Reference no: EM132939751

Case Study: Managing the Emotional Employee in the Work Setting

Employees' emotional behaviour is a common challenge for any manager. It may be overt and easily detectable, or it can be subtle, because emotional workers (who fear forms of workplace rejection) often direct their subconscious turmoil inward to hide and deny its existence. Over time, emotionally fragile individuals are less able to hide their increasingly obvious psychological, behavioural and physical distress, and it shows up in some combination of the following symptoms or indicators of emotional fragility: 1. Mood disorders: persistent hopelessness, despair or sadness (flat or unresponsive affect). 2. Personality change: listlessness, withdrawal from pleasant activities and relationships, self_imposed isolation, avoidance of others (furtiveness), inability to listen or sit still. 3 Deterioration of performance: missed deadlines, tardiness, absenteeism, low morale, missed key meetings, irritability, ineffective or inappropriate delegation of responsibility, undue sensitivity to criticism and performance feedback. 4 Deterioration of appearance: weight gain or loss, poor grooming, dirty and dishevelled appearance. 5 Substance abuse: drinking or using drugs at work or during lunch breaks, addiction to alcohol, painkillers or anti-anxiety drugs.

Employees with the above symptoms could be among your work colleagues, so give this widespread phenomenon some thought. When asked privately about their lives (in an environment of perceived psychological safety), emotionally fragile employees frequently report sleeping poorly because they are wrestling with anxiety stemming from financial and job insecurity. As these worries increase in number and severity, emotional employees experience more paralysing self-doubt (they are trapped in a feedback loop: more symptoms trigger more self-doubt and vice versa). The earliest signs of emotional fragility in employees are actions such as suddenly staying late and working too hard (over-compensation) or coming in late, being despondent and detached from work and exhibiting annoyance that is out of proportion to the work demands at hand (reactivity).

Question:

(a) From the case study and your experience/observation, internal and external environmental factors contribute to the 5 indicators of negative employees' emotional behaviour.

(b) Suggest practical solutions to mitigate and /or minimize the negative impact of emotional fragility stated in the case study.