For people, it is their work that defines their purpose. In some cultures, around the world, work has been considered sacred and similar to worshipping gods. Now, corporates are investing in improving their culture for making it easier for employees to work better.
A Survey by Hays revealed that 47% of people leave their job because of dissatisfaction. It is high time when enterprises identify that they have to change their capitalistic tendencies as companies may improve their revenues by 682% of their employees are happy.
British Psychological Society’s Psychology at work: Improving wellbeing and productivity 2017 finds that many people believe that their work plays an important part in social identity. Psychologists have revealed through various studies that a sense of belongingness and feeling wanted is important for our mental as well as physical well-being.
The research also found that 86% of people related themselves with interesting work and for 76% people said that the sense of accomplishing something is as important to them as their salary. For some, it was more important than salary even.
It was also found that poorly designed work is a killjoy and damages the true potential of the employee. Boredom at work can make employees less productive and damaging the return-on-investment or ROI ratio. However, a new approach is emerging to fix these corporate problems.
What is Work Psychology?
It is a study of the behaviour of employees as an individual and a part of a group in corporate organisations such as companies providing data center solutions and workplaces to get an idea of how this behaviour can be influenced and enhanced to the benefit of both employers and employees.
In the United Kingdom and the USA, workplace psychology is called I-O psychology or Industrial Organisational psychology. In the UK, psychologists often call it occupational psychology. The term psychology of work and organisation describes it in Europe as reported in the Work psychology: an initial orientation.
Different Areas of I-O Psychology
Paul Muchinsky is working as a Professor at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In his book Psychology Applied to Work: An Introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology, most of the psychologists at the global level have identified six key operating areas in this field: –
Creating assessments for employees
This involves creating questionnaires and tests for choosing the right candidate for the job
Ergonomics
It involves the engineering and making a layout of procedures and apparatus for maximising profits and minimizing damage. Companies are focusing to include new measures through this as only 36% of the employees feel engaged in their workplace.
Managing development in Organisation
Psychologists often help organisations in enhancing employee satisfaction and employee experience through redesign work models, spaces, and structure that in turn gives better ROI on employees. 85% of employees are productive if internal lines of communications work fine.
Performance management
It is a key function performed by workplace psychologists. It involves creating tests and assessments to know whether the ongoing environment is good for the employee and how to help employees in doing their jobs well.
Training and opportunities
Psychologists work closely with the C-suite in this area to develop job descriptions necessary to complete a specific job and how to train employees to reap maximum benefit out of it.
Work-life balance
This area is all about employees. Psychologists help employees in overcoming their biases and phobias to unlock their potential to the fullest and overcome personal difficulties in marinating a proper work-life balance. This can be done by making jobs more rewarding or encouraging healthy competition. A highly motivated employee can increase his productivity by 21%.
Industrial Organisational Psychology key functions
Technology has been changing the way how employers used to see their employees. Now, ERPs come with features to keep the workplace environment in check through employee feedback. Let us know how workplace psychologists focus their expertise on different topics: –
Employee motivation
Psychologists devise new ways to motivate employees for their jobs. They may formulate a rewards system to do that as recognition is the best motivator for 37% of the employees.
Testing the employee
Specific jobs require specific assessments. Therefore, new ways and tests are formulated to hire people fit for them. For instance, a person with good leadership qualities and a composed demeanour is considered good for a managerial position.
Workplace diversity and performance
Psychologists often read the collective behaviour of the person in a workplace to design protocols and exercises to understand how to improve their experience as an employee. They may also help employers to hire employees to promote diversity in the workplace.
The great resignation triggered by the pandemic has changed the focus of employees. Now, people chose to live a quiet life with their families. Employees are no longer oppressed rather they satisfaction is emerging as a key to this seismic paradigm shift in how employers see their employees.
