Psychological safety in the workplace is very important for each employee. Everyone should feel safe in the workplace and that is why the setting of healthy work boundaries plays a crucial role in the engagement of the workers in a company.
You can create the perfect places for work and you can have great working conditions, but if your healthy boundaries in the workplace are not good, everything might fall apart. For all these reasons, you should know how to create healthy boundaries and how to preserve a healthy atmosphere in the workplace. Keep reading to find out more.
What Are the Boundaries?
Boundaries are rules, limits, and guidelines that are created by a person as a way to set psychologically safe ways for other people to behave around them. Boundaries are physical, emotional, and mental limits that protect you from over-committing, being used, or behaving in unethical ways.
A perfect workplace comes with better healthy work boundaries.
Creating psychological safety in the workplace hugely depends on your boundaries and the way you manifest them. If you are able to show your boundaries clearly, you will be able to protect yourself from mental, physical, or emotional attacks.
Setting healthy boundaries at work can create a better atmosphere and more effective productivity. That is why each employee should set their own boundaries and respect others’ boundaries at the same time.
What Are the Boundary Types?
There are several boundary types and we present them here. You should know some of the most important boundary types in order to distinguish good from bad behavior. Here are the most common boundary types:
1. Physical boundaries – These include your privacy, your sense of the space, and your body. These boundaries are set by our body language, the clothing we wear, physical touch, and the eye contact we have with others. There could be some employee overstepping boundaries examples when it comes to physical boundaries. If someone checks your files without your permission or enters the doors without knocking, you should know how to handle employees who overstep their boundaries. You should be very clear and direct in these situations. Only with a strong approach can the employee change their actions.
2. Emotional boundaries – These boundaries protect your self-esteem and self-worth and they set your feelings apart from others. If someone tries to ignore, invade, or dismiss your feelings, you can be sure that he or she is violating your emotional boundaries.
3. Intellectual boundaries – With intellectual boundaries, we are aware of our creative thoughts and ideas, and we can protect them from others. We can decide which ideas we want to share with others and what kind of direction these ideas will take.
4. Energy boundaries – Your reflection and relaxation time is part of your energy boundaries. You can decide how you can increase your focus and how you will spend your free time. When these boundaries are violated, you can experience energy loss while you try to do the endless and demanding tasks in the workplace.
5. Time boundaries – These boundaries are among the most important aspects of your productivity. When these boundaries are violated, you can see how coworkers and managers demand impossible tasks, organize endless meetings, and contact you in your free time to do the unfinished work. As a result, your time is spent in the wrong manner.
Final Thoughts
Some of the setting boundaries at work examples include the actions that need to be done in order to protect your boundaries. You must set clear boundaries so others can understand them better.
Only when your boundaries are direct can you see the results that you search for. Create healthy work boundaries and be ready to have a better workplace for you and your colleagues.