I once walked into an organisation hearing an employee yelling, “I quit!” The room was tense. I became tense. My excitement for being served waned just as swiftly as that employee shoved his way out. Another staff tried explaining that the “market” had been tough and profits were low. Everyone was unhappy, she said.
In today’s modern rapidly paced working environment, businesses need to constantly adapt to remain abreast of the ever-changing economic climate – and remain profitable.
Reviewing its business strategies, governance, investments and finance, brand as well as its people’s performance is required to ensure it remains relevant. But, for all these areas to be effective, its people must be effective. Enter work psychology.
Work psychology is an applied field working with how people function and looking at their behaviours at work with the aim of promoting organisational effectiveness whether individually, in groups or in the organisation as a whole. In particular, work psychology assists with personnel selection and assessments, performance appraisal, training and career/personnel, counselling, organisational development, change management, and designing work environments and equipment to complement safety standards.
Studies have discussed how employee contentment relates to effectiveness in the workplace. One such longitudinal study found that for an organisation to be effective, it needs to focus on its workers’ satisfaction. Worker contentment led to positive attitudes and behaviours and effectively this influenced profitability as well as customer approval and satisfaction.
Interestingly, there are several articles online that attest to this finding. One website in particular reports that at the Google company, employee productivity increased by 37% with a remarkable profit increase.
Their secret?
Worker happiness and organisational profitability was simply due to the use of tools and strategies of psychology in the workplace.