From Human Doing to Human Being – The Metacognitive Model for Well-Being Resilience in the Workplace.

Abstract

This exploratory study aspires to contribute to the discussions on well-being resilience in the workplace by proposing a novel model as a means of exploring core metacognitive factors involved as individuals develop a better skillset for cultivating well-being resilience. The concept of well-being resilience in the workplace aims to draw attention to the significance of the mastery of being present, defined as being self-aware, self-reflective and insightful, as the key to maintaining well-being and mental fitness. To cultivate well-being resilience, a metacognitive ability is important for directing and regulating cognitive processes and strategies, and leads towards nurturing states of self-awareness, self-reflection and insightfulness. The value of the development of reliable measures of self-reflection and insight for researchers and practitioners sits with the means to assess metacognitive processes such as psychological mindedness, self-reflection and insight (Grant, 2001). It supports the well-being resilience in the workplace based on cultivating “being” (reflection) next to “doing” (action). In this research study, a set of sources on the concepts of well-being, resilience, well-being interventions and metacognition acted as foundations for introducing a method of an experimental study consisting of a survey, a self-reflective task and a questionnaire distributed to a small sample of UK employees and yet to be distributed to a large sample of employees from several UK organisations, as part of further research recommendations. The mixed method aimed to provide a thorough insight into metacognitive ability and its relatedness to well-being resilience in the workplace. This paper offers views on the value of metacognition to the ability to develop and cultivate states of self-awareness, self-reflection and insightfulness leading to well-being resilience. It was noticed that individuals with high levels of well-being are more productive at work and are more likely to contribute to their communities (Frey and Stutzer, 2002; Tov and Diener, 2008). This exploration employs an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the value of metacognition to workplace mental fitness. This investigation builds upon Batha and Carroll’s (2007) call for further research on extending metacognition to various domains. The discussed study (Batha and Carroll, 2007) looked into the importance of metacognition and the relationship between metacognition and decision-making. The originality of this study is in the employment of metacognitive skills in the workplace, well-being and resilience, that unearths the interdisciplinarity of metacognition. This investigation uncovers the value of the science of “being” and the art of “being well” that support resilience in the workplace.