Employment and Society: Physiological Contract and Emotional Issues and Workplace - Term Paper Example

Employment and Society – Physiological Contract and Emotional Issues and Workplace Introduction Psychological contract in a work situation has played a significant role over many past years. Every other human being working as a part of labor force, employers go through some emotional issues and problems. There comes a case when they fight a battle with their emotions when working at their respective jobs. The key function of this contract is to manage people at work. It helps in achieving two important things, i.e. raising the motivational levels and commitment level of the employees (Guest and Conway, 2004, p.5). In the past years, it has been observed that each year more and more managers turn to these contracts to maintain and retain motivation in their workforce to achieve higher efficiency, effectiveness and productivity. An unspoken contract between the organization and the job holder begins at the recruitment level. This contract also plays a central role to maintain a healthier relationship between the manager and the job holder. As the nature of the employment changes, so does the psychological contract. Once the organization and the job holder get a thorough and deep understanding of the changing nature of the contract, it benefits both the parties, employers and employees. Significance of Psychological Contract Psychological contract is the best way to understand and get a deeper knowledge regarding human responses, because these responses may result in some ambiguous challenges if not learned. This is a contract which proves to be really beneficial to control the emotional issues that are experienced in a work situation. Dealing with problematic issues between employers and employees, it makes their relationship stronger, removes communication barriers between them and results in increased efficiency, from both parties. This contract works well in both small and large groups within an organization. The issues which are emotionally laden can be treated and covered by this psychological contract. Unlike legal contracts, these psychological contracts have unspoken expectations. A psychological contract profoundly affects one thing the most - loyalty. It is because of this contract that parties expect, in one way or the other, that they need each other. This leads to interdependency among them and there is no doubt that interdependency is a key to manage dependency in a very mature relationship. The working staff will be able to answer one important question: ‘Who needs who and what?’ This helps in resolving many emotional issues in a workplace. Psychological Contracts at Work Psychological contracts help an individual to maintain the right psychological distance, close to some people which in all help him to manage his stress with them, help in gaining sustenance from his own work and he will be able to share important information with them. There are also at times when one has to keep certain distances to avoid any distractions because he gets invades. Thus, this contract assists in telling us how close we have to get with others (Kiazad, 2001, p.103). These contracts are tagged as dynamic because they change without any formal acknowledgement. But this is to be notified that changes don’t occur overtime in this specific contract, it just helps to modify the contract because relationships get profoundly affected due to changes, and these may cause disruptions. With no instability in change, in this specific contract, there is no chance of people feeling insecure or in danger. Emotional issues can be best handled in a working environment if there is a presence of a social life along with other working activities and organizing a social life well is a difficult task but worth trying as it ends up alleviating all psychological issues the worker is experiencing. Psychological contract is one of the best ways to organize one’s social life at work. One can say that psychological contract is a part of social contract but not vice versa. This contract helps an individual to meet all his human needs while he is doing his work at his respective job (Rousseau and Schalk, 2000, p.72). Psychological contract provides a structure to the employee which immensely helps him in solving practical human problems. The four main components of a psychological contract make it even more important and useful. Predictability, interdependency, psychological distance and change are those components which helps in eradicating any emotional issue experienced by a worker. Predictability is added in this contract which makes it more useful. In case of human relationships, predictability is something which is considered to be a really important issue (Shapiro et al, 2008. p.17). It provides a mind structure to the individual and it helps him in building trust for others. When people working with you are predictable, then reliability comes, making these people credible. Credibility is the key element of loyalty, therefore, just because of predictability, this psychological contract gives birth to reliability, credibility, loyalty and trust altogether. In a working environment, most of the business activities ask people to work together, as a team. For such activities, unity and interdependency should be present or else there might be some issues experienced. Psychological contract’s second component is interdependency which helps in curbing all emotional issues that arise in the lives of multiple individuals when working as a team/group. Dependency helps the group to function and improve communication among them. Moreover, psychological contract’s third element is psychological distance. As explained earlier, psychological distance is determined through this contact which enables a person to know how much distance should be present between the psychological levels of two individuals. This basically resolves emotional issues regarding loneliness and intimacy. And the last component, change, has been already discussed earlier. Psychological contract is considered to be a really useful structure when things go awry. This is considered to be more influential than any formal contract. It works in telling employees how they have to react and handle the situation and what they have to do in order to meet their own side of the bargain. It is actually a framework specially designed to help to maintain and make the employment relationship stronger. The idea of working in compliance to this psychological contract helps greatly in leaving a profound effect on the work and intention of the employee and makes him to keep working in his respective organization. In order to prevent any violation to the psychological contract, all employees and employers try their best to keep their promises made to each other. In this