Occupational Psychology and Consultancy

More on Occupational Psychology – Occupational Consultancy

The aims of the Occupational Psychologist are to

• Improve the job satisfaction of an individual
• Increase the effectiveness of an organization or group

To achieve these aims, an occupational psychologist may carry out work in –

*Occupational consultancy

*Assessment and Training

*Ergonomics, health and safety

ORGANIZATIONAL CONSULTANCY

Organizational change and development is a process which is designed to improve how effective an organization is and how it copes with periods of change and development. Changes can occur for a number of reasons, such as a rapid development, diversification into new areas, reduction in the size of the organization and so on.

An occupational psychologist can be involved in helping people to understand human behaviour, the processes and structures within an organization and so on.

Occupational psychologists can also be involved in staff planning. This can involve job analysis, identifying statistical trends, such as future staffing requirements, labour turnover and so on.

An occupational psychologist can be brought in to help the company develop a new image or culture, then project that to the customer and outside world.

For example, if a company decides to become a public company, they might wish to develop a new management approach, change their image to become more dynamic and so on.

Interpersonal Relationships, Group and Intergroup Processes This involves the teaching of skills that are necessary for an effective organization. This may include negotiation, conflict resolution, team work, communication, leadership and so on.

Unemployment This may be examined to understand how the organization deals with this. Also, they may consider redundancy, retirement, redeployment, problems that occur when people change jobs, use of leisure time, redundancy counselling etc.

Industrial Relations This is where the occupational psychologist becomes involved in discussions between managements and employees. It requires knowledge of negotiation, payment systems, incentive schemes, trade unions and so on.