The Role Of Self Efficacy In The Workplace
The workplace is an essential setting for mental health protection, mainly stressors like tensions, worry, hassle, strain and trauma. On average the majority of employed people spend maximum of their time at the workplace. So therefore it is the employer’s obligation to hold the accountability and to provide a safe and hazard-free workplace, they should have ample opportunities to promote individual health and foster a healthy working setting. With the use of effective workplace programs and guidelines can decrease health risks factors and improve the quality of life. It will also positively impact many unintended expenditures such as absenteeism and worker efficiency. In order to improve the health of employees, companies can develop some wellness values that is employee- arranged; this will provide supportive environments where safety is ensured and health can occur. They can also engage in various health plans at the workplace. Workplace interventions are usually programs or policies implemented by an organization which aim to protect individuals from physical or psychological harm. These interventions can also be delivered in a form of training that aims to improve skills or develop new skills. These interventions may influence organizational values and culture, employee behavior or workplace environment. Humanizing employees’ well-being and reducing daily stressors can have several benefits for organizations, from increasing performances, building bonds with colleagues and reducing ailments and absenteeism rates.
Stress management interventions can be defined as a course of activities that are used by organizations to improve employee’s wellbeing and to reduce stressors in their lives, mainly by lecturing about the causes of stress or by reducing the impact of stress on an individual. The aim of this essay is to discuss interventions in reducing stress at the workplace in order to facilitate growth and development. With the training to ensure the employee wellbeing and to condense levels of stress, mainly by speaking about the main contributing factors of stress or decreasing the impact of stress on an individual. In this essay our aim is to state different stress management interventions to create the effectiveness of the different types of interventions in improving their psychological aspects of well-beings. Firstly, we introduce the positives with self-efficacy in the workplace along with some stress management interventions and provide some examples of the interventions. Second we discuss the effectiveness and finally we state what works best. This is vital as we seek employee’s mental health, physical health, job attitudes and holistically the improvements in job satisfaction. According to Albert Bandura (1977) self- efficacy is the belief we have in our abilities and competencies, a pioneer humanist of the concept of self-efficacy, defined as “people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise their influence over events that affect their lives”. Self-efficacy governs how people think and feel about themselves. Self-efficacy also known as social cognitive theory or social learning theory in all aspects impact the cognitive processes of individuals, it controls our thoughts, actions, emotions and motivation. It plays a significant role in modelling our perception of life experiences. Bandura thought that our social skills, observational skills, social upbringings and cognitive skills are built on our perception. The self-system is the backbone of our personality and self-efficacy is an essential factor of it. Contemporary mental health interventions rely essentially in endorsing wellbeing by improving self-efficacy. Since self-efficacy affects mainly the majority of lives. Our aim in this paper is to build, improve and maintain self-efficacy for a better living.
Most companies today focus on hiring people after screening them and have observed how productive or fruitful they are. When there is a high-level of self-efficacy it predicts high rates of productivity, better workplace connections and a high output level, and this is only rational for organizations to service and promote self-efficacy among their staff, and there are ways in doing so. Firstly, Training and development can increase employee self- efficacy, companies can implement training programs and orientations that would encourage self-efficacy. These courses are usually focused on workstation loads and provides an opportunity for employees to come closely together and build a sturdy sense of self-perception. Second is the systematic self-management this is where supervisors and team leaders can provide assistance with members of staff to increase their self-efficacy by setting realistic goals, allowing their personal standpoints, prioritizing objectives and helping them with time-management and structural times. Thirdly is the development of the working setting that is conducive for all members of staff. An exceedingly satisfying work environment is where people can assist and support each other, work in harmony, collaboratively building skills and acceptance of positive criticisms. This positivity will only aid in high qualities of employee worth and better performance culture. Thirdly is ensuring appropriate job demands, a great way to enrich employee efficacy is to maintain clear and straightforward guidelines of the job criteria and functions and mainly choosing the best suited applicant who are fit for the job title. Personality testing and screening are measures that can recognize individual’s skills and competencies that is well-matched. This will avoid the probability of disappointment and underachievement. Self-efficacy enables us to development everyday despite our injustices life puts in front of us at time. Having a positive affirmation in oneself helps us walk through life at all stages. Our trust in our potencies and capabilities helps us to sustain motivation and to become more resilient in bearing stress and harsh conditions. Self-efficacy has three extents: magnitude, the level of a difficult task a person can achieve; strength, the conviction regarding magnitude as strong or weak; and generality, the extent to which the expectation is generalized across given situations. An employee’s intelligence of capability influences his perception, performances and motivation (Bandura 1997). We hardly try to perform a task when we expect to be unproductive. It is common knowledge that people undertake tasks that they will be able to complete successfully. Self-efficacy influences the goals and aims employees choose for themselves. Employee will low levels of self-efficacy tend to set low goals for themselves while employees with high level of self-efficacy set high personal goals. Employees with high self-efficacy will usually work hard to learn how to try new task and will therefore be confident that their efforts will be successful. Employees with little self-efficacy may exert less interest when learning and performing intricate tasks, because they are not sure if their efforts will lead to success.
Albert Bandura and Edwin Locke (2003) concluded that self-efficacy is a powerful determinant of job performance. Bandura (1997) has identified four prime causes of self-efficacy which include past performances, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion and emotional cues. According to Bandura, the most important source of self-efficacy is past performances. This is where employees who have succeeded in their job are likely to be more confident to undergo similar task in the future due to their high levels of self-efficacy. People on duty at the job like the superiors within the company can boost self-efficacy through professional development, coaching and supportive leadership and rewards for improvements. A second source of self-efficacy is through vicarious experience. Observing a co-worker succeeded in a particular task may lift self-efficacy. For example, if an employee starts eating healthy and started exercising this can inspire you to practice similar to the person you are modeling. The third source of self-efficacy is through verbal persuasion. Basically this involves convincing people that they have the ability to fulfil and succeed at a specific duty. The best way for a leader to use verbal persuasion is through the Pygmalion effect. The Pygmalion e4ffect is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy in which believing something to be true and can make it true. Rosenthal and Jacobson’s (1968) classic study is a good example of the Pygmalion effect. An example of this can be one telling a person the opposite of the true when in really they believe and achieve. The influence of persuasion or encouragement would be liable on the leader’s integrity, previous relationship with employees and the leader’s influence in the organization.
Finally, Bandura argues that emotional cues dictates self-efficacy. A person who experiences challenges during a task and discovers it is too tough is likely to experience certain physiological symptom like sweaty palms, headaches and a racing heart. The symptoms can vary from person to person, however if this persist the mare fact of experiencing anxieties can result in poor performance. Self-efficacy has been related to other motivation theories. Edwin Locke and Gary Latham suggest that goal-setting theory and self-efficacy theory complement each other. For instance, when a leader set challenging aims for employees, this will result in employees having a high level of self-efficacy and they will set higher goals for their own performance benefit. Employer will predict this as assertion of capability in doing the task and it will only boost the worker talent. This sets in the foundation and gesture in a psychological process in which you are more confident in yourself and thus creating higher personal goals that would allow them to perform better within the organization.
