Helping the Worker, Healing the Workplace

It is difficult to quantify the amount of work professionals face today. The number of deadlines they are tracking. The number of projects they are juggling. If they just started an hour earlier, they might resolve the emails that came in overnight. If they just worked an extra hour at the end of the day, they might resolve the voicemail messages that were left in the afternoon. 

Maybe if they worked through lunch. Maybe if they worked through a weekend or a holiday. 

Cambridge and Oxford dictionaries unite to define workaholism as the compulsive need to work. It is important to remember that this work may not be entirely needed. If a deadline needs to be met, does that mean that meeting the deadline days or weeks early is somehow better? 

 A hard worker may say no; a workaholic is more likely to say yes. 

Beneath the weight of deadlines and workloads, a workaholic may struggle to prioritize, because everything is a priority and the only way to get it all done is to do all of it. “It” is never done, though. The workaholic lives in fear that that something may be forgotten, late, or incompletely done; hard work alone may not be enough to resolve that. 

It is important to remember that, similar to excessive gambling, hoarding, or exercise, workaholism is a compulsive behavior. Working constantly does not satisfy or calm the workaholic; it just feeds and reinforces the behavior. 

Workaholism is just one sign of a toxic workplace, a topic that is unfortunately relevant to many. In today’s workplace, toxicity can undermine employee morale, productivity, and overall organizational health. It is the focus of the November 13 SIOP Work Smart Series event.   

Presenters Clair Reynolds Kueny, PhD, department chair and Associate Professor of Psychological Science at Missouri University of Science and Technology, and C. Allen Gorman, associate professor in the Department of Management, Information Systems, and Quantitative Methods in the Collat School of Business at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, will help participants explore evidence-based strategies for identifying and addressing toxic behaviors and practices within the workplace.

Chia-Lin Ho, PhD, managing principal executive coach at 3G Leadership Solutions, coordinates the workshop with Dr. Megan VanHoy, founder of Green Sky Leadership. 

“You will walk away from Combating the Toxic Workplace with practical tools and strategies to address workplace toxicity while learning the signs of a toxic work environment and its impacts,” Ho said.

Register now to learn how leveraging evidence-based approaches can help organizations transform their work environments and enhance both employee well-being and organizational success.