When you can express yourself through your work you not only strengthen your professional identity, you strengthen your psychological stability because these are experiences that require you to control and direct your inner resources, and which reinforce your sense of competency and self-worth.
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Autonomy in working is one of the important ways in which work contributes to mental well-being. Being denied autonomy in our working lives diminishes us as people. It repudiates our sense of self-worth and it destabilises our psychological health.
What does it mean to have autonomy at work?
It means having the freedom to express your professional capacities: your expertise, your unique know-how, and your judgement about the work.
Being able to speak and be genuinely heard; to share your unique know-how and have it recognised as such by your peers; these are all fundamental necessities for psycho-social safety in the workplace.
Psycho-social safety in the workplace is everybody’s responsibility now.