Many businesses are catching on that thriving workers are key to maintaining an effective work force but wonder How Do Businesses Work with a Thriving Worker Consultant. The thriving worker is a new concept and Microsoft says is the new north star.
It has become more important seemingly since the pandemic when workers have had time at home, are being asked to come back to the office and now contemplate how both work life balance and their work play a role in their lives.
Too many surveys point out the discordance between the workers expectations or desires and the reality of his situation. It isn’t always the organization’s fault that the worker is discontent, but it becomes the organization’s burden to understand what is trending with worker needs.
The whole world has been turned upside down and the worker is just one piece. Workers are caught in the same washing machine as the employers as supply chain difficulties, inflation, changing consumer demand, and other types of turmoil grip every organization.
The employer and worker need to work together to accomplish the same goals that feed both. They have different needs, but working together they can accomplish satisfaction for both. The employer needs to understand how to support the worker looking for fulfillment.
The first requirement is that the employer understands what drives their workers. Surveys can create the data on which judgments can be made. Many businesses take a stab at worker satisfaction with perks and higher pay. These are certainly needs but don’t necessarily lead to a thriving worker.
The employer and the worker need to have definitions of what thriving means. The employer and worker both need to understand the biological drivers of happiness. Happiness is a biological result of certain behaviors that stimulate certain hormones and neurotransmitters. These include dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. Certain behaviors stimulate the brain to create these happiness brain chemicals.
If the worker is experiencing them on a regular basis, hopefully daily, he is going to feel he is thriving. These happiness brain chemicals come from certain thoughts, intentions and behaviors that lead to self-actualization, the highest point on Maslow’s survival pyramid.
Workers don’t want to just survive anymore, they want to thrive. The behaviors of thriving are learning, creating, contributing, caring, protecting, healthy living and exercise. The basic ingredient to drive these behaviors can be challenge and risk.
The best balance of challenge and risk result in “flow’. Stephen Kotler best describes flow in extreme athletes as engaging in challenge that does not exceed an athletes capabilities but might raise them as little as 4%. In the process, the prefrontal cortex shuts down eliminating judgment and self-criticism. The participant experiences a feeling of bliss as he arrives at peak performance.
Lives can flow. Daily engagement in purposeful activities create a life of work and personal gratification that make a person feel fulfilled, purposeful, and understand why they are here. This is much deeper than a work perk. It is creating a life that is meaningful.
The employer and worker both need to understand the dynamics and how to initiate the right behaviors. The employer can help the worker reach some conclusions with the help of a Thriving Worker Consultant who can help the worker self-educate.
The employer can offer the opportunity for the worker to reach his goals with the proper environment. The employer and worker can arrive at their mutual objectives by discussing how this environment would better serve the employer and the worker. It can evolve as the round table allows both to continually discuss what works.
The Thriving Worker Consultant guides and educates both parties toward finding their mutual interests and creating both the request channel from workers and the reception channel for employers. Both need to understand their own needs and how the other party can satisfy those needs. Both need a little flexibility and compromise as they grow together.
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Great practices for daily living can be learned with the Markap Series of Books. If your organization would like live presentations or Zoom meetings, they can be arranged for small to large groups.
The Markap Books:
Self-Leadership, Gratitude, Happiness, and Start Now
See Books on the Home Page
Contact me at Mark@markap1.com
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