HR Management: Week 9

Student Blog for MGMT 453- Human Resources Management

Silent But Deadly: Stress in The Workplace

Stress in the workplace has a big impact on productivity, company culture, and employee experience. How do you manage it?

For this week’s learning materials, I took a few tests that measure my stress coping ability and impatience. It’s no secret that stress is a household experience in corporate America, if you’re not stressed you must not be doing enough. Right? My results were not what I had hoped for, I struggled to cope with high amounts of stress and unwinding, and my levels of patience (or in my case, lack thereof). Stress is a condition that can affect people chronically, and impacts not only the mid, but the body, too. Companies who make it a priority to help their employees manage stress usually see their investment return in the form of better productivity, higher employee morale, and much more.

In an article for Harvard Business Review, Natalie Peart discusses some ways companies can help buffer stress and create an inviting work environment. Here are five that I thought were the most important:

1. Build regular break times into the schedule

2. Set boundaries around time (working) outside of the office

3. Make sure the right people are in the right places

4. Look into flexible work policies

5. Deepen engagement further by instilling a sense of purpose.

Peart, Natalie. “Making Work Less Stressful and More Engaging for Your Employees.” Harvard Business Review, 5 Nov. 2019, https://hbr.org/2019/11/making-work-less-stressful-and-more-engaging-for-your-employees.

The takeaways here are that there are ways to combat stress, and it has been shown to lead to better outcomes in the office. Don’t believe me? An article from COSE states it well here, saying: By providing stress management resources, organizations can help employees be healthier and control healthcare costs. ‘Healthy employees are often happier and more productive employees,’ says Ballog. ‘In many cases, turnover and absenteeism can also go down'” (Kevany, 2015).

For me personally, working on managing stress is a daily battle as I juggle school, leadership commitments, and working part time. However, I’ve found that creating time to be active, making a schedule, and spending quality time with friends are great for coping with stress. It will be an ever-changing process as I transition to full time jobs or have new experiences, but for now these things seem to work best for me.

How do you handle stress? Here’s the links to the tests I took for this post:

Holmes- Rahe Stress Inventory

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/tests/career/coping-stress-management-skills-test

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/tests/personality/type-personality-test

Citations:

Kevany, Terry. “Increase Productivity by Reducing Stress.” COSE, https://www.cose.org/en/News/Press-Releases/General/Increase-Productivity-by-Reducing-Stress.

Peart, Natalie. “Making Work Less Stressful and More Engaging for Your Employees.” Harvard Business Review, 5 Nov. 2019, https://hbr.org/2019/11/making-work-less-stressful-and-more-engaging-for-your-employees.

November 17, 2021

HR Management: Week 8

Student blog for MGMT 453- Human Resources Management

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (or Unpaid).

When I think of times where I was motivated by compensation, it wasn’t ever the only factor. In comparing my work in food service versus now a social services position, I was actually getting paid more at my food service job but I absolutely hated it.

In my food service job, I struggled to feel supported by management, I wasn’t passionate about the work I was doing, and they were always asking me to come in early and stay late. I kept willing myself to go because I needed to support myself financially, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a mental battle every time I had to go in for a shift. On days I was working I was constantly plagued by anxiety and spent the time counting down until I could leave. At this job, I was really only extrinsically motivated for finances, and not much else. When I got the opportunity to do something that I loved, working with kids, I put in my 2 weeks for food service almost immediately.

In this new role, I was under immense emotional stress due to the nature of social work, I worked 9 sometimes 10 hour shifts and did most all of it with a smile on my face because I felt passionate about the work I was doing. In this job, monetary compensation was a cool side effect of getting to make a positive impact on children’s lives, and it made all the hard stuff worth it.

Its these experiences I’ve had that have made me a firm believer that there are other more impactful ways to motivate people to get work done, either by inspiring purpose, creating a safe and welcoming workspace, or making work not feel like work. Of course, in the real world pay is incredibly important when you’re fully responsible for your own rent, bills, student loans, and so on… but in today’s day and age, there are jobs that pay in every direction you look. So, it’s up to companies to further incentivize with factors beside money.

What do you think?

November 3, 2021

HR Management: Week 6

Student blog for MGMT 453- Human Resources Management

The Importance of Comprehensive Training

Why Training is Crucial to Employee Enrichment and Decreased Turnover

I have had multiple training opportunities through my current job as a social worker over the past six months. Some have gone really well, others.. not so much. In my opinion, comprehensive training always consists of the same factors, the amount of material covered in a length of time, multiple opportunities for the participants to practice or role play situations, and the trainers ability to keep the participants engaged.

One very beneficial training I attended for work was the Life Space Crisis Intervention training for professionals working in social services and special education. This training was especially beneficial because it was a cumulative 16 hours worth of information, review, and practice. The trainer provided written materials for us to study and take notes with, fidget toys so we could pay attention, and gave us multiple breaks with snacks. The information was hard to absorb but the trainer pushed us outside of our comfort zone and expanded out ways of thinking. I left the training feeling empowered, better prepared for my work, and most importantly: excited.

A not-so-great training I attended was for a seasonal job at a large retailer. The training did not teach me much about my position, or who to go to with questions. It was very short, around an 1 hour, and was a basic overview for all positions, not specific to mine. I left feeling more confused than confident, and in the end only stayed with the company for two weeks

In an article from Harvard Business Review, the author mentions that on average companies lose 17% of their new employees within the first 3 months (Ellis, 2017). While the amount of training needed varies by position, a cashier and a brain surgeon don’t need the same amount of hours in training before starting the job. However, regardless of the amount of time spent in training, the quality of the training is what’s most important. Training should be an opportunity for the company to set the expectations with new employees, empower them to be confident in their new positions, and gage their response to things like meetings and serious topics of discussion. Training is also not a one-and -done situation, it should be continuous and can be effective in a mentor setting, too. Harvard’s Business Review cites that in a study following recent college graduates in newly professional jobs, the ones that had more frequent support from their managers correlated with better role clarity, higher job satisfaction, and potentially higher wages (Ellis, 2017). Training should encompass a mindset of continuous growth and improvement to get the results you want to see from your new hires.

Citations

ELLIS, A. M. et al. Your New Hires Won’t Succeed Unless You Onboard Them Properly. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, [s. l.], p. 2–4, 2017. Disponível em: https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.proxy.library.oregonstate.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=123809484&site=ehost-live. Acesso em: 3 nov. 2021.