The new forms of organization of companies pursue the full development of people and the continuous education of work teams, which should be a catalyst for change and the development of new principles for managing and organizing processes.
The participation or treatment of the social and psychological needs of workers must materialize beyond appearances and sensations; For this, it is essential to deal interdisciplinarily with topics such as new organizational trends, quality of life at work, development of human resources, behavior and organizational culture.
Currently, it is troubling to determine how companies will evolve, as well as the trends in the markets where they compete and the guidelines that will be used to approach customers. In recent years, a trend has been evidenced that gives us indications of this new direction, in which issues such as sustainable development and eco-efficient companies mark an ecological orientation where there is increasing interest in the preservation of the environment.
This is how business managers formulate strategies, movements and approaches using the implementation of a Quality Management System that allows them to achieve the objectives that have been proposed and thus achieve excellent results and direct their business more effectively.
Industrial safety as a primary factor
In the 1950s, industrial safety became a natural way of taking care of the health of human capital within companies, minimizing injuries, deaths and psychological damage. Through a culture of accident prevention, it is possible to directly impact their health and physical integrity, a fundamental aspect of quality of life.
With the change of vision of the companies of the concept of quality control, in which they focus on the process rather than on the product, in the 1970s an improvement in the quality of life of the worker is indirectly evident. This is how the worker on the production line was asked for new responsibilities that necessarily required some basic skills, such as reading, writing and understanding mathematics; To achieve this, they were taught new concepts such as “doing it right the first time”, quality circles, observing the process instead of just inspecting the product and the concept of excellence (continuous improvement).
In search of sustainable development… eco-efficiency.
At the beginning of the nineties and as a globalized concept, it becomes a necessity to take responsibility for the damage caused to the environment. The idea of sustainable development proposes that economic and social development and the sustainable use of resources come together to meet the needs of the present, without compromising those of future generations.
The conceptual framework of eco-efficiency encompasses the action of cultivating awareness in society and incentivizing it to develop collective capacities that efficiently address issues related to the cost of natural resources, waste disposal, energy efficiency, and thus guarantee our quality of life, in the time.
Quality of life at work
Although the evolution of the quality of life at work so far has been important, it must be recognized that it has focused its efforts mainly on external factors such as safety, facilities, equipment and procedures. With the awareness that there are still elements to be developed on this aspect, this essay reflects that it is time to intensify efforts to capitalize also on the internal factors of the individual.
People work in companies for reasons that include remuneration, art, or mere survival; and it is that company in which they work that has the responsibility of attending to and seeking individual satisfaction such as security, training, opportunity for creative participation, stability, fair remuneration, social and personal development, among others; That the individual has them is directly related to the positive perception that the employee has of her work as well as to her productivity and development in the organization.
Proposal: Structured Personal Development
The Structured Personal Development approach aims to offer a proposal to improve the quality of life of the worker and also brings together some ideas of how it is possible for each individual to initiate and develop, under their responsibility, the increase in their quality of life, indicating to the at the same time that the company can and should act as a facilitator during the self-improvement process.
As a premise, this approach is outlined as a way to improve the quality of life at work by inducing and facilitating the structured personal development of a worker who really wants or feels the need for change, all this in the search for control of the mechanism: I think -feel-act.
When the worker receives more information and increases his personal development, he raises his standard of living; bringing with it greater responsibilities that serve as a springboard to provide you with more information and development opportunities.
Structured personal development is framed by 7 foundations explained below
1. Self-diagnosis
To start any type of development, be it personal, organizational, social, or from any other field, it is essential to know the current situation of what you want to develop. This is why the initial phase consists of starting a self-diagnosis in which the person's psychological and spiritual state is known.
The psychological state refers to unique patterns of attitudes that normally act in us and through which we react to a reality. When speaking of the spiritual state, reference is made to what are the "virtues" developed up to this moment in the person, that is, what are the tools that he has in order to fulfill that fundamental mission of the human being, which is to serve.
Man's awareness of his inner state allows him to generate and increase in himself values such as work: responsibility, autonomy, punctuality, productivity, commitment, perseverance, among others; that help you overcome adverse situations, both at work and personally, and thus achieve an optimal quality of life.
2. The Basics We Learned as Children
Once the self-diagnosis process has started, the person is in a position to carry out a self-questioning that leads him to make the decision to change. Today's workers and employees must realize that, just as the worker on the production line became unemployed by not learning to read and write in the 1970s, those who do not start their internal development will be relegated; personal development will cease to be an alternative for improvement, and will quickly be a matter of survival.
