author: Keona Williams, studying MA
Who is the business professional?
When considering the workforce, or job market, there are a plethora of occupational categories. Well, plethora may be an exaggeration. There are certainly more than a few. The business professional is not one that is categorized as such but is rather a blend of more than one professional type; some from healthcare, customer service, and executives to name a few. The business professional is the individual whose day begins early day and often ends before early evening. While it isn’t blue collar; industrial; or construction work, meaning it isn’t considered manual labor, the work can be stressful and therefore have a physical effect on the individual. Here we observe key characteristics of the business professional and core psychological components.
The Business Professional: A person
Often times the business professional goes unnoticed. Think back to a doctor’s appointment, a customer service phone call, or a product recently purchased. When thinking back to the moment there are specific aspects that will stay with you. The doctor themself, the reason for the phone call, and the product and its use specifically will be most simple to recall. However, the doctor has a receptionist, the person who responded to the call is likely a human, and the product has executives connected to it. The aforementioned are less likely to be known or recalled from memory. Don’t worry, it isn’t your fault; it’s how the brain works. The important thing is that each of the least recalled individuals are considered the business professionals.
Business professionals are vary in age, meaning they can be entry-level employees or those who are about to retire. Psychology describes the age range as early, middle, or late adulthood. Specifically, the ages are approximately 23 and just finishing college to 65 and approaching retirement. Occasionally, there are some who are right out of high school beginning a new job. There are important psychological components that are being established and established during the specific phase of development. Important things are home life, job/career security, and social life. One thing psychology teaches is that change isn’t concrete. This means that a person will more than likely have to change or adapt at more than one pivotal moment of life. Graduations, weddings, and promotions are some of the major milestones for business professionals. It is important to understand how to deal with everyday emotions and those connected with milestones. When there is some concrete structuring to the individual’s psyche things tend to be less stressful and more enjoyable.
The occupation
Consider the occupations mentioned earlier. The receptionist is responsible for the inter-workings of the office’s visits. Cohesion is the compliment brought to the office by the specific business professional. It is easy to assume that the job is boring and there isn’t much to do all day. However, that is furthest from the truth. Think to the customer service agent, we could presume that the representative does nothing more than resolve an issue via phone. How difficult could it be? Or the executive, everyone considers an executive position to be daily golfing and lunch meetings. What each of the careers have in common are stress. Each is of a highly stressful occupational position.
We don’t look at the business professional to be a major factor when we recall an experience, when actually they are core constructs of said business. If the receptionist confuses one document and the physician is possibly late with appointments by 15 minutes with a full waiting room at some point or another. The customer service representative is responsible for the face of the business for which they work. There is also an observational effect of the numbers a business generates, being either negative or positive, that directly correlates with the customer service representative. The executive is responsible for the decisions that form the business and therefore has one of the most stressful careers.
It is important that a business professional understand how to preserve themselves to perform optimally at work, be secure with homelife, and maintain/enjoy a social life. The concept of self-care and the business professional can also be considered work/life balance. The added component to self-care is the inclusion of home life security, utilization, and enjoyment. The added component for work/life balance is the management of the level of care to include the self. The combination of a well-life business professional includes both self-care, work/life balance, and is needing to be inclusive of a social life. The stresses of the business professional life, and career, can often affect other areas of focus that will then boomerang and cause work-life stress. Maintaining a well-culture business professional life prevents boomerang like effects of stress psychologically, ensuring optimal work performance and satisfaction of life.
Maintaining a well culture
What fails to be mentioned is that most of the stresses are of a psychological origin for the business professional. Physical stress may not be part of the job or home life, meaning that heavy lifting and strenuous physical work is likely not part of the business professional’s work requirements. Yet, if most of the stress is psychological it is more likely to have an affect before the affect can be sourced. It is also more likely to affect more areas of the business professional’s life negatively. When a schedule can reflect self-care and well-work life habits the business professional is less likely to feel the affects of stress immediately. Consider the milestones that are already part of the psychological focus of the business professional. The milestones themselves are positively originated.
Graduation, both high school and college, should be looked at like a milestone achievement. The achievement is both positively and negatively registered for the individual. However, the positive effects are more concrete than the stress connected to the event. When using marriage, and the wedding, as a milestone there are a few positive and negative effects again. Yet, the marriage itself reinforces healthy relationships and companionship for the business professional. These are similar to the promotion. The promotion will have more responsibility associated with the career increase, yet the advantages of pay increase and flexibility of schedule often outweigh the added responsibilities. The idea of alleviating stress is already embedded into the milestones for psychological registering. Scheduling that reinforces the advantages is inclusive of self-care and well-work life habits.
