Motivating Performance: Test Anxiety in the Workplace & Real Life

We all experience some form of anxiety. Whether that is from a big presentation that you are anticipating having to produce, an evaluation you are to receive from your employer or if you are the manager or Human Resources professional and are required to train the new employees (Brooks, 2014). Regardless of what your role is, or what you face in life... maybe it is that you are having a new child, or your child is about to graduate from high school or college and is moving on to bigger things (ex: having a family or starting a new career). I'm sure anyone here who is a parent, has experienced some form of anxiety when it comes how to raise our children, worrying over our childrens health, safety, or so forth; that is still anxiety and worry.

When an individual is anxious over a task, life event or project that they are tasked with... it can have negative reactions for the individual. It can "drain working memory capacity, decrease self-confidence, and harm performance," (Brooks, 2014). Being anxious over a task or event can have the exact opposite effects that are intended to be productive or efficient in an environment to be able to produce quality work. But then how is one supposed to not be anxious? Is it really a choice-or is it completely involuntary and there is nothing that we can do about it at all?

Taking the example of Brooks (2014) that when losing a loved one it is tragic and sad, as it is for most individuals, we usually come to terms with the loss that we have experienced at some point and by then we sometimes say that because of this event, "It has made me who I am now." By reappraising our sadness, our anxiety, our heavy burdens-like feelings into something else such as calmness or pride (Brooks, 2014). It has been proven through several different works that "reappraising negative emotions is more effective than suppressing them," (Brooks, 2014). Personally, I have experienced a great deal of anxiety from negative experiences. I can personally say that when I am feeling like I am in a "tight spot" or I am unsure of what action to take, or if I am nervous. I sometimes can be a little risk-averse by habit, because I don't want the negative reactions to happen (my PTSD coming out here), however I have noticed that when I take a deep breath, I focus on what can come out of this meeting, what can come out of highly trained employees because they had a great onboarding system, I focus on what I need to do in order to get there. I get excited about what is coming next at that point because I know that no matter what happens, I will continue to push on. My heart races a little bit with each thing I pursue, whether that be by anxiety or excitement--they have slightly started to intermingle and now I can more subconsciously turn anxiety into excitement without thinking about it as much.

When you see the below picture... what do you feel? Does it give you as much anxiety as it did me? Just seeing that guy standing up there in what looks like a break room or office environment is nerve wracking! What would you do if you started working at a new job and they had a laid-back type of environment... so much so that on Friday's they would have different activities to let loose a little bit before going home... such as karaoke. Would you turn around and walk out? Would you say I got this?! And sing the best that you could and just pass it off to the next employee? Would you make some sarcastic remark saying, "Trust me, you don't want to hear me sing!! You will never recover if you do." And hope that they don't press the issue? Or would you take that nervousness or anxiety and ask someone to compete with you to see who could sing the most songs in as much tune as the both of you could manage?

Sometimes being sprung into a last-minute karaoke session with your new co-workers on a Friday afternoon can be full of anxiety, because you weren't expecting it. You can experience any of the common physical or behavioral type of components such as "a knot in the stomach, wet and trembling hands, nausea or butterflies in the stomach," body aches, dry mouth, or a pounding heart. You could experience learned or emotional components of anxiety... such as worrying or a fear of failure, or just flat-out panic. you could even have a panic attack in these situations with such high negative reactions to failure, that you know you don't want to experience failure in this moment. Or you have the cognitive or mental components which would include lack of self-confidence, and an overemphasis of potential negative results (test anxiety, n.d.). Or you could even experience one or all these components at once. In any of these situations, you would want to prepared the best that you can, right?

Well, even people that "over prepare".... can experience all these very normal reactions to surprisingly being put on the stand. When you're called to sing karaoke last minute, you may feel "your stomach fall to your butt" so to say, that is a weight and your stomach going up into knots. That would a physical reaction. Or you could feel like you want to curl up in a ball, deny it and run out of the room... that could be a panic attack coming on, and would be an emotional or learned reaction. Or you could put on over-emphasis on what would happen if you don't hit the right notes and then maybe everyone would laugh at you (failure)--that would be a cognitive reaction.

