Work, well-being and performance
Chapter 1: Introduction: People at work
1.1 What we talk about when we talk about work psychology
Work
Work can be defined as:
A set of coordinated and goal-directed activities that are conducted in exchange for something
else (usually a monetary reward, not always).
There are 3 key elements to this definition”
1. Goal-directed activities: Actions at work intended to bring a previously specified result.
2. Coordinated activities: Workers don’t act randomly to achieve goals. It requires that workers
execute a series of interrelated activities, following work routines, procedures and guidelines.
Without coordination, goals will be really hard to achieve.
3. Exchange for something else: Activities require mental, emotional or physical effort and this
effort is compensated in some way.
Functions satisfied by work:
Work provides a needed income Facilitates a way to serve society
Is interesting and satisfying Keeps one occupied
Provides contacts with others Gives status and prestige
Psychology
Psychology refers to:
People’s behavior, motivations, thoughts and emotions related to a particular topic.
Work psychology aims to promote what might be called sustainable performance, maximizing work
performance as well as worker well-being. Work psychology refers to:
The way worker’s behaviors, motivations, thoughts, emotions, health and well-being relate to
each other and about ways to influence these concepts.
o It only focuses on the specific activities conducted to achieve work goals, it does NOT
focus on the work context or on worker characteristics.
Well-being
Health (physical well-being): work as source of disease & injury, stress, health benefits
Relationships (social well-being): work as source of trust, support, reciprocity, exploitation,
power abuse
Happiness (psychological well-being): work as source of pleasure/satisfaction (passive) and
fulfillment/engagement (active) or the opposites thereof
1.2 Who do we mean when we talk about workers?
Around the world 3 billion people are at work. The global unemployment rate was about 6% in 2011.
More and more people are working in the service sector, but worldwide, the agricultural sector is still
the second largest source of employment after services.
There is an inclination in work psychology to focus on high-status workers and ethnic majorities in well-
developed parts of the world.
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,1.3 The meaning of working
People don’t just work for the money. Research shows that people who are employed are happier than
people who are unemployed. The relationship between health and unemployment runs both ways:
The lack of health increases chances of becoming unemployed and unemployment contributes
to the emergence of health problems.
The popular culture depicts work and working life as something that is unpleasant and may have
adverse consequences for health and well-being. BUT research strongly suggests that having a job
contributes positively to health and well-being in comparison to not having a job.
Marie Jahoda’s Relative Depriviation Model concluded that apart from having income, there are 5
classes of social benefits. Working provides people with:
Time structure Social identity or status
Opportunities for social contact Regular activity.
Sharing of a common purpose
1.4 The roots of work psychology
Hippocratic collection
Ancient Greek medical knowledge is documented in a collection of about 60 books written by various
authors during the fifth to third centuries. This collection provided doctors with detailed guidelines
and routines prescribing how to accomplish their tasks.
Birth of occupational medicine
In the early 1500s, the first truly scientific texts on the association between health and work appeared.
Agricola documented the impact working in mines had on the health and well-being of the miners. And
Ramazzini extended this work to include no less than 52 occupations. These books were the starting
point for the discipline occupatopnal medicine.
Work psychology, 1850-1930
There are new manufacturing processes, because of the industrial revolution. The production had
changed from artisanal piece-for-piece production Mass production.
Scientific management (Standardization and efficiency):
Productivity could be optimized by not focusing on the match between worker and task, but
concentrating on the task itself Simplifying it so any worker could do it. Taylor thought that
workers were both lazy and stupid. So he proposed to counter the stupidity issue:
o Simplifying the tasks using scientific methods
o Examining the best way to conduct the tasks
o Training workers in the best way to conduct the tasks
o Separating planning of tasks from their execution: Managers should plan, workers
should execute.
o Selecting workers for particular tasks.
The laziness issue was addressed by introducing high levels of control and supervision and by
introducing pay-for-performance systems.
