In previous parts of this article, we covered the importance of Human Resources and Employee Engagement. In addition, we studied Engagement, what is it and why do we need it, how to measure it and how to create it.
Here we want to discuss how psychology contributes in employee engagement:
In my endeavor to find out how I can create/increase engagement in my team, I came across a new field in psychology called “Positive Psychology”.
VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Positive psychology is not positive thinking and being cheerful all the time. It has nothing to do with Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy and “The Secret” commercial courses and books. It is not about talking to yourself in the mirror or sitting and visualizing your success. There is no false promises here. It is a solid science.
What is Positive Psychology?
Positive Psychology is a field of psychology, developed in past 20 years mostly by Professor Martin Seligman from Penn State University. Positive Psychology lays its foundation on reality with scientific approach. (As opposed to positive thinking, Secret and …. Approaches).
There are tons of scientific researches, articles and practices in psychology literature that support the scientific base and effectiveness of this method.
This branch of psychology emerged in response to normal people’s demand to make their lives happier, more fruitful and meaningful. Previously, psychology was mainly focused on people with disorders by studying human being weaknesses and problems, but positive psychology focuses on strengths and positive characteristics of human beings and ways to measure and improve these strengths. Also for the first time in human history, Seligman studied happiness and success with scientific approach.
While it has a lot to offer for normal people, clinical application of positive psychology has helped many people heal from various disorders such as depression, anxiety, stress and PTSD.
The core concept behind the positive psychology, as elaborated by Martin Seligman in his book “Flourish”, is “The Theory of Well-Being”. In this theory, Seligman studies key elements of human well-being and methods to measure and improve our lives to reach the state of self-flourishing (Which some believe is the state on top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs).
Main elements of human well-being (Or the way to flourish) are:
1- Finding personal signature strengths of character and using these strengths to tackle challenges and to create/improve following elements in life: PERMA
2- Positive Emotions: Good feelings, Joys and pleasures of life. Here we learn how to maximize our positive feelings.
3- Engagement: Having an activity/career in which we engage completely and lose track of time while doing it. “Becoming one with the music” as mentioned by Seligman.
4- Positive Relationship: Having/making positive and fulfilling relationships with our loved ones, colleagues and friends
5- Meaning & Purpose: Not only having a purpose in life, but also creating a meaningful life by providing service to something bigger than our self.
6- Achievement & Success: The circle of well-being or the feeling of being flourished completes with the sense of achievement in life and work.
We refer to these elements in short: Strengths + PERMA
As you can see clearly, positive psychology covers the very same topics and elements, which are key players in employee engagement. University of California, Berkeley and Penn State University have done a great work on studying psychological foundations of human resource management and employee engagement and they have recently created courses on the role of positive psychology in employee engagement and happiness at work.
Seligman and his team were able to transform many companies, schools, US Army and US national sport teams a further step ahead via positive psychology technics. They even could predict which employees would leave the company in near future. There are growing number of companies that employ positive psychology to foster engagement and productivity.
Let’s go a little bit deeper to see how positive psychology (Strengths + PERMA) contributes to employee engagement.
Positive Psychology’s main foundation is based on people’s “Strengths”. We can meticulously measure and define each person signature strengths and form team relationships and communications accordingly.
In “Positive Emotion”, we have studied all the good feelings and emotions such as happiness and hope, which play a key role in flourishing organizational culture. As a result, we can establish a happy atmosphere at workplace.
We help people to utilize their strengths and passions in “Engagement” to find out what they are made for and enjoy their jobs with much higher creativity and productivity.
We use “Positive Relationship” and “Positive Communication” technics to create productive teams with effective team dynamics. Thus, we foster “Trust, Respect, openness, honesty and Empathy” in organizational culture. “Positive Communication” technics focus on most of desired soft skills such as Emotional Intelligence, Effective Communication, Assertiveness, Negotiation, Problem Solving, Decision Making, Conflict Handling, leadership and team working.
Let me remind you that according to Garry Dessler “Many employees are recruited based on their expertise and fired (Or Leave) because of lack of soft skills.”
“Meaning and Purpose” part of positive psychology includes methods to discover a purpose for life and making life a meaningful journey. We can help people to find their path in a direction to take part in realization of organization’s vision with a more altruistic approach and as a result, convert their “Career” to “Calling”. People will create their own career development plan via these technics.
Finally, in the “Achievement” part of positive psychology we have studied elements of success, both for individuals and organizations. “Resilience” is a key element in achieving what we strive for. We empower people with tools and technics of “Perseverance” to reach their organizational goals, as well as required qualities for success such as adaptability in difficult situations and flexibility to change.
Positive Psychology is a great step forward in improving people and organizations success and happiness. With PERMA methods and technics, we are able to transform employee engagement towards happier, more creative, productive and profitable organizations and we will face less stress, boredom and disengagement in our companies.
These methods can be used in recruitment process as well as organizations learning and development programs.
I will discuss couple of these elements in detail in my future articles.
Thank you for reading this article!
Please share your ideas!