Industrial and organisational psychology is also known as work psychology. It is the scientific study of organisations, the work place and the staff that make up the organisational.
Organisational psychologists can contribute to the success of an organisation by helping to improve the well being of staff, look at health and safety, improve performance and satisfaction.
Industrial psychologists will cover a wide range of tasks including –
- Training programmes
- Looking at recruitment practices
- Research into staff behaviour and attitudes
- Helping transition through periods of change
- Judgement and decision making
- Assessments on individual staff members
- Job appraisal and performance systems
- Job analysis
- Psychometric testing
- Work motivation
- Attitudes to work
- Job design
- Human resources
- Team performance and much more..
Opportunities
As you can see from the tasks detailed above, organisational psychology can be a very varied field.
Some organisational psychologists may focus on a particular area, such as recruitment or motivating staff. Whilst others may work within an organisational and look at a wide range of topics.
Organisational psychology work is often done as a consultant or freelancer. But occasionally larger organisations may employ an organisational psychologist.
If you can find enough clients, organisational psychology can be financially rewarding as firms are willing to pay to improve their businesses.
But it is a varied and wide field with many work opportunities.
Risks and Challenges
Even though firms may be willing to pay to improve their businesses, this relies on you finding clients and also maintaining your client levels. As with any freelance work, there may be times when work is scarce.
This is a demanding and high profile job, where businesses will expect results, so the organisational psychologist will need to be aware of new research, theories and what works and doesn’t work.
Because it is so demanding, there is also the risk of burn out for the psychologist.
The training required is also time consuming and lengthy.
How to become an Organisational Psychologist
A short course in industrial or organisational psychology can be a good starting point to find out if you are interested in this area and to find out more about the underpinnings of organisational and industrial psychology. You can then move on from this to a more detailed certificate, diploma or perhaps degree course in this area.
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