The Eight Pillars of Organizational and Employees Wellbeing: Part 2 of 4 Blog Mini-Series

In the previous blog, we covered Introduction to Eight Pillars of Organizational and Employees Wellbeing and Pillar 1. 

Now let's continue with Pillar 2 and Pillar 3.

Pillar 2: Strengths
Employees Strengths
Numerous research from the science of Positive Psychology tells us that when we focus on what is good with us rather than what is wrong, we have a better chance of creating a successful life. This does not mean we will ignore things we need to improve. All it means is that the strengths are our starting point toward success.

So the first thing to do is to list our strengths. Several tools can help us do that. The most popular are: the Value in Action ( VIA)Character Strengths Survey, the DiSC personal assessment tool, and the Clifton Strengths Assessment. I am not endorsing any of these tools and am not associated with them. Try and see what works for you.

Regardless of what survey you take and how you find your strengths, list them all. Review the top five and do more things at work to align with these strengths. Also, review the bottom five and begin to think about what you can do to improve and move some of these strengths up on a scale. But please keep in mind that whatever bottom five strengths you have on the survey, it does not mean you are bad at it. All it means is that to play those strengths, it may take more effort than using your top strengths.

Organizational Strengths
Organizational strengths do not simply come from vision, mission, or the purpose statement. They come from the facts, company results, and outcomes. So, what are the organizational strengths? Every company is different. Some companies might be great at customer service or innovation; others may have strengths such as fairness, teamwork, honesty, integrity, etc. Whatever that is, it needs to be communicated to employees and job candidates.

Many organizational leaders will tell you that people are their best resources, their best strength, people are all they have. Unfortunately, some organizations do not pay as much attention to people and their strengths as they should. Regardless of what it is number one strength of most if not all organizations are people.

Align Organizational Strengths with Employees Strengths

Two things have to happen to align organizational and employee strengths; employees must understand the organization's strengths, and the organization must know employee strengths. Then and only then can we align them.

Before making a hiring decision, businesses (leaders, hiring managers) should look at candidates' strengths to ensure that it matches companies strengths or the strength the company wants to develop. The job candidate should look at what the company is good at and see if this aligns with what they are good at or the skills and strengths they want to develop.

Merging an organization and employee is almost like a marriage. In a relationship, sometimes you have two people with the same strengths, or you have two people who have different strengths but help each other improve their strengths. And unfortunately, sometimes people separate. Often, there is nothing wrong with either one. How do we know? Chances are, another person is waiting for the separation to get together with that person.

As an employee, if you don't fit correctly in your organization, it may have nothing to do with you. You may be outstanding at what you do and a much better fit somewhere else. As an organization, if you have an employee that doesn't perform well or cannot contribute their strength, it may have nothing to do with how you do business. That employee may contribute amazingly well somewhere else.

Finding the right match to align organizational and employees' strengths and align what the organization wants to develop with what employees want to build will help both succeed.

Pillar 3: Optimism
Organizational Optimism
Organizations naturally have the optimism built-in; otherwise, they would not exist. They must believe in what they do, and the belief is creating positive organizational cells. That is given.

Optimism should be based on past successes. If this is a new organization, there are no past successes. However, chances are there are past successes of the founders and past achievements of similar organizations. Because of that, organization leaders believe in success.

Employees Optimism
When it comes to optimism, I always go back to grounded optimism. As an employee or future employee, you look at your past success (do not look for failures) and establish optimism for working with this company. But employees also need to believe in the organization they work for. If they don't, they will probably not stay long - one way or another.

Employee grounded optimism at work is based on past organizational successes, successes within the industry, within the branch, within that region, etc. Employee optimism at work is very much connected with organizational optimism.

Align Organizational Optimism with Employees Optimism
The organization needs to understand employee optimism toward their job or lack of it and help them redefine it if necessary. Employees will constantly review organizational optimism levels and make a significant decision - stay or leave based on that.

The easiest way to determine the organizational optimism level is to watch the leadership team. You can always tell what is going on with the organization by looking at each leader's level of optimism. Top executives are trained not to show in their behavior if anything goes wrong. However, lower execs will often show that. If the leadership team does not believe in the organization, employees will not believe either.

The business can only expect employees to be optimistic about their work and career if their leadership team believes in it. Often without doing anything, these two are aligned. It is good when leadership optimism is high but dangerous when it is low. And leaders must be aware of it.

To be continued. 

Part 3 of 4: Pillars 4, 5, and 6 of the Organizational and Employees Wellbeing will be published on April 27. 2022.

Braco Pobric is an Internationally Recognized Positive Psychology Expert, Executive Coach, and Corporate Trainer. He is the bestselling author of Habits and Happiness: How to Become Happier and Improve Your Wellbeing by Changing Your Habits. Braco is a founding member and Chief Happiness Officer of the Life Success Academy, Certified Positive Psychology Master Coach and Trainer, and former globally Certified Trainer and Business Coach for Dale Carnegie Training. His unique approach to integrated learning in Positive Psychology Coaching (PPMC) program let him train over 60,000 Students in 172 countries.