Address emotional needs of employees to ensure harmony, productivity
Employers have been asked to help address the emotional needs of their workers to ensure harmony and high productivity at the workplace.
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An international emotional development specialist, Mr Jay Baughan, speaking at a workshop on emotional resilience in Accra last Wednesday, observed that in contemporary times, the emotional needs of employees were often ignored, leading to lack of industrial harmony and low productivity.
Event
The two-day workshop was organised by the Social Emotional Development Institute (SEDi), a learning centre, as part of its national emotional safety programme.
It sought to support employers to address unhealthy workplace stress and trauma.
It also focused on improving creativity, innovation and problem-solving abilities of participants.
Among the participants were people from academia and traditional leaders.
Passion
According to Mr Baughan, “certain roles make people emotionally stable to deliver their best for society and country. Employers should, therefore, engage workers in responsibilities that drive their passion to the tasks given them at the workplace.”
He said emotional needs such as security and safety, stability and comfort of normalcy, creativity, certainty, empowerment and excitement affected the total well-being of a person at the work environment.
He added that when there was no joy and positivity at the workplace, school or home, a person was likely to go through emotional trauma that could affect his or her work or persona negatively.
Advice
The Regional Partner of SEDi Africa, Mr James Kwesi Addison, advised that in the heat of an emotional trauma, a victim must be careful in taking decisions or solving problems in order not to arrive at wrong solutions or actions.
Citing the case of late Major Mahama who was lynched by a mob at Denkyira Obuasi, he said the action by the people was driven by their emotions, instead of reason.
“They could have first considered reality checks to ascertain whether the actions they were about to take would be problem-solving. Impulse control, which is also an ingredient in decision-making, would have delayed their actions towards the young soldier,” he explained.
Commendation
For his part, the Paramount Chief of the Enyan Denkyira Traditional Area in the Central Region, Osabarima Otsibu VI, lauded the organisers of the workshop for the initiative.
He noted that some deviant behaviours among the youth, such as drug abuse, could be as a result of the emotional traumas they went through at home, in the community or the school.
He said the workshop would serve as a platform to educate parents, guardians and employers on the effects of emotional traumas on their children/wards and employees and how to deal with them.