Exploring the experiences of a character strengths training programme on group work among post-graduate Industrial Psychology students
Abstract
To compete in the global market, organisations need employees who are current, creative, flexible, adaptable and resilient. Industrial Psychologists are responsible to keep these employees motivated, focused and healthy throughout situational challenges they encounter daily within the world of work. Due to the nature of employee's demands, team-based work entities are encouraged to ensure an organisation's success within the global markets. Therefore, tertiary educational facilities also are encouraged to implement group work within their syllabus to prepare students with the needed ‘soft' skills to cope effectively in a competitive work environment. During group work, students not only gain theory-based education; they also learn from each other and develop the mentioned soft skills. These include sound interpersonal relations, conflict management and registering immediate feedback, which encourages individual development. However, group members are often faced with various challenges, which cause students to be unmotivated, frustrated and concerned about their educational success. Industrial-organisational psychologists (IOP's) focus on optimising potential and facilitate groups, individuals and ultimately, organisations. These psychologists utilise interventions to develop and train individuals such as students to be competent within the world of work. More importantly, positive-psychological interventions are utilised more in organisational environments. In this regard character strengths imply individual potential as grounded by positive psychology. A character-strength initiative is typically applied to ensure employees' development and wellness. In the present study, the effects of a character-strength training programme were explored in the context of group work amongst post-graduate IOP's. A qualitative research design was followed during the present research study based on an epistemological assumption. The research employed a case study strategy, more specifically an instrumental case study was used explicitly to help explain participants experiences. The target population were IOP-post graduate students (N=25). The results indicated that the participants supported the character-strength training programme within group work. They recommended that such a programme should be implemented at the beginning of their academic year as a team-building activity. The participants further confirmed that utilising character strengths within groups made them aware of their individual strengths as well as those of others. As a result, the participants formed a more meaningful understanding of themselves as well as their group members. This understanding enabled them to communicate effectively, increase self-esteem, develop individually and encourage others to grow within their character strengths. The awareness of character strengths (their own, and that of others) helped them relate more to each other, which created a positive climate within group work. Furthermore, the participants in the project attested that they gained a skill-set which could assist them in various aspects of their academic development as well as their future professional career. The IOP post-graduate honours students thus found practical and valued significance in a character-strength training programme and recommended that such a programme should be presented during the norming phase of group work. For organisations this implies the induction period of their ‘onboarding', as teams begin to take shape. Finally, this training programme within group work helped develop individuals and the group by enhancing group members' individual skill-set. This ultimately will empower these future IOP's to flourish within the world of work.