Warren Shepell

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Warren Shepell is a Canadian psychologist [1] and human resources consultant [2] who advocated for and founded companies which provided employee assistance programs (EAPs) in Canadian workplaces. [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Shepell was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. [4] He studied psychology at the University of Manitoba, earning B.A. in 1965. In 1968 he graduated with an M.A.Sc. in Industrial Psychology from the University of Waterloo. He earned a PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Career

In 1975 Shepell was hired as a consulting psychologist at Stevenson & Kellogg Ltd. [1] Shepell started his Employee Assistance firms Warren Shepell Consultants Corp, Warren Shepell - EAP Professionals and Les Consultants Ltee in 1979. [5] [6] As well as counseling services, his company provided a 24-hour hotline and counseling to help employees and managers deal with workplace stress. [7] By 1996 the company had about 500 counseling locations in Canada and the United States. [8]

Shepell worked to bring mental health treatment and counseling to the mainstream population and to convince corporations to pay for the services. In 2002 Benefits Canada awarded him the Silver Medal Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the Human Resources Benefits field. [9] In 2003 his company Warren Shepell Consultants released a study showing that tech specialists were under more stress than most workers because of lack of job security. [10] [11]

Shepell sold Shepell EAP company in 2005. At that time it had about 1500 employees, [12] mainly part and full-time psychologists and social workers, [13] [14] and provided coverage for about four million Canadian families.

After the sale of his company, Shepell continued to write, speak and consult about Employee Assistance programs and to operate EAP Surveys Inc. and later EAP Specialist Inc. [15]

Related Research Articles

Industrial and organizational psychology Branch of psychology

Industrial and organizational psychology, an applied discipline within psychology, is the science of human behavior as it pertains to the workplace. Depending on the country or region of the world, I-O psychology is also known as occupational psychology in the United Kingdom, organizational psychology in Australia and New Zealand, and work and organizational (WO) psychology throughout Europe and Brazil. Industrial, work, and organizational psychology (IWO) psychology is the broader, more global term for the science and profession.

Psychology Study of mental functions and behaviours

Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups. Ψ is a Greek letter which is commonly associated with the science of psychology.

Human resources is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include manpower, labor, personnel, associates or simply: people.

Stress management is a wide spectrum of techniques and psychotherapies aimed at controlling a person's level of stress, especially chronic stress, usually for the purpose of and for the motive of improving everyday functioning. Stress produces numerous physical and mental symptoms which vary according to each individual's situational factors. These can include a decline in physical health as well as depression. The process of stress management is named as one of the keys to a happy and successful life in modern society. Life often delivers numerous demands that can be difficult to handle, but stress management provides a number of ways to manage anxiety and maintain overall well-being.

Applied psychology Application of psychological theories or findings

Applied psychology is the use of psychological methods and findings of scientific psychology to solve practical problems of human and animal behavior and experience. Mental health, organizational psychology, business management, education, health, product design, ergonomics, and law are just a few of the areas that have been influenced by the application of psychological principles and findings. Some of the areas of applied psychology include clinical psychology, counseling psychology, evolutionary psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, legal psychology, neuropsychology, occupational health psychology, human factors, forensic psychology, engineering psychology, school psychology, sports psychology, traffic psychology, community psychology, and medical psychology. In addition, a number of specialized areas in the general field of psychology have applied branches. However, the lines between sub-branch specializations and major applied psychology categories are often blurred. For example, a human factors psychologist might use a cognitive psychology theory. This could be described as human factor psychology or as applied cognitive psychology.

Workplace politics is the process and behavior that in human interactions involves power and authority. It is also a tool to assess the operational capacity and to balance diverse views of interested parties. It is also known as office politics and organizational politics. It involves the use of power and social networking within a workplace to achieve changes that benefit the organization or individuals within it. "Organizational politics are self-serving behaviors" that "employees use to increase the probability of obtaining positive outcomes in organizations". Influence by individuals may serve personal interests without regard to their effect on the organization itself. Some of the personal advantages may include:

Organizational behavior (OB) or organisational behaviour is the: "study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself". OB research can be categorized in at least three ways:

An employee assistance program (EAP) is an employee benefit program that assists employees with personal problems and/or work-related problems that may impact their job performance, health, mental and emotional well-being. EAPs generally offer free and confidential assessments, short-term counseling, referrals, and follow-up services for employees. EAP counselors may also work in a consultative role with managers and supervisors to address employee and organizational challenges and needs. Many corporations, academic institution and/or government agencies are active in helping organizations prevent and cope with workplace violence, trauma, and other emergency response situations. There is a variety of support programs offered for employees. Even though EAPs are mainly aimed at work-related issues, there are a variety of programs that can assist with problems outside of the workplace. EAPs have grown in popularity over the years, and are more desirable economically and socially.

Peer support occurs when people provide knowledge, experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other. It commonly refers to an initiative consisting of trained supporters, and can take a number of forms such as peer mentoring, reflective listening, or counseling. Peer support is also used to refer to initiatives where colleagues, members of self-help organizations and others meet, in person or online, as equals to give each other connection and support on a reciprocal basis.