way, their relationship becomes stronger and they don’t go through some serious emotional issues. This means this contract serves both the parties or you can say the entire organization/company. Giving every individual a sense of responsibility, control and security, it helps in building some fair and impartial procedures, policies and principles provides a treatment with courtesy and respect to the employees. This helps all of them to cope with any psychological issues that they experience during work (Wellin, 2007, p.27). Managing Emotions at Work Managing emotions in an intense workplace is a key issue, which should be done with great efficiency and care. Emotional intelligence programs and projects are such steps which should be taken by the organization in order to deal with the management of emotional issues. At home, the situation is different. You may spit out your anger on your siblings or spouse, you may speak harshly and shout at others whenever you are going through an emotional setback but at work, you can never behave like this or else either people will be disappointed with you or your behavior might bring your job, your earnings on stake. Harming your professional reputation, productivity and goodwill is the worst thing you can do to yourself (Makin and Cooper, 1999, p.3). Keeping your emotions under control, controlling your anger and stress levels at the time of intense pressure is what this psychological contract helps us to do. One has to be aware of all the common negative emotions and their consequences and after effects, only then he will be able to shield himself and his career from getting affected. Psychological contract is the best in curbing all emotional issues which pop up during work. It actually helps the worker how to protect himself from getting victimized by several negative emotions. In a contract, individuals get to know about how to manage their psychological issues. This involves evaluating different emotional situations, i.e. when they experienced such an emotion, what were the consequences, how they dealt with it and what were the results. In this way, when the same emotion is experienced, they can easily rectify their mistakes and make the situation far better than before (Zhuk, 2008, p.94). Thinking positive about the situation helps the worker to take the situation in a lot different way. This helps in improving your mood and performing all your job responsibilities and tasks well. In case of disappointment or unhappiness, experienced by the worker, he can record his thoughts and come to a conclusion that what thing is making him unhappy or disappointed (Wellin, 2007, p.27). It implies that emotional issues can leave an impact on multiple business activities in just a short period of time. This greatly leaves a negative effect on every individual who is involved in that working environment. This is why, over the years, psychological contract is gaining its importance and significance in the business world. Emotions play an integral part in an organization as emotions is the only thing which a worker brings with himself at work. Best way to manage emotional issues is through emotional intelligence in which, in case of a navigating situation, emotions are treated as a valuable data by the employees. Emotional intelligence involves a tactic and a skill in which the employee learns carefully about the emotional behavior of the person he is working with him, i.e. his boss; according to this emotional analysis, he will decide at what time and how several issues can be discussed with him without any problematic emotional situations. By regulating his own emotions, curbing his enthusiasm, he will wait for the right moment to get a response he is asking for (Armstrong, 2003, p.300). Some of the aspects and components of a psychological contract makes it worth it. It includes issues related to work-life balance at a very broader level and it is successful in introducing multiple work-life balance initiatives, i.e. job sharing and flexible working. Psychological contract emphasizes on all implicit and unwritten aspects of an employment relationship. It helps in creating balance between two things, i.e. how employees should be treated and what the employee is responsible to put in his job, how he has to manage it. Organizational psychologists have come up with such an amazing structure which is not considered as a formula or a tool but a complete philosophy (Wellin, 2007, p.27). Conclusion Nothing is perfect! This psychological contract does have some implications which may result in no positive outcomes. One has to be aware of these implications, only then he can work on the brighter side of this contract and achieve best results. When an employee sees this contract as unfair or broken, multiple ingredients of good organizational performance evaporate in just a few minutes. Psychological contract, if viewed negatively in the first place, takes place when employees ignore the importance of the other’s happiness in the working environment. At times, implications are there due to organizational change. It puts many different pressures on the contract. In order to eradicate this problem, and help the contract in gaining maximum benefits by controlling all psychological issues of the employees, one has to identify and interpret the true nature of the change and other multiple factors. The leaders should see changes in terms of its effects on their subordinates and should make their possible efforts in understanding what their employees feel about it. This is how a good and healthier relationship can be built between the entire workforces, thus, all emotional issues can be treated before they actually came into existence and effect different business activities and operations. References Armstrong, M., 2003. A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Zhuk, A., 2008. Comparative Analysis of Psychological Contracts of Pre- and Post-industrialization Information Technology Hires. UK: ProQuest. Guest, D., & Conway, N, 2004. Employee Well-Being and the Psychological Contract. London: CIPD Publishing. Kiazad, K., 2001. Responses to Psychological Contract Breach: Moderating Effects of Organizational Embeddedness. NY: UoM Custom Book Centre. Makin, P., & Cooper, C., 1999. Organizations and the Psychological Contract: Manging People at Work. London: Universities Press. Rousseau, D., & Schalk, D., 2000. Psychological contracts in employment: cross-national perspectives. London: Sage Publications. Shapiro, C., Jacqueline, M. & Parzefall, M., 2008. ‘Psychological contracts’. In: Cooper, Cary L. and Barling, Julian, (eds.) The SAGE handbook of organizational behavior. SAGE Publications, London, UK, pp. 17-34. Wellin, M., 2007. Managing the Psychological Contract: Using the Personal Deal to Increase Business Performance. Sydney: Gower Publishing. Read More