P.E.R.K. - purpose / engagement / resilience / kindness

PERK

Purpose

  • making valuable contributions to individuals or wider society that we find personally meaningful. 
  • At work, these contributions, when aligned with our core values, bring us feelings of purpose. 
  • In doing so, we can assert ourselves in conducting our day-to-day tasks and in turn, connect our roles to what we believe in and care about. 
    • To achieve this at work
      • try to complete tasks in a way that embodies your purpose / philosophy / core values.

Engagement

  • relates to how involved and immersed we feel at work. 
  • The Greater Good (2018) suggests three ways that we could suggest to our employers.
    • Firstly
      • embrace creativity and encourage people to have fun at work!
    • Secondly, 
      • give people more responsibility over their daily schedule, tasks
      • give people more responsibility over professional development
      • give opportunities to learn and grow.
    • Finally,
      • adopt a less hectic schedule
      • create space for the immersive, lose-track-of-time experience of flow at work.
        • For example
          • shift away from the typical multitasking, always-available, device-notification-laden, meeting-clogged schedule
          • incorporate and encourage downtime to create time that allows people to relax and recover, leave them refreshed for uninterrupted periods of deep work.

Resilience

  • ability to handle, adapt to, and productively learn from setbacks, failures, and disappointments. This doesn’t mean trying to prevent difficulties, hold in stress, or avoid confrontation, instead it is the ability to manage challenges at work quickly, cope with these, and bounce back. 
  • To strengthen this in a work context
      • practise in the moment awareness or mindfulness. 
        • Mindfulness can help to revise our learned habits of self-criticising or blaming others, or getting preoccupied about past or future upsets. 
        • Resilience at work is also tied to successfully detaching from work, which involves taking time away to recover and pursue restorative activities, both daily and through restful vacations.

Kindness 

  • involves 
    • treating people with dignity and respect
    • extending empathy and compassion
    • practising gratitude
    • constructively managing conflicts. 
  • Kindness at work
      • build trust, through sharing resources, feedback, and credit 
      • be a good listener.  
    • By orienting our thoughts, feelings, and actions towards the care of others, we can create genuinely supportive social bonds, that further promote effective teamwork and morale. 
      • practise “prosocial” behaviours
        • empathy
          • Empathy is the basis for understanding other people, and guides cooperative choices and effective teamwork. 
        • compassion 
          • although research demonstrates that many believe apologizing to be a sign of weakness. However, in reality, apologising inspires greater respect, trust and commitment to our surrounding employees.

        • gratitude.

Greater Good Magazine. (2018). The Four Keys to Happiness at Work. Available: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_four_keys_to_happiness_at_work 

happ@adm. (2021, May 19). Being happier at work with the PERK principles. Happiness@work. https://www.happinesswork.eu/being-happier-work-with-perk-principles/
  • excellent summary of each of the 4 points

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