Psychologically healthy workplaces don’t need to be perfect — just functional. You may enjoy a great supervisor but put up with toxic co-workers, or you may have a great place to work but a boring job. The following questions will help you clarify what works and what needs improvement in your work life.
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Psychology Today published a series of questions for workers to ask themselves to discover how psychologically healthy their workplace is. The full 12 questions are worth a look, but these five can help you get started thinking about which parts of your job work well for you and which are less-than-functional.
1. Do you know what is expected of you? If you don’t, you may be swimming in a pool of insecurity. You may do one thing, be told it’s wrong and get frustrated because you simply didn’t know. People who aren’t given clear boundaries and expectations often don’t know what questions to ask, and they get blamed for doing poor work or the wrong thing.
2. Does the mission or purpose of your company make you feel like your job is important? This goes straight to your own sense of self-worth and psychological health. If what you do is unimportant, why are you there?
3. Is there someone at work who encourages your development? In a psychologically healthy workplace, supervisors encourage and like to see workers grow and learn. Has somebody at work talked to you about your progress in the last six months?
4. Are your co-workers are committed to doing quality work? In a psychologically healthy workplace, everybody cares about the end product. Co-workers who are just going through the motions tend to bring others down.
5. Does someone at work seem to care about you as a person? It is more pleasant to be in a place of work in which you can make small talk about your personal life, rather than just being a another cog in the wheel.
Tell Us What You Think
How many of the above questions can you answer in the affirmative? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment or join the discussion on Twitter.
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