I’m beginning to republish posts that made it onto my A LOOK BACK: 2019’S BEST POSTS FROM THIS BLOG – PART TWO list.

 

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If You Want Engaged Employees, Offer Them Stability is an interesting new article in The Harvard Business Journal.

The author, Marla Gottschalk, makes lots of points that are directly applicable to the classroom.

She highlights three main features, based on research, critical for employees to feel engaged:

1. Acknowledgement of the psychological contract. The psychological contract is an often unstated exchange agreement, or set of promises about what we bring to our work and what we expect to gain from our employers in return.

Classroom connection: Author Daniel Pink discusses the need for baseline rewards—the basic and fair compensation that we must all receive in order to have any motivation at all. In school, that might mean a caring teacher, a clean classroom, and engaging lessons. See Creating the Conditions for Student Motivation

2. Psychological capital. Positive psychology also offers us opportunities to build workplace stability. Studies have established a clear positive relationship between psychological capital (PsyCap) and a number of desired workplace outcomes, including job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and psychological well-being. These “HERO resources include…hope (see The Best Posts & Videos On “Hope” — Help Me Find More), efficacy, resilience (see my recent three-part Ed Week series on resilience) and optimism.

This was interesting to me since I had never heard of the terms “psychological capital” (though I am familiar with “social capital” – see The Best Resources On Social Capital In Schools or of this HERO acronym.

3. Psychological safety. William Kahn, professor of Organizational Behavior at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, defined psychological safety as “being able to show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status, or career.”

There are obvious connections to the classroom on this one, including:

The Best Resources On Helping Our Students Develop A “Growth Mindset”

The Best Posts About Trust & Education

THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING HOW TO PROMOTE A SENSE OF “BELONGING” AT SCHOOL

The Best Posts, Articles & Videos About Learning From Mistakes & Failures

 

I don’t think there’s anything particularly earthshaking or innovative here, but it does provide another lens for us to use when we consider student engagement.

I’m adding this post to The Best Posts & Articles On Student Engagement.