Introductory Video
Project Purpose and Objective
Throughout my professional experience I have noticed a problem that most organizations have. In every workplace that I have participated in, mental health problems are ignored. This leads to a disgruntled workforce, poor quality of life for employees, and a negative working environment. With this research project, I hoped to address anxiety and depression in the workplace and give some answers to leaders hoping to make improvements within their organizations.
Project
My project is a fifteen paged research paper with five separate infographics included for those who don’t want to read the entirety of the project. You will find my project embedded below.
Challenges
There were two major challenges that I faced throughout my project. One was the motivation to write. In my professional career I have never attempted to write a fifteen paged document. While I considered it to be reasonable at the beginning of the project, I was quickly overwhelmed with how intimidating it truly was.
The second challenge was my inability with graphic design. I excel at writing, presenting, and researching. Graphic design has always been something that I fall behind the status quo. I went through several iterations of my infographics before landing somewhere that I believed to be presentable and professional.
Project Process
I knew that falling behind on this project would lead to an immense amount of stress and worry towards the end of the semester. I wanted to ensure that I was producing quality work while avoiding the stress of crunch time later on in the semester. I scheduled out two hours on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, as well as two hours on Saturday afternoons to ensure that I was maintaining a consistent workflow that would lead to a finished product within my set timeframe of two and a half months.
Generally, I was incredibly consistent when it came to working within my set project times. However, life does happen, and I was sidetracked a few times throughout my given timeframe. Whenever this happened, I found myself scrambling to find the time to complete my allotted hours within the week. I found that it was always best to stick to my preset schedule.
Project Overview
As I mentioned previously, this project was a little more than I expected. I excel at writing, and I assumed that I had taken on a reasonable amount of work to complete within the timeframe I had given myself. Producing quality work always takes more time than you first assume. I believe that my writing, research, and graphic design ability has improved greatly throughout my project’s entirety.
I found incredible information that will help myself, and others, become great leaders at work. Anxiety and depression are both very real problems in the workplace. Being well equipped as leaders within those environments can help us produce incredibly efficient and safe environments for employees to work in.
Insights and Takeaways
While difficult and stressful, I believe that I chose the right amount of work for this project. Enough to push my abilities as a writer and researcher, but not so much that I was overwhelmed. I added in some graphic design to ensure that I pushed myself when it came to learning new things. I also realized how important time management is when it comes to professional projects. Without time management, you will be left producing a low-quality project with a greater amount of stress and pressure placed on your shoulders.
From the project itself I learned many things. Anxiety and depression are riddled throughout our organizations. Much worse than I thought previously. It is something that many people struggle with, and nobody is working towards a solution when it comes to workplace stress. We are so focused on numbers and results that we forget the people producing those things are human.
While it may not produce the numbers that people are looking for. Being kind is a great way to start improving our workplace environments. For the people that say, “they are coming to work, we are here to produce results, not take care of people.” I would argue that work is exactly the place where we should be taking care of each other. If you have any doubts about that, I encourage you to read this project. I truly believe that it will change your mind.