When complemented with other initiatives, positive psychology at work can be a valuable tool to foster the employees’ psychological well-being and the progress of the companies where they work.
In a nutshell, positive psychology at work involves focusing on the psychosocial risk factors that threaten the employees’ psychological well-being and the psychosocial resources and strengths available to each employee and the team.
Understanding positive psychology at work
Positive psychology at work should not be limited to substituting one focus for another, diverting attention from what is going or can go wrong regarding employees’ psychological well-being to what is going well or can be better.
Instead, it should be a broadening of that focus. This would give HR managers and employees a complete picture of positive and negative circumstances that play an essential role in the psychological well-being of the people who make the company possible and, therefore, in its performance.
Employees’ resources and strengths
Below are 8 individual characteristics of employees that can be a great psychological resource for your well-being and that of your team and are therefore worth nurturing.
1. Sense of humor
A sense of humor, the ability to entertain ourselves and others with our witty remarks, is not something we should do without. It is a very subtle human capacity and helps strengthen employee ties and generate a favorable working environment.
2. Realistic optimism
No team progresses if it allows itself to be weighed down by discouragement, negativity, and despair. Realistically and maturely, it is vital to have people in our company who can overcome adversity and highlight the positive aspects of what is happening.
3. Successful stress management
There are people with little ability to solve tasks or process information and people whose experience of stress short-circuits them drastically. Then some people are more resistant to overload and must be present in the team.
4. Focus on cooperation
It’s about people who place more importance on connecting emotionally with their colleagues, helping them with their needs and contributing to their successes rather than focusing rigidly on the overly individualistic resolution of their tasks.
5. Creativity
It is one of the most valuable skills that anyone in general and any employee, in particular, can have. Generating ideas, innovating, and going beyond what is available at any given time is a magnificent resource that should be encouraged and stimulated.
6. Bonhomy
Although it may seem synonymous with a sense of humor and optimism, bonhomy deserves its own category: it’s about having a good mood, like those who don’t groan or sulk all the time but tend to be cheerful and relate with kindness and friendliness.
7. Talent
If there is an individual strength capable of leading an employee (and their team) to success, it is the peculiar, particular and unique talent that each person possesses. Locating and fostering it to the maximum should be on any positive psychology agenda at work.
8. Patience
It is a great virtue, necessary for life outside and inside the workplace. Whoever has it has a valuable asset that serves as a suitable counterbalance to the anxieties or excessively accelerated rhythms that other colleagues may have.
Team resources and strengths
The skills we are about to mention, and many others, are the result of the good individual characteristics of the members of a team and the proper coordination exerted by their manager. Therefore, they would be the focus of any corporate well-being strategy inspired by the principles of positive psychology at work.
1. Group cohesion
Team cohesion, the result of affinity, sympathy, and mutual understanding among its members, is the not-so-secret weapon of any team that wants to prosper. Unity is a strength, as well as improving a company’s productivity.
2. Positive emotions
We don’t come to work to make friends, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find them, or at least we can’t get along, appreciate and respect each other. Fostering these affections is also part of positive psychology at work.
3. Efficient leadership
It is the one that makes it possible for the virtues of the team members to stand out and grow, to work in an orderly manner, and to compensate for the weaknesses present in any employee or group of employees.
4. Cooperative style
Possessing, as a team, the ability to function in a coordinated and collaborative manner is a great starting point for moving efficiently towards the objectives set and distributing workloads equitably.
5. Balance in skills
Not all of us know how to do everything, but in a well-built team, the roles are well-balanced, so if someone does not know how to do something, it is not a big problem. Thanks to the combination of different talents, cooperation, and complementarity, the team can progress towards its objectives despite the various shortcomings of the individuals that make up the team.
Caring for emotional well-being in organizations
At ifeel, we work to help companies progress by committing to their employees’ well-being, trying to mitigate their weaknesses but also highlighting their personal and group resources. To achieve this, our team of psychologists, experts in well-being at work, has created an emotional well-being program for companies that brings truly relevant benefits to the entire team, including those involved in Human Resources.
These managers’ work greatly influences the organization’s final results. That’s why, through our program, they can receive personalized, data-driven advice on improving the psychological well-being of the teams they are in charge of. Are you part of your company’s Human Resources department? Try our program now to see how it can help you.
In addition, this program offers all employees a complete mental health care service that they can access in different ways depending on their needs. Those who wish to have access to an online therapy service with one of our psychologists specialized in cases such as theirs or interact with one of our professionals to receive emotional support in a more specific circumstance that concerns them.
In our Resources section, you can find different materials, such as podcasts, HR guides on various topics (e.g., employee experience or how to design a good HR strategy), or interviews with leading HR managers. In addition, we have a Psychosocial Risk Factors Template, which you can use to comply with the requirements of the Labor Inspectorate.
We hope you found this post about how to apply positive psychology at work interesting. If you would like more information about our emotional well-being program for companies, simply request it, and we will contact your team as soon as possible.