Another example of a cognitive reaction would or could be mind wandering... having the situation produce possible personal concerns or triggers... it could lead to a higher rate of an individual losing focus and allowing their mind to wander to what could or would go wrong (Banks, 2015). In this instance the trigger could be considered a threat and would therefore cause stress or anxiety in the employee.

Now, with all this information... how can you manage what is seemingly so common in an everyday work or testing experience when it comes to performance or motivation? A key factor would be to ensure that it is not essentially a related construct, like neuroticism and stress (Cheng & McCarthy, 2018) which would experience a wider net of "negative emotions, such as fear and guilt, and a propensity to exhibit poor emotional stability." Ensuring that it is effectively not a mental condition, and is not stress that is environmental, or external.

Once you rule out those factors, you can start to focus on outcomes that you can mentally or physically try to alter yourself. One could be to find the "intrinsic motivation that drives the joy" in your daily work (Cheng & McCarthy, 2018). What excites you? Why do you love doing your job? Why would you stay in a job that you didn't like doing? Ensure that the organization that you are with... is the best for you. Don't stay in a job simply for a paycheck if it drains you of your mental stability or your ability to find and keep happiness. Spend your time doing something that you love. That you are passionate about.

You also need to trust yourself (Cheng & McCarthy, 2018). Have faith that the project that you are working on, that the employees that you are training on their new hire orientation are going to receive the best training from HR that they ever received... or when it comes to singing karaoke in the breakroom on a Friday afternoon... ensure that IF you have a good voice to sing a tune, and you can hold a tune... that you sing to your hearts content. But you do not need to pressured into doing something that you don't want to do, just because everyone else says it's a good idea. However, if you do it... do it knowing that you are going to rock it. Either you will have a great voice, or you fail epically, and you will have fun doing it.

Amp yourself up, be excited (Brooks, 2014)! Trust yourself but know that regardless of what happens... you are excited to do it anyway! You are excited to show these new hires the company they work for... the company that you are so motivated to come to work to each day even after 15 years of employment. Show them what you love about your job. Be excited about new hire orientation!

Certain limitations will always come from any situation, or solutions. When it comes to motivational practices involving test anxiety or performance anxiety in the workplace... examining social anxiety is an important factor (Cheng & McCarthy, 2018). "Social anxiety refers to feelings of nervousness about how one is being perceived and / or evaluated in social situations," (Cheng & McCarthy, 2018). This is very important, especially in military or law enforcement professions... because it is very common for an individual that volunteers to do something or is "volun-told" to do something... even if they have no choice in the matter... it is very common for this individual to receive retaliation and discrimination or harassment in many different forms for having to perform in front of others. This can lead to social anxiety when called upon the next time, or when they are having to carry out the duties assigned to them for the specified task.

An individual's motivations or lack of motivation and their abilities also needs to be assessed when they are very obviously anxious. If a manager can pick up on the fact that Jimmy looks like he is going to throw up because he needs to sing this karaoke song on this Friday afternoon... and he has previously had a talk with Jimmy about how he enjoys staying home, working on computers and doesn't get out much. Therefore, he doesn't typically spend time together with people at bars, or other locations where there is karaoke... and has no interest in singing... then this task would not be in Jimmy's area of motivation or ability. This would be asking too much of Jimmy and could send him into a sort of panic. However, if Jimmy is always afraid of everything that he does... even when asked to give presentations on IT topics... that he is very familiar with. Then maybe he is in the wrong position. Chronic workplace anxiety would lead me to believe that an individual would be in over their head, or that they are being

Group level anxiety would take place when an individual is highly anxious to the point where their anxiety rubs off on other team members in their group (Cheng & McCarthy, 2018). This would lead to issues for not only 1 individual to perform, but for an entire group.

