B&E 2: Behaviour in organisations notes
Work and work behaviour
Overview
- Why bother about work?
- The dynamic scope of W&O psychology
- What does W&O psychology involve?
- History of W&O psychology
Why bother about work
work makes the world go round, everything you see is the result of hard work, think about
your laptop, food etc.
sectors
- Sector 1: Agriculture – including forestry, hunting, and fishing
o Still about 1/3 of the world works in this sector
o Varies immensely around the world, most of the agriculture takes places in
the less economical developed regions
- Sector 2: industry – including manufacturing, mining, and construction
o Since the industrial revolution, this type of work has been more about
operating machines
- Sector 3: services – including, transportation, communication, public utilities, trade,
finance, public administration
o You can think about finances, but included in services are also health care,
education, and therapy
work is an essential part of our lives
- Work is super prevalent: > 3.5 billion people are employed
- Work is super invasive:
o Full-timers spend half of their time on work
o Private time is partly spent on work (overtime, commuting, thinking about
work)
- Impact on health, happiness, and personality
- Work is here to stay, instead of working become less because of new technology,
work keeps getting more and more
o Working life will be prolonged (67+)
Benefits from work…
- Income (independence, availability of new resources)
- But also, social benefits:
o Time structure, regular activity
o Opportunities for social contact
o Social identity (source of status and self-esteem)
o Sharing of a common purpose
o Opportunities for learning and development
Leading to higher levels of general health and life satisfaction
… but also, drawbacks
, - In 2020 in the EU:
o 10% of workers reported work-related health problems during the previous
year
o 6% of workers suffered from bone, joint or muscle problems, caused or made
worse by their job
o 45% reported facing risk factors for their mental well-being at work
So… why bother about work?
- Work is an omnipresent context for studying behaviour
- Work has great meaning for health, family life, and happiness in life
- To understand human behaviour, we need to understand the interaction between
the work environment and psychological outcomes
- That knowledge is essential for all psychologists
The dynamic scope of W&O psychology
Work…
… can be defined as a set of coordinated and goal-directed activities that are conducted in
exchange to something else
The scope is dynamic
Meaning there are many changes in society that have an impact on organisations. These
organizational changes have an impact on work. For instance, intensification (e.g., workload
and pressure) is rising, flexibilization (e.g., time) has an impact on work-life balance and work
security, mentalization (service work and social work has become more demanding than the
physical related work, mental load of work is increasing), digitalization (work is requiring
more and more technical digital skills, but there are also new jobs appearing and
disappearing, and new job organization), prolonged working life (we all live longer and we
also work longer)
Life expectancy is rising
As you can see the life expectancy is rising worldwide,
but due to this fact we also have to work longer (now
till age 67 but expected to rise to 70). But this fact
doesn’t mean we life a longer healthy life:
- Not rising to a similar extent, if at all
- Strongly related to educational level (no
gender differences)
o People with lower
education seem to
have worse working
environments (e.g.,
pollution) or more
physically demanding
jobs
o Are also more likely to
have a less healthy
, lifestyle. Think about habits such as smoking, unhealthy diets, inactivity and
alcohol abuse.
Organizational change
- Is the organization more
focused on flexibility or control
(vertical dimension)
- Is the orientation more internal
or external (horizontal
dimension)?
- Bottom right rational goal, focus
on results, productivity,
competition, and profit
- Bottom left internal process:
focus on order, procedures,
structures, and quality
- Upper left human relations: focus on people, teamwork, and cooperation
- Upper right open system: focus on innovation, change, growth, and entrepreneurship
- Today? None of the four models are ideal, each of them can have its value,
depending on the challenges the organization is facing
- What is for sure though: organizations that do not change, will not survive
VUCA
- V: volatile, with unstable challenges
- U: uncertain, with unknown outcomes
- C: complex, with many interconnected parts
- A: ambiguous, with lack of clarity
- Famous companies get bankrupt or taken over, only 11% of the fortune 500
companies from 1955 are still on the list today, the average life span of an S&P 500
company has decreased from 67 years (1920s) to 15 years (today), 14 of the 30 top
brands are already platform-based companies where buyers, sellers, and third parties
are connected, the world is changing faster and faster
- ‘If the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight…’
What does W&O psychology involve?
Core question
How can W&O psychology help people to work in a motivated, productive, and healthy way
during their entire working life?
Sustainable performance
Three overlapping subdisciplines
- Work (and health) psychology
o How should work, work conditions, and work and resting times be structured
in order to guarantee work quality and good health, and to optimize
performance?
o Job design, fatigue, stress, motivation, sickness absence
, o For example, think about a job design for an ageing workforce, they might
have difficulty with the night shifts
- Personnel psychology/HRM
o How can we ensure an optimal person-job fit and flow of people through an
organization, in which individual capacities and desires (continue to) match
work demands and opportunities within the organization?
o Recruitment & selection, development of competences, performance
appraisal, (financial) reward systems
o Talent recruitment and development in for example a call center, how to
make sure it stays interesting and that you are able to recruit enough people
- Organizational psychology
o How should organisations and business processes be structured to make
people collaborate as efficiently and effectively as possible?
o Organizational structure & culture, leadership, organizational change, dealing
with resistance
o Working efficient and effective as a team for example in healthcare, think
about diminishing administrative work
History of W&O psychology
In the beginning…
- 5th century BC; the art of war, by Sun Tzu
o How to use creativity and intelligence
o How to engage and mobilize the army
o How to be flexible etc.
- 5 – 3rd century BC; Hippocratic collection, with detailed routines and guidelines for
th
doctors
- 390 AD; De Re Militari, by Vergetius
o Organization and drill of the
army
o Strategy and leadership
Scientific management (Taylor’s)
- assumptions
o ‘One best way’
o Workers are stupid and lazy by nature
o Money is the only motivator
o Managerial control is necessary to gain more profit
- Taylor elaborated on this with his book, there were 4 principles:
o Scientific approach: time & motion studies
o Selection of right worker for the job
o Training and development of worker (for the best productivity)
o Separation of head and handwork: managers think, workers do!
- Thanks/due to scientific management
o Rise of productivity and profit
o Workers felt exploited
o Protests from labour unions