Emotional exhaustion Chronic state of physical and emotional depletion

Emotional exhaustion is a chronic state of physical and emotional depletion that results from excessive job, personal demands, and/or continuous stress. It describes a feeling of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work. It is manifested by both physical fatigue and a sense of feeling psychologically and emotionally "drained".

Organizational conflict, or workplace conflict, is a state of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of needs, values and interests between people working together. Conflict takes many forms in organizations. There is the inevitable clash between formal authority and power and those individuals and groups affected. There are disputes over how revenues should be divided, how the work should be done, and how long and hard people should work. There are jurisdictional disagreements among individuals, departments, and between unions and management. There are subtler forms of conflict involving rivalries, jealousies, personality clashes, role definitions, and struggles for power and favor. There is also conflict within individuals – between competing needs and demands – to which individuals respond in different ways.

Occupational health psychology Health and Safety psychology

Occupational health psychology (OHP) is an interdisciplinary area of psychology that is concerned with the health and safety of workers. OHP addresses a number of major topic areas including the impact of occupational stressors on physical and mental health, the impact of involuntary unemployment on physical and mental health, work-family balance, workplace violence and other forms of mistreatment, psychosocial workplace factors that affect accident risk and safety, and interventions designed to improve and/or protect worker health. Although OHP emerged from two distinct disciplines within applied psychology, namely, health psychology and industrial and organizational psychology, for a long time the psychology establishment, including leaders of industrial/organizational psychology, rarely dealt with occupational stress and employee health, creating a need for the emergence of OHP. OHP has also been informed by other disciplines, including occupational medicine, sociology, industrial engineering, and economics, as well as preventive medicine and public health. OHP is thus concerned with the relationship of psychosocial workplace factors to the development, maintenance, and promotion of workers' health and that of their families. The World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization estimate that exposure to long working hours causes an estimated 745,000 workers to die from ischemic heart disease and stroke in 2016, mediated by occupational stress.

Training and development involve improving the effectiveness of organizations and the individuals and teams within them. Training may be viewed as related to immediate changes in organizational effectiveness via organized instruction, while development is related to the progress of longer-term organizational and employee goals. While training and development technically have differing definitions, the two are oftentimes used interchangeably and/or together. Training and development have historically been topics within adult education and applied psychology but have within the last two decades become closely associated with human resources management, talent management, human resources development, instructional design, human factors, and knowledge management.

Occupational stress Tensions related to work

Occupational stress is psychological stress related to one's job. Occupational stress refers to a chronic condition. Occupational stress can be managed by understanding what the stressful conditions at work are and taking steps to remediate those conditions. Occupational stress can occur when workers do not feel supported by supervisors or coworkers, feel as if they have little control over the work they perform, or find that their efforts on the job are incommensurate with the job's rewards. Occupational stress is a concern for both employees and employers because stressful job conditions are related to employees' emotional well-being, physical health, and job performance. A landmark study conducted by the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization found that exposure to long working hours, which are theorized to operate through increased psycho-social occupational stress, is the occupational risk factor with the largest attributable burden of disease, according to these official estimates causing an estimated 745,000 workers to die from ischemic heart disease and stroke events in 2016.

Despite a large body of positive psychological research into the relationship between happiness and productivity, happiness at work has traditionally been seen as a potential by-product of positive outcomes at work, rather than a pathway to business success. Happiness in the workplace is usually dependent on the work environment. During the past two decades, maintaining a level of happiness at work has become more significant and relevant due to the intensification of work caused by economic uncertainty and increase in competition. Nowadays, happiness is viewed by a growing number of scholars and senior executives as one of the major sources of positive outcomes in the workplace. In fact, companies with higher than average employee happiness exhibit better financial performance and customer satisfaction. It is thus beneficial for companies to create and maintain positive work environments and leadership that will contribute to the happiness of their employees.

Workplace harassment is the belittling or threatening behavior directed at an individual worker or a group of workers.

Personnel Psychology is a subfield of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Personnel psychology is the area of industrial/organizational psychology that primarily deals with the recruitment, selection and evaluation of personnel, and other job aspects such as morale, job satisfaction, and relationships between managers and workers in the workplace. It is the field of study that concentrates on the selection and evaluation of employees; this area of psychology deals with job analysis and defines and measures job performance, performance appraisal, employment testing, employment interviews, personnel selection and employee training, and human factors and ergonomics.

Positive psychology is defined as a method of building on what is good and what is already working instead of attempting to stimulate improvement by focusing on the weak links in an individual, a group, or in this case, a company. Implementing positive psychology in the workplace means creating an environment that is more enjoyable, productive, and values individual employees. This also means creating a work schedule that does not lead to emotional and physical distress.

Tony Buon, is a British workplace psychologist, speaker, mediator and author. He is the Managing Partner of Buon Consultancy based in Edinburgh, Scotland

Christine E. Dickson American cognitive psychologist

Christine E. Dickson is an American clinical psychologist. For over 20 years, she has specialized in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. She is best known for being a psychotherapist in California and appearing as a featured guest on Tri-Valley Community Television (TV30) where she provides self-help advice on topics such as mindfulness, work-family balance, marital happiness, compassion, trauma recovery, and more. Her psychotherapy practice is located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

References

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