artist would not want to work in an environment where the culture is very strict in appearance and conversation and the organizational values reflect a cutthroat mentality where individuals steal ideas in order to gain success. It’s important to ask upfront instead of finding out later.
To find out more about supportive working conditions, asking about a learning development program or about training will let you know if they support employees learning more. This could also clue you in about how the company supports growth. If you’re the type of person with high growth need strength which can be explained by your job contributing to your personal growth and development, it’s especially important to ask this question.
One question I have learned to ask an interviewer which gives insight to supportive colleagues is “What do you like best about working for this organization?” This would give information on how colleagues support each other when things go wrong. Social influence at work can affect job satisfaction. The answer to this question derives specifically from their social environment at work. Beware when an interviewer gives vague answers and doesn’t answer with some slight enthusiasm. It probably means you should definitely run for the hills.
These are things I wished someone told me once I got into the workforce full time. I would’ve avoided some very unhealthy environments. Please remember, that you add value to your organization by being there. You do have to accomplish getting their attention with impressing them in order for them to offer you the job, but they need to impress you as well. After all you’ll spend the majority of your days working there.
Archives
07
Oct 19
Double Discrimination for Disabled Workers
Often times when we think of discrimination, we think of injustices against people of color and women in a variety of settings like criminal justice, civil rights, and education. Unfortunately, discrimination stretches much further over many groups of people like those who are physically and mentally handicapped. Those with disabilities are often discriminated against in the workplace and lose many opportunities that other groups of people are afforded. Many of those with disabilities stay unemployed because employers do not want to or cannot accommodate for their disabilities. Although the American Disabilities Act is supposed to protect those with disabilities from experiencing this type of treatment, it is still prevalent in today’s society.
Currently, there are about 61 million people in the United States that have a disability that impairs normal functioning and daily activities (CDC, 2018). Unfortunately, of those 61 million people with a disability only about 19% of them are employed according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics (2019). Many of them are unemployed because they are physically or mentally incapable of working, but many also are unable to find jobs that will cater to their needs or be open to hiring them. Many employers hesitate to offer employment to disabled applicants because they have an uniformed or ignorant perspective on what disabled people are capable of in the workplace. One research study examined viewpoints of several employers and what their concerns were pertaining to hiring disabled applicants (Bonaccio et al., 2019). This study found that many employers believed that disabled applicants were underqualified and were concerned that they could not ask questions pertaining to the disability that would determine if they were qualified. Employers also expressed concerns over the costs attributed to hiring a disabled person like adding wheelchair access to buildings or flexibility of schedule. Many of these concerns are just due to ignorance because studies have shown that the costs related to accommodating disabilities are not as excessive as presumed and can even save a company money because of the many tax credits available to employers that hired disabled works (as cited by Bonaccio et al., 2019). It seems that U.S employers exhibit as Gruman, Schneider, and Coutts (2017) describe as uncertainty avoidance because they perceive that by hiring those with disabilities, they are accumulating a high amount of risk. If more employers were educated on disabilities and how many are capable of effectively working even with the circumstances surrounding their disability, I believe there would be a dramatic decrease in unemployed among the disabled community.
Within the disabled community, even after being hired with a disability many experience discrimination within the workplace. Many disabled workers experience harassment, unequal pay, and even get laid off or fired without reasoning. In one study that analyzed many of the circumstances of discrimination in the workplace for those who had sensory (learning disabilities, hearing, and vision impaired) and non-sensory disabilities (Graham et al., 2019). For both non-sensory and sensory disabilities, involuntary termination was ranked the number one complaint of discrimination while those with non-sensory disabilities rated harassment as the third most prevalent discriminative action. Those who had sensory disabilities were less likely to be promoted or receiving training compared to all other disabilities. Many of those with disabilities may experience relative deprivation, which is the feeling that they are deprived of the same opportunities and capabilities of an able-bodied person (Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts, 2017). They may try to compensate with this deprivation by seeking employment opportunities so that they can achieve independence and a positive social identity within society.
It is unfortunate that in today’s society, our disabled are becoming the forgotten people in the workplace. They often try to seek employment so they can provide some financial security and independence especially with their higher medical costs that can become crippling. It seems that many disabled people are stigmatized on both sides of the workplace. They are stigmatized and discriminated against when applying for the position because employers do not understand or do not want to hire disabled workers for the concern of liability. They are also stigmatized once they are hired and as a result are subjected to harassment, lack of opportunities, and wrongful termination. Fortunately, technological advances are allowing more disabled workers to be hired like in the case of Starbucks that has expanded its stores to include technologies that allow deaf and visually impaired workers to work as baristas. Hopefully with more education and social contact with those that are disabled more employers would be open to hiring those with physical, mental, and behavioral disabilities.