Home and Worklife Habits
For instance, a homelife that is securing of less stress psychologically reinforces advantages of the purchase of the home or renting of the property. Observationally, there a few things that increase a psychologically sound space for the business professional. One habit to create is a good beginning and end of the day routine. Some will laugh it off, but the suggestion here is play music while preparing for the day. Music has an effect on the brain and therefore the state of being the listener will experience. Listening to music that is energetic and supports feelings of wellness for the self will allow the listener to experience just that a consistent stream of energy and feelings of self-love. For most of us it begins during the commute to work. Yet, beginning shortly after getting out of bed extends the positive effects for a prolonged positive effect.
Although obvious, restricting conflict to proper place and time can also be a habit that reduces stress registering, and therefore increase or coring, at other specific places. Often a work environment has a specific procedure for addressing conflict and an infraction system when a conflict occurs; this reduces workplace confrontation and conflict. It can be important that the business professional understand how to implement the same restrictions at home. Reducing conflict at home keeps the home life as a safe psychological space for the individual and allows one to feel the sigh of relief when walking through the door that could be necessary after a long day’s work. When home is considered a safe psychological space the business professional will continue to work optimally, always refreshing when arriving home. Furthermore, a home that is conflict free supports the advantages of the milestone and is often a good rule of thumb when considering marriage options for conflict.
Work and home need to be cohesive for the business professional. It is often suggested that we leave work at work. Well, what happens when one can’t. The business professional career can often cause spill-over from work into home life. Rather it be a project that requires some additional observation and study or paperwork that couldn’t be completed during normal business hours, individuals who are salaried understand how the work week states forty hours yet can require sixty. This is why it is necessary that there be home/work cohesion. Cohesion doesn’t mean cancelling out all obligations to the home and household. It can be interpreted to be a quiet place to work when there is an assignment brought home. Another example is considering a planner/daily scheduler just as important as vehicle keys. The idea is to not send the brain into sensory input overdrive because there is lack of cohesion, an example being answering a business phone call and being unable to locate the planner/scheduler for ease of notation. Psychologically understanding that the two parts work better together than conflicting is a key component to creating a cohesive home/work life environment.
Balance can also be cohesive. The importance of knowing when to disconnect from work can best be established at home. Yes, there can be work that needs to be completed at home. The value is understanding when home is becoming a second office space rather than a home for living. Home is meant to be a solace for work; it isn’t that work equals sadness, it’s home is meant for comfort. It is important that the business professional can feel and sense when a work boundary is necessary. The boundary shouldn’t be established due to work being problematic, but rather to keep the interest of work in-tact. Burnout occurs when there is no boundary and other areas of life are adversely affected by a person’s career, or there is psychological stress that translates to physical symptoms. Establishing balance is a preventative measure for burnout and stress.
Social Life
The importance of a social life is often viewed negatively. It is often viewed as problematic to the individual in terms of the relationship dynamics. That is to say that often people will refer to friendships, or even social gatherings/settings, negatively. If a boundary cannot be implemented and being social will negatively effect one’s career then, yes stay clear. Remember social gatherings don’t have to include nightclubs or the night life. Bowling, exercise, movies, and meals away from home are another means of being socially available and don’t have to include alcoholic beverages; the real reason people are deterred. A social life with friends and family can reinforce all of the benefits of accomplishments such as maintaining a home and career. The only suggestion here is structuring and balancing properly.
How does the business professional structure a social life? The main factor is being mindful of prior obligations. It isn’t wise to schedule a social dinner date when there’s work the next morning. This is advice for most of us. It then isn’t the drinking that becomes the problem, it’s simply a matter of timing. It requires time to change clothes if wardrobe is changing, time to commute, time to complete the activity, time to commute back, and then time to prepare for bed. It is sometime the next day that the mental stress is then a little bit more than normal. For a successful social life to occur it cannot adversely effect the individual or the individual will begin to become resentful. The feelings of resent will then damage the social relationship and likely cause an increased amount of stress. Knowing when and where to allow for social relationships is the key to ensuring that there is proper balance and structure for a well-rounded business professional.
The idea for the business professional, and others where applicable, is to be a well-rounded individual. Psychologically, the whole-self desires a satisfying career; home; and social life. It is important to not feel isolated from others due to career choices while contrastingly not allowing career choices to be a source of isolation and confusion. When a collectively well existence is implemented and maintained the individual can experience feelings of peace and satisfaction authentically. For the business professional a few daily habits and key factors can be the difference between success and stress. Always consult a professional if, and when, signs of stress begin. It is better to be preventative natured than to be late when the matter is mental or physical health. Remember, work hard play hard just don’t be foolish; for the business professional, and others where applicable, it becomes second nature.
image credit:
office setting, dreamstime.com/minorileather.com; social setting, bowlersparadise.com
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