If there is this self-questioning, the rest is relatively easy, since you will begin to understand that it is necessary to learn as well as unlearn some things. An easy way to start is to go back to basics and follow those "rules" that most of us were taught as children.
Robert Fulghum presents these rules in his book "Everything I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten." These are: Share your things, play fair, do not hurt people, return things to the place where you found them, clean what you dirty, do not take things that are not yours, say "sorry" when you hurt someone, eat Well, work and have fun in harmony with your colleagues, admire the wonderful.
3.- Acceptance
Another fundamental element is acceptance, since it is essential to have a contingency measure for when circumstances become adverse or beyond our control, and we tend to suffer emotional or mental disturbances. Acceptance is very much a complete and intelligent forgiveness which, depending on the context, can be directed to circumstances, to others, or to oneself.
Living with open disturbances, that is, with emotional or mental states that generate negative emotions, is like dragging a rope full of hooks that prevents us from advancing in our development, since we do not assimilate the lesson to which we were exposed, and therefore Therefore, it is most likely that we will have to receive it again, a process that is commonly called "recurrence."
4.- Aptitude vs. Attitude
Aptitude is referred to the knowledge capacity and abilities of the worker; while the attitude has to do with the way of thinking, feeling and acting of the individual. Individuals with a good level of fitness and with the correct attitude, do not do what they want alleging the lack of an opportunity; Although opportunities are often limited, we all have an opportunity, but not all of us react the same way to it.
The point is to recognize that as a minimum, by being alive, we have the opportunity to jump into action for what we want, over and over, as many times as necessary until we get it. It is not always easy and we can summarize with the saying "if things worthwhile were easy, anyone would do them."
5.- Thought
In a simple way, we can define thinking as a process of generating and answering questions. This information process can be on an instinctive, physiological, emotional or intelligent level. This last type of thought is what distinguishes man from other organisms, and is what allows us to control, suppress and / or intensify our feelings.
The mind does not distinguish between what is lived and what is intensely visualized: therein lies the importance of focusing thought, what is imagined positive or does not pass to memory as a "lived" reference. Given this, it is important to reinforce positive visions, because just as discouragement promotes inaction and leads to failure, optimism generates actions that lead to successful achievements.
6.- Mood States and Physiology
If we are sad or depressed, our physiology is very different from when we are happy. Basically there are three elements involved in this: breathing rate, posture, and facial expression. If we learn to recognize how these three elements manifest when we are in a certain state of mind, it is possible of our own free will to modify these physiological traits and affect the way we feel.
Just as it is important to maintain adequate body hygiene habits, there is also a physiological hygiene that has to do with our breathing, posture and physical-motor activity, and which requires paying attention to psychological hygiene, that is, how we think about ourselves and others, which together affects the way we feel and, therefore, how we act.
7.- Balance
As a final element of this essay, it is pointed out that only by maintaining the individual's internal balance can he really have a sustainable advance, that is, in our constant personal development, we must always make sure to maintain a balance of the following elements: a) spiritual, b) physical health, c) psychological health, d) social / political, e) career / profession, d) family
Some authors call this a "bio-psycho-social" balance. If we stop developing any of these areas, we will not be developing adequately, we will be out of balance and subject to going back to a lower level, sometimes even worse than what we originally had.
Based on the elements explained and seen as complementary to each other but not limiting, that is, that each individual will require the application to a greater or lesser extent of these and include some others that are particularly useful to them to better know and control their thinking, with it their attitude and hence the potential of their personal development.
Each individual develops his work in companies for different reasons, however, to the extent that in his work there is the possibility of applying his ability to serve others, but also himself.
It is a challenge to overcome to find a way to massively disseminate this type of tools, just as other social movements have projected in companies. What is a fact is that the companies that have the greatest number of these individuals among their ranks will project themselves to a higher level with competitive advantages, which will most likely make the difference between those that may subsist or disappear in this new millennium.
Bibliographic references
- Schmidheiny, Stephan, "Changing the course: a global perspective of entrepreneurship for development and the environment", Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, 1992.Brugger, Ernst A., Nelidov, Neil, "Entrepreneurs for eco-efficiency", INCAE, Costa Rica, 1997. Robert Fulghum, “Everything I really need to know, I learned in kindergarten.” Osinerg.gob.pe /… / milpo-final-how management systems contribute to improving the quality of life of workers and product efficiency.