References
Bonaccio, S., Connelly, C. E., Gellatly, I. R., Jetha, A., & Ginis, K. A. M. (2019). The participation of people with disabilities in the workplace across the employment cycle: Employer concerns and research evidence. Journal of Business and Psychology, 1–24. doi: 10.1007/s10869-018-9602-5
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2018, August 16). 1 in 4 US adults live with a disability. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0816-disability.html.
Graham, K. M., Mcmahon, B. T., Kim, J. H., Simpson, P., & Mcmahon, M. C. (2019). Patterns of workplace discrimination across broad categories of disability. Rehabilitation Psychology, 64(2), 194–202. doi: 10.1037/rep0000227
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. (2017). Applied social psychology: understanding and addressing social and practical problems. (3rd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2019, February 26). Persons with a disability: Labor force Characteristics Summary. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/disabl.nr0.htm.
28
Sep 14
What Work Should Really Be: Work Engagement
Companies are always searching for ways to become more profitable and increase productivity, but at what cost? There are many issues that result in overworked and stressed out workers that can lead to health issues and other problems such as depression and alcohol abuse. A more recent concept to help battle this type of burnout is work engagement, which can be described as workers “who approach their work with energy, dedication, and focus” (Association for Psychological Science, 2011). So how can work engagement help?
The goal of empowering your employees with work engagement is to give them the sense of purpose and fulfillment in their job. When an employee feels engaged in the work place they tend to produce more and be more innovated while taking initiative to help improve the work environment and the service and/or product they are working for. Arnold Bakker (2014) mentions that “research has revealed that engaged employees are highly energetic, self-efficacious individuals who exercise influence over events that affect their lives,” this can be beneficial not only for the company but also the employee (Bakker, 2014). If employees are willing to go the extra mile and feel satisfied in their work place no matter their position then one may guess their livelihood may be more satisifying as well. If you were happy and enthusiastic about your work that would carry over into your everyday life, and when you feel better about yourself you tend to make better decision in your life.
These choices can lead to healthier lifestyles and more active as well which can lead to less time sick. With less time being sick means you are out of office less and go to the doctor less, a win win for reducing cost in healthcare and increasing productivity in companies. So many illnesses are stress related and a main trigger of stress is work. Since the majority of people work at least at some time in the life it would seem like a great place to start would be in the workplace. The best way to improve the overall health and well-being of a population is promote healthier lifestyles and prevention of stress and illness (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2012). A model to back up the support for work engagement is the theory of planned behavior or more importantly perceived behavioral control, where a person believes they have a certain amount of control or influence over their behavior and this is an important element in employee engagement.
When employees feel like they have control over their work and are a part of something bigger they tend to give more. And when an employer gives the same energy back the mutual effect is a bonus for both sides. After reviewing some of the top companies to work for Google is up on top a lot, but why? Maybe it’s they give their employees the freedom to choose when they work, incredible perks and stimulating work environments, and also a say what happens in the company, while these kind of things may not be able to be offered from other companies the point is that they may hold “the future of workplace leadership” (Crowley, 2013).
This type of intervention in the work place could affect the population is such a positive manner. Not only is it studied in health psychology but also in positive psychology, work engagement can be a powerful tool for the future of people’s life quality. “Employees’ own personal resources- such as self as self-esteem and optimism- also contribute to work engagement” so imagine if this influence could start in the work place where almost everyone goes on a daily basis (Association for Psychological Science, 2011). That really is an inspiring thought to think that everyone could enjoy going to work and stop dreading Monday’s, I only hope that more companies will start adapting this type of thinking for society as whole, for we might all benefit in our daily lives as well as a population.
References
Association for Psychological Science. (2011, July 20). Work engagement, job satisfaction, and productivity: They’re a virtuous cycle. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 27, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110720142459.htm
Bakker, Arnold. (2014). Work engagement. Retrieved September 26,2014 from http://www.arnoldbakker.com/workengagement.php
Bakker, Arnold & Leiter, Michael. (2010). Work Engagement: A handbook of essential theory and research. Psychology Press 2010. Retrieved September 27, 2014 from http://www.media.routledgeweb.com/pp/common/sample-chapter/9781841697369.pdf
Crowley, Mark C. (2013, March 21). Not A Happy Accident: How Google Deliberately Designs Workplace Satisfaction. Fast Company Inc, Mansueto Ventures, LLC 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2014 from http://www.fastcompany.com/3007268/where-are-they- now/not-happy-accident-how- google-deliberately-designs-workplace-satisfaction
Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., & Coutts, L.M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (Second ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.