A brief summary of research highlights and what they mean for virtual teams.

When the pandemic hit the world in early 2020, it accelerated trends in digital working, turning employees in the knowledge-industry into remote workers – with positive and negative consequences. While the majority of people appreciate some of the benefits of working from home (WFH) and reporting an increase in wellbeing (Chung et al., 2020), emerging research suggests that working conditions have deteriorated for some groups of people while WFH.

Limited space at home, role-conflict, and blurring lines between work and private life can contribute to higher stress, exhaustion, and demotivation (Kniffin et al., 2021). It seems that individual differences, circumstances and available resources are all factors to influence people’s personal experience of WFH.

Drilling down on individual differences, here is what I found:

A quantitative study (Raišienė, Rapuano, Varkulevičiūtė & Stachová, 2020) across 436 teleworkers in Lithuania suggests that men generally seem to assess WFH less favourably, stating increased role-conflict, feeling disturbed by other members in the household and reporting career constraints due to the physical distance to their supervisors. Women report to appreciate the greater flexibility in how they can design their day and an overall healthier lifestyle due to WFH. However, not all women are thriving. A recent Irish qualitative study on the role of working mothers during the pandemic points to a disproportionate increase of the burden on mothers, highlighting the increased levels of psychological distress in this subgroup, putting significant strain on their subjective wellbeing (Clark et al., 2021).

With WFH set to continue during and most likely beyond the pandemic, it is more important than ever for effective wellbeing trainings to be available, to equip employees with the psychological resources to better deal with work and life demands.

I reviewed latest research and established Positive Psychology interventions and built an evidence-based wellbeing programme that provides a multi-level learning experience for your employees, building on the buffering factors of Psychological Capital (PsyCap) - hope, self-efficacy, resilience and optimism - and a strengths-based mindset.

Hope & Wellbeing at Work

Hopeful employees show higher job performance and job satisfaction, organisational commitment and better overall wellbeing (Reichard, Avey, Lopez & Dollwet, 2013). Hope can be build through setting personally motivating approach goals, in combination with developing many different pathways to achieving these goals (Luthans et al., 2010).

In an interactive workshop in my programme, participants build their personal wellbeing success plan, setting goals that are intrinsically motivated and meaningful.

Optimism & Wellbeing at Work

Similarly to findings on the connection of hope and desired work outcomes, optimistic employees tend to perform better at work and report higher job satisfaction, happiness and commitment to the organisation (Youssef-Morgan & Luthans, 2015).

An optimistic mindset is trained through a hands-on workshop where participants search for possible solutions to a problem and focusing on an optimistic outlook to one’s future.

Self-Efficacy & Wellbeing at Work

It has been suggested that self-efficacy is the best predictor of job satisfaction and job performance (Judge & Bono, 2001). Self-efficacy in the workplace is the employee’s belief or confidence in their abilities to draw upon motivation and cognitive resources to successfully achieve the tasks at hand (Luthans et al., 2010). The theory of self-efficacy goes back to research from Bandura (1997), who identified 4 routes to more self-efficacy: task mastery based on positive past experiences, learning by observing others, persuasion or positive feedback of relevant colleagues or leaders, psychosocial or emotional arousal.

All 4 routes are activated through an experiential workshop, which includes reflective work as well as small group discussions.

Resilience & Wellbeing at Work

Employees high in resilience interpret setbacks as temporary, changeable and local events (Seligman, 2011) and generally deal better with changes and challenges in the workplace, making resilience a protective resource for wellbeing.

The Resilience module in my training promotes the personal protective assets and resources by applying cognitive-behavioural strategies to raise awareness for the interconnection between cognitive processes, emotional and behavioural responses (Luthans et al., 2010; Seligman, 2011).

Coaching for Individual Wellbeing

I am advocating to bring coaching to every employee! We have seen how effective and transformational coaching for leaders can be, imagine what you can do for your employees if everyone gets a chance to experience the magic of coaching!

Therefore my programme includes a personal coaching session for each member of the team.

I apply a strengths-based coaching approach to boost confidence and self-awareness to help every employee thrive to their full potential. I use a mix of solution-focused and cognitive behavioural coaching tools and strategies to support professional and personal development of every employee.

I have further condensed all this in a beautiful flyer, have a look here:

If you want to learn more or offer this programme to your teams, drop me an email! Let’s make work a better place!

References

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.

Chung, H., Seo, H., Forbes, S., & Birkett, H. (2020). Working From Home During The Covid-19 Lockdown: Changing preferences and the future of work. University of Kent. Available at: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/83896/

Clark, S., McGrane, A., Boyle, N., Joksimovic, N., Burke, L., Rock, N., & O’ Sullivan, K. (2021). “You’re a teacher you’re a mother, you’re a worker”: Gender inequality during COVID‐19 in Ireland. Gender, Work & Organization. doi: 10.1111/gwao.12611

Judge, T., & Bono, J. (2001). Relationship of core self-evaluations traits—self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability—with job satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal Of Applied Psychology, 86(1), 80-92. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.86.1.80

Kniffin, K., Narayanan, J., Anseel, F., Antonakis, J., Ashford, S., & Bakker, A. et al. (2021). COVID-19 and the workplace: Implications, issues, and insights for future research and action. American Psychologist, 76(1), 63-77. doi: 10.1037/amp0000716

Luthans, F., Avey, J., Avolio, B., & Peterson, S. (2010). The development and resulting performance impact of positive psychological capital. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 21(1), 41-67. doi: 10.1002/hrdq.20034

Raišienė, A., Rapuano, V., Varkulevičiūtė, K., & Stachová, K. (2020). Working from Home—Who Is Happy? A Survey of Lithuania’s Employees during the COVID-19 Quarantine Period. Sustainability, 12(13), 5332. doi: 10.3390/su12135332

Reichard, R., Avey, J., Lopez, S., & Dollwet, M. (2013). Having the will and finding the way: A review and meta-analysis of hope at work. The Journal Of Positive Psychology, 8(4), 292-304. doi: 10.1080/17439760.2013.800903

Seligman, M. (2011). Building resilience. Harvard business review, 89(4), 100-106.

Youssef-Morgan, C., & Luthans, F. (2015). Psychological Capital and Well-being. Stress And Health, 31(3), 180-188. doi: 10.1002/smi.2623