Unprofessional behaviour at workplace
Recently the United Nations conducted a Happiness Survey which showed India was among the least 10 happiest countries in the world. But no one among us thought about it. Our country is the second largest population in the world. We have been expanding endlessly but no one was concerned about the mental state of the people.
The several reasons which many people think for such a situation are women safety, congestion in cities, food security, job security, pollution etc. But one of the main reasons which most of us forget or do not give much heed to is “Unprofessional behaviour at workplaces” .
This “unprofessional” word covers itself a huge domain. So what all aspects could come under unprofessionalism? Sexual harassment, bullying, persistent delays in joining activities and attending meetings without valid and reasonable cause, use of outrageous language, excessive criticism, favouriticism come under the category of “unprofessional behaviour”. This unprofessional behaviour leads to low self confidence, pressure, stress and self doubt.
If someone faces any of the above conditions continuously then he or she indeed feels a lack of confidence. This gets aggravated due to immense competition in every field to get the best shot, even if it comes at the cost of others.
Most of the people nowadays are always in a fight for getting the lead. Everyone thinks of seeking the promotion in the hope of a better lifestyle. This desire for leadership positions or promotion leads the people into a never ending race, in which they are just running behind materialistic wealth, visual success which provides them happiness for just a short period of time. But in the long run, everyone is trapped in the vicious circle.
To win this fight for the better lifestyle, people are obliged to be involved in malpractices. Many times they start involving in malpractices. If a person is trying to take the lead and implement some new ideas by himself, then the others do not support him, disrespect him and try their best to force him to stop from going ahead. People do not accept changes quite easily. People forget that they must not be afraid to change. They may lose something good but they would certainly get something better if they try to change.
The people start flaunting in front of their bosses in order to create an exceptional image in front of them so that when the time of promotion comes, they are considered better than others. Something similar happened to me when I was working in the college’s technical summit’s team. Initially I was the general member in the team and worked along with them. Then I got an idea , which if implemented properly could make the summit far more better than the present one. I had also started planning how to implement that idea. Once I started taking the lead upon that, I was opposed by my teammates. Everyone started feeling envious of me. Not even the seniors supported me. Many also taunted me by saying that I was trying to go ahead of others rather than going with the team. At the end, some other person was made the core member and I was not given the lead upon that. I felt so upset that I left the team straight away and no one even looked back at me at that moment. I started doubting myself from that day. I thought I was not capable of handling such positions. It took a lot of time for me to settle in and gain back my confidence. Slowly and steadily I was able to establish my credibility which resulted in me becoming the Co-editor of the institute magazine.
I had to face a really tough time in getting back on track. But I was in a college where most of us focus on studies rather than such positions. But while we are employed somewhere, everyone is serious about their position and work. At that very moment , it becomes really difficult for the person to cope up with the surroundings and gain back the lost confidence. This slowly leads to depression. As a result we can see most of the people working in urban areas are constantly under a lot of pressure , depression and they have to take sleeping pills many times to sleep peacefully. I should say that people must not overburden themselves with the workload so much that they end up passing their life instead of living it. They forget that, “ We are given this life because we are strong enough to live it”.
At the end I would conclude by quoting Charles Glassman’s words, “ Stress can destroy much more than just our physical health. Too often. It eats away at our hope , belief and faith”. “PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY OF EMPLOYEES ” is very important. All the companies must focus on this primarily. There must be some fun sessions regularly in offices so that people get some recreation time. The governments must also make certain rules prioritising the mental health of people. This is because, the rate at which our population is growing, the competition and the race for employment is going to increase further which would stressen up people out and it is quite possible that people forget the meaning of staying happy.
Scibbled By: Nimit Agarwal, student at IIT Gandhinagar