Work psychology 1930-present
Realizing that redesigning the jobs in line with the principles of scientific management affected worker
morale negatively and stimulated conflicts between managers and workers, the scientific management
was superseded by the Human relations movement.
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, Human relations movement:
Rather than fitting the worker to the job, the job was fitted to the worker now, paying special
attention to the human side of working.
Contemporary work psychology:
Merges ideas from all these disciplines in an attempt to promote sustainable performance:
High productivity combined with much attention for the worker health and well-being.
1.5 The times, they are A-changin’
The changing nature of work
The nature of work has changed from mainly manufacturing work to predominantly service and
knowledge work. Service organizations depend on their customers. So workers have to interact with
customers in a positive way. Knowledge workers are highly educated employees who apply theoretical
and analytical knowledge to developing new products and services.
The changing workforce
The workforce has become more diverse in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, organizational tenure and
educational background.
The changing flexibility of working
New ways of working are characterized by:
Flexibility in timing of work
Flexibility in the place of work
The facilitation of information technologies.
The changing organization
Because of globalization and the increasing use of ICT organizations must continuously adapt to new
realities.
The changing psychological contract
This is what employees and employers want and expect from each other. This contract has been
changed from an emphasis on stability and permanent employment to a desire for flexibility and
employability.
1.6 The crucial role of task analysis in contemporary work psychology
Task analysis is the common name given to any process that identifies and examines the tasks that
must be performed by employees. It’s a fundamental approach which assists in achieving higher
performance and safety standards.
Task analysis within work psychology
Work psychological task analysis can be considered a methodology in which data will be collected,
ranked and evaluated to say something about the nature of the task. It’s a popular, well-structured
and useful approach to describe, analyse and evaluate particular tasks to improve performance and
safety by means of the task design.
Task analysis methods and techniques
These methods can be categorized using 4 different approaches:
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, Behavior description approach: Focus on actual behaviors that employees display in executing
the task.
Behavior requirements approach: Focus on actual behaviors employees should display to
perform the task successfully.
Ability requirements approach: Tasks are analyzed in terms of employees’ abilities, knowledge,
skills and personal characteristics needed to perform task successfully.
Task characteristics approach: Focus to analyse objective characteristics of a task, independent
from behavior that is displayed or the abilities needed.
Task analysis techniques can be divided in at least 3 broad categories:
Data collection techniques
Task representation techniques
Task simulation techniques
Chapter 3: The models that made job design
3.1 Background of job design
Job design is concerned with the activities of workers and relates to the duties and tasks required to
perform their work and how those tasks and duties are structured.
3.2 The job characteristics model
JCM is a model of work motivation. This is concerned with developing jobs that are motivating,
satisfying and performed well. It contrasts on 5 different key features or characteristics of work:
Skill variety (SV): Jobs with more skill require a range of skills.
Task identity (TI): Jobs with task identity allow to produce or deliver an identifiable, complete
outcome.
Task significance (TS): More significant jobs have an impact on other people, both inside and
outside the organization.
Autonomy (AU): Jobs with more autonomy allow the worker to make decisions concerning
how to perform tasks, when and where to perform tasks and even how success in performing
tasks is evaluated.
Feedback from the job (FB): Jobs that provide feedback give an indication of how well the
worker is performing.
According to Hackman and Oldham, these 5 characteristics produce 3 psychological states:
Experienced meaningfulness of work
Experienced responsibility for the outcomes of work
Knowledge of the results of work activities
According to them, motivating potential of a job can be given by the following equation:
(𝑆𝑉 + 𝑇𝐼 + 𝑇𝑆)
𝑀𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙 = 𝑥 𝐴𝑈 𝑥 𝐹𝐵
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The individual difference for determining how each job characteristic will contribute to motivation,
satisfaction and work performance is called:
Growth need strength: The extent to which people have a need to develop and grow
psychologically.
o People with high growth need strength will benefit more from improvements in the 5
job characteristics of work.
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