The Mind at Work: Human Information Processing

The Mind at Work – Assignment 2 (Final)
Option A: Human Information Processing
Sarah Clark
Pacific Coast University
August 2, 2020
Abstract
The vision to achieve a psychologically healthy and safe workplace creates a significant focus in promoting the psychological well-being of workers. Organizations should engage their managers in ensuring that the working environment is not negligent or reckless of the employees’ mental health and safety. Besides, the population needs to create and maintain a productive working environment to enhance their maximum output in the assigned tasks. The action and support of the implementation benefit not only the employees but also their organizations through increased productivity, resulting in maximization of profits. Workers with issues such as stress experience mental distractions, which eventually impact their concentration and input at work negatively. Thus, the promotion and implementation of psychologically healthy and safety management systems is essential and should be implemented by any organization willing to support the well-being of their employees and the organization’s success in the various activities engaged towards the achievement of goals and objectives.
The Mind at work- Assignment 2 (final)
Characteristics of a psychologically healthy and safe workplaces
Various workplaces differ in multiple aspects, and the workplace’s nature is a primary aspect for consideration concerning the well-being of the workers. Although workers may look as subjects to their organizations, the settings should understand that they would not be attaining their significant levels of achievement without the workers, and promote a psychologically healthy working environment for them. This step benefits not only the workers but also the organizations as employees in the right mental health will have an excellent formulation of ideas connected to what they should be doing at work, resulting in maximum outputs. On the other hand, although some factors altering the existence of a healthy workplace could be external, organizations should enact essential ways to control and achieve the unique nature of a working environment they would desire to have in the setting despite the forces.
Four Main Areas of A Psychologically Healthy and Safe Workplace
The improvement of workplace psychological health and safety should consider four main areas. According to Pang (2013), the areas include; risk mitigation, cost-effectiveness, recruitment and retention, and organizational excellence and stability. Workplaces engaging positive psychological health and safety minimize the levels or numbers of risks to almost zero cases (Pang, 2013). For example, they do not suffer the agony of the shortage of workers not because they have not hired enough but because most of the people in the team are always on sick leaves due to psychological issues related to distractions in the workplace. Positive workplaces attain the capacity to recruit and retain desirable talent (Pang, 2013). This achievement leads to employee engagement and maximum productivity, resulting in high-profit levels. Also, the retained team becomes more creative and innovative over time as they continue working in a similar environment, improving productivity to desirable levels.
Cole-King & Lepping (2010) states that health politics sometimes revolve around great myths. Consequently, these myths increase risks. People believed that myths can be mitigated with proper procedures, policies, and therapies. However, there are organizations where the health sector is ill-equipped, thereby making it hard to manage the risks.
The risks to mental health in a workplace include the following: 1) Insufficient health and safety policies; 2) Poor communication skills and management strategies; 3) Restricted contribution of the employees to decision-making or significantly reduced control over the line of work; 4) Lack of employee support; 5) Inflexible or extended working hours which are sometimes unpaid; and 6) Indistinct organizational tasks and objectives (WHO, 2019).
A psychologically healthy and safe working environment limits the events of negative workplace issues to almost if not zero levels. Some of the minimized risks include; conflicts, turnover, injury rates, absenteeism, and morale problems (Pang, 2013). Workers in healthy workplaces have nothing to dispute both among themselves and between them and the organization. The introduction of psychological health and safety measures ensures amicable problem-solving processes, eradicating any form of conflict in the environment. Such environments have meager chances of experiencing tussles, including and not limited to workers’ strikes (Pang, 2013). Also, the turnover rate is low since the employees enjoy and are comfortable working in the environment. Pang (2013) argues that psychologically healthy and safe workplaces have minimal cases of absenteeism and motivation problems with employees. Although it might be hard to agree, the fact is that most employees do not miss work for the same reason reported. Some may even not be willing to work regarding the poor working conditions if that is the case. On the other hand, workers in a positive environment are self-motivated, and they work for the best of the organization, enhancing and ensuring maintenance of their well-being.
Elements of a Sustainable Workplace in the Promotion of Workers’ Mental Health
Psychologically healthy and safe working environments ensure the promotion of the mental health of workers. The idea is attained by implementing the concept of mental health promotion (MHP), which is comprised of various elements. Wynne (2013) shows that the setting focuses on well-being instead of illness. Although the distracting issues may need attention, the greater focus is on the welfare of the employees in the environment. A mental health promotion workplace addresses the population as a whole without bias, including those experiencing crucial risk conditions (Wynne, 2013). While the organization might have worked hard and invested a lot to achieve and maintain excellent health status among its employees, having some raising cases is reasonable for any standard-setting. The issue should be approached appropriately regarding the principles of the organization, relating to the workers’ health. According to Wynne (2013), a positive environment works on the determinant of health for the employees, such as housing and income. The health of employees lies in some factors like income, and a psychologically healthy and safe workplace ensures that workers get sustainable income accompanied by other benefits such as transport and housing allowance.
The organizations implementing the promotion of mental health in the workplace focus on protective measures rather than risk factors. Wynne (2013) reveals that preventing the occurrence of risk works best to minimize the actual events. Although organizations might be worried about the risks, focusing on them does not help. The best way to counteract the situation is by looking into protective factors to avoid occurrence. According to Pang (2013), a psychologically healthy and safe working environment encompass the element of the prevention of risks at the expense of the causes and conditions surrounding the risk. Wynne (2013) says that sustainable working environments “include a wide range of strategies such as communication, education, policy development, organizational change, community development, and local activities.” The workers are involved and well-informed about all the activities in the organization. For instance, new employees are trained on their job specifications to ensure avoidance of errors and their motivation as they do what is required correctly.
Another significant element of a healthy and safe workplace is the act of acknowledging and reinforcing the competences in the team (Wynne, 2013). Recognizing the best performing employees improves the workplace by encouraging other workers to work hard towards such achievements (Stress, 2016). The employees know that the organizations are concerned about them and willing to pay any price for the welfare. Awards are not part of the signed contracts, and they are adopted by the psychologically healthy and safe workplaces to ensure that workers are appreciated. Healthy and safe environments encompass medical services for their employees (Wynne, 2013). Although the liability of the health of workers may be a personal issue, the organizations willing to promote the mental health of their workers ensure that the population gets proper medical attention in the case of illness or psychological distractions. For instance, they can offer the provisions of free counseling se...