Simply stated, pessimism vs. optimism would be a huge limitation as well. If an individual is likely to look on the darker side of things or they are always thinking of failure as an option anyway... they are most likely less inclined to accept a win as a win when they see it or have the opportunity to compete for it.

Here are a few resources for employers to use in considering these outcomes for your employees. We will be discussing these further in the next slides:

• Ace Your SHRM Certification Exam: Recognizing the Symptoms of Anxiety; https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/behavioral-competencies/pages/ace-your-shrm-certification-exam-manage-anxiety.aspx

• Strategies to Better Manage Test Anxiety; https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/testing/strategies-better-manage-test-anxiety

• Understanding Test Anxiety and Anxiety Reduction Strategies; https://www.unco.edu/student-academic-success/academic-success/academic-success-resources/pdf/SAS_anxiety_strategies.pdf

• Managing Employee Stress and Anxiety –Returning to the Workplace; https://www.nsc.org/getmedia/78874035-7036-4567-a51d-835b55f86fa8/qh-managing-employee-anxiety.pdf.aspx

• All About Employee Personality Tests—Ask #HR Bartender https://www.hrbartender.com/2015/recruiting/all-about-employee-personality-tests-ask-hr-bartender/

We will begin with the personality tests or assessments. These tools can be extremely helpful to workforces. They can help an employer determine who to place on certain teams, who will be pushed out of their comfort zone for certain projects, and who will excel or fail in certain areas of a project. These can be extremely helpful in determining if a job match is also the right fit for an employee as well.

Some of these references highlight the topics of employees returning to work after the COVID-19 pandemic. Which has caused some genuine fear and anxiety for employees and could cause fear and anxiety for others when returning to work. Therefore, these resources were used for those reasons, as they relate to current social and environmental issues.

These resources consider the perspective of more communication is better. Communication, personal time and wellness breaks are encouraged. This leads to a healthy work environment all together.

There are simple things that employees can do if they are able to prepare for a presentation or a test as some resources show. Things like getting physical exercise in, drinking plenty of water, avoiding caffeine and alcohol and getting a good night's sleep can all play into how an employee performs if done.

While there are many perks to having the personality assessments or tests within the work environment... it can also open the organization up to a lot of liability. By assessing an applicant's personality for job match before they are officially hired for the position, and then say that applicant does not end up getting hired for that position... it creates a very real threat that this individual will assume they were not selected based on their personality traits... not on their ability to perform in the job. This can lead to many other issues and bring biases and prejudices into play as well. This can be a helpful tool to use once an employee is hired... but it should not be made mandatory, because if an employee takes the personality assessment and for some reason does not receive a promotion that they put in for later in the future or were in the running for at the time of taking the test, the employee could assume it was because of their personality traits and again not for their ability to get the job done.

By communicating effectively with employees, allowing more time to wellness breaks, and encouraging health discussions at work regarding how employees are feeling relating to their work environment and allowing employees to have a say in what their work environment looks like (ex: working from home vs. working from the office) will lead to organizational shifts, and this could be difficult for managers or even HR representatives to navigate at times.

Some resources will state that an employee or student has all the power to change their perspective on a situation. When we have briefly touched on the fact that mental health issues could be at play, and it could cause individuals to continue to react negatively to stress. This could be PTSD related issues, anger issues, stress issues, depression issues, or a multitude of other issues. However, they are all things that are outside of the employee's control.

Resources

1. Banks, J. B., Tartar, J. L., & Tamayo, B. A. (2015). Examining factors involved in stress-related working memory impairments: Independent or conditional effects? Emotion, 15(6), 827–836. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000096

2. Brooks, A. W. (2014). Get excited: Reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(3), 1144–1158. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035325

3. Test Anxiety. writtenberg.edu. (n.d.). https://www.wittenberg.edu/sites/default/files/u7/testanxiety.pdf.

Any additional questions can be forwarded to my email at karminwalkerbooks@gmail.com