The capital was the meeting place as the American Psychological Association honored companies which have risen to the occasion, making the workplace a bit more manageable in a time of tumult. It’s Psychologically Healthy Workplace Awards were handed out to five organizations for their efforts to “promote employee health and well-being while enhancing organizational performance.”
Part of the challenges are mounting health care issues leading to stress in the workplace. As we recognize National Work & Family Month, workplace wellness is grabbing headlines. Congress is turning up the heat on the health care debate and H1N1 is boiling up a storm on the front burner.
Our world changed in an instant on September 11th 2001. Our world perspective was suddenly viewed through a new expanded lens – courtesy the internet, globalization, international security and economic concerns. We also had a new take on our work life.
Most inspirational or leadership philosophies teach us to look at the chaotic challenges around us at work and in business, as for opportunities for growth. But let’s take it a step further and look at them as opportunities to identify the stress triggers and raise our “stress awareness” at work.
In an exceptionally healthy workplace in the 90’s, an on-site gym, cleaner organic food in the company cafeteria, and the occasional chair massage might have been the norm. These days, since workers are more concerned with keeping their jobs than putting on a few extra pounds, it’s a different story. One could argue it ’s just as important to feel good – as to look good – mentally and physically.
Greetings folks! Here’s some of the work life stories and sites that caught my eye in our WorkLife Nation this week and abroad. Hot this week: stress, career training, jobs, workplace health, working dads, the economy, and health care.
Chicago Tribune: Career Education showing signs of recovery
Cleveland Jewish News: The business of healthcare and staying healthy [...]
With a Super Bowl lead-in, NBC’s “The Office” took the opportunity to touch upon the growing epidemic that’s sweeping the workplace globally in the wake of the economic meltdown. Stress at work.
We run at a pace unimaginable 10 or 15 years ago. Remember when computers were a luxury? Now they are a necessity. You must recall when getting a cup of coffee meant filling a pot with water, and running it through the coffee maker at work – instead of heading to Starbucks.
ost Bloody-Monday, the slashing of jobs is expected to continue at a pace that might rival the layoffs numbers the U-S saw in the early 1980’s. Change is certainly the order of the day. And as just about every Industrial Organizational Psychology blog out there quotes, “It’s not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.” (No, Darwin did not say it, at least not officially)
When CNN’s Ed Henry was appointed to the Washington bureau and assigned to cover President-elect Barack Obama, his knowledge of things – work life – emerged. I think it was an organic thing. A kind of extra perk of his intuitive journalistic prowess.
