Psychology Communication
Introduction
Organizational psychology is the scientific study of the relationship between the workforce and the production process whether services or goods with an aim of making a living out of it. Being a wide field a proper understanding of the diverse psychological needs of the workforce is crucial to managerial decisions. Psychologists who do the studies by use of psychological principles are known as industrial and organizational psychologists. The behavior of the workforce and the organizational culture are a significant factor that contributes to the success of an institution. The leadership style adopted by the management has a significant effect on the productivity and output of the human capital.
Relationship between Cognitive Psychology and Communication
Cognitive psychology deals with processes that involve the mind whereas organizational psychology is all about the workplace environment. The cognitive psychology of individuals on their perceptions, reasoning, feelings and solutions to problems contributes to the overall organizational psychology. Cognitive ability of key decision makers should be considered so that the implications of changes in an organization. More importantly, the problem solving capacity of management is crucial in minimizing conflicts (Sector, 2005). The pattern of behavior, which constitutes a person’s character or personalities, should be considered. It would be extremely detrimental to generalize the abilities and personalities of individuals, and as a result, the organizational psychology should have measures that provide interactive forums that build on knowledge through a two-way communication.
A study of cognitive ability being able to show the ability of someone to accomplish some specified domain of behaviors can also be considered at a group level. The average number of the individual team members constitutes the team’s cognitive ability. The variance among the team members should also not be exceedingly large and if ignored can result to a problematic decision making process. However, the best way to express a group’s cognitive ability will be to incorporate the goals of the team in the evaluation. Additionally, whether the team members will work autonomously then pool their work together later or whether consensus has to be reached on single member’s suggestion is also a factor. Cooperation in a team is also a vital construct and it may vary from high to low. Behaviors in the team may be observed, measured and analyzed in diver’s aspects and different levels. Group dynamics go ahead to portray a trend where a multiple level kind of evaluation is more effective in organizational psychology. A clear explanatory mechanism should be determined by the management or the consulting organization. The relevance of these systems and processes is seen in detailed analysis. The analysis can clearly show that the behavior of an organization is fundamentally the outcome of sets of individuals who are in charge of the processes (Anderson et al 2005).
Perceptions about Work
Everyone starts to learn about work when they are particularly young. Toddlers watch their parents go to work every day and even play games that involve adopting a certain profession such as a police officer, a fire fighter or a teacher. These build the perceptions that individuals have about the different professions that are there. As they grow up, they acquire more information from friends, relatives, teachers and the media. Work is a part of life for most people that are why people ask others about what they do ones they meet. Surveys done in the past indicate that money and recognition are the universal motivators for work (Clark, 2003). Work provides a large portion of humanity with a means of living and the standard of living varies based on the level of income. Most importantly work provides a platform for social interactions and building relationships, satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of identity, recognition and happiness all these are in the quest of human beings to meet their psychological satisfaction. Based on these aspects, it is necessary for employers to determine what employees want most and is their source of satisfaction apart from just the pay cheque. What employee’s value can be used as a motivational tool by the management?
Occupational Information Development
Industrial organizational psychology plays a significant role in determining taxonomies and structures in occupations. Over time, there has been shifts in the in the demands of the economy based on the expectations of output from the human capital. It is evident that new systems for classifying work and its demands from the organization. Jobs can be located in three-dimensional sake, which can be defined by the expectations to perform the specific job. The characteristics, which include people, data and things, are applied into a coding system that bases its outcomes on descriptive taxonomy (Mann, 1999). The system places thousands of jobs within the space and determines what is needed to perform a specific job, whether it is skills, educational requirements or abilities. Further to this, the system is to plan and develop comprehensive models of all the skills, abilities or educational requirements that are needed in each of the domains. The general idea is to build taxonomies of descriptors in each of the domains with the goal being to get content model that is useful to the organization.
Organizational Culture and Psychology
The culture of an organization includes what are the shared assumptions and expectations on the code of conduct. They constitute of the general beliefs and specific expectations. They together influence the climate and environment of the organization as well as the actions of a group of workers (Schein, 1985). They represent the norms of the organization. A culture in an organization is noteworthy because it clearly communicates to employees what is expected of them and their general behavior. The founding management determines the culture of the organization and modification of the culture happens with time and changes in expectations. Culture change is a challenging aspect to implement in an organization. Having working groups and teams with common goals and tasks that are fully interdependent influences the culture of an organization (Mann, 1999).
Communication in an Organization
Whenever employees communicate, many factors come into play for subsequent effectiveness. Having an effective directive communication system influences group dynamics in an organization by encouraging cooperative work cultures. By using a methodology of implementation that involves up-to-date motivational and personal psychology aspects, efficiency is achieved. A system that promotes motivation of enhanced personal behaviors result into developing of positive traits in employees. Multiple levels of management demands for free flow of information proper decision making. In order to exploit the full potential of the human capital an organization has to have an effective communication system. Good policies and streamlined procedures provide a solid base for teamwork. From a job satisfaction survey conducted by the society for human resource management back in 2007, it was concluded that "communication between employees and senior management ranks among the top five very important aspects of job satisfaction, as reported by both employees and human resource professionals.” Effective communication is an aspect that encourages collaborations by engaging employees in positive discussions (Anderson et al 2005).
The benefits of an effective communication process are many and they include but not limited to technological advancement has, ado it possible for sharing of information without being physically present or face to face with the recipient. Electronics mails have brought a wide range of possibilities. Moreover, the use of smart phones has made the accessibility of these mails remotely away from ones workstation. High frequency and transparency in communications enhances a company’s growth. During turbulent times, the management should engage employees through sharing of information to give them the feeling that they are connected and give them sense of togetherness. This averts the natural tendencies of employees to assume the worst by showing them that everything is under control.
Management of Human Capital
The models of any strategic human resource management should be able to add value to the workforce. The contributions of a model to empowerment efforts of an organization are the basis for recognition. The notion of utility in the selection process has been there over a long period of time, and it has been the basis of assessments for the value of any interventions affecting an organizations human capital. The unit of analysis is not just the training programs available but the culture of the entire organization. The policies developed in any human resources strategies should ensure that the entire organization is well staffed and with the right skills readily available to ensure competitiveness in the global market. The role of industrial and organizational psychologists can be well related to the objectives of the human recourse department.
Wright and McMahan (1992) further expound strategic human resource management as “the pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable the firm to achieve its goals”. Matching of employee skills to the organizational goals and strategies is an excellent way of aligning the human capital with them. Some activities done by the human resource management can significantly influence how the employees feel about the company they include: restructuring, mergers and downsizing implications from such actions can significantly change the organizational psychology (Wright & Mcmahan, 1992). Measurement systems that determine the contribution of the human resource management to the performance of the organization have been developed resulting to a rise in the use of multilevel and dynamic modeling approaches.
The field of industrial and organizational psychology is an applied science that constitute of cogent analysis of data, models and theories on human resources management. This calls for robust structures of theories to support realities of an organization for valid predictions to be made. To ensure commitment of employees organization are bound to evaluate their existing work environment and remuneration packages as well as benefits that they give their employees and strike a balance after a modification where necessary. It is crucial that employees seek satisfying occupations for career advancement. A combination of the right employee attitudes, organizational culture, and human resource management results to outstanding performance. Selection of employees is also another serious issue. During the selection process, effort should be made to realize a selection that matches with the organizational culture (Mann, 1999). Excellent job performance based on someone’s skills, personalities, abilities and decision-making ability can be evaluated using scientific methodologies during the selection process.
Behaviors in an Organization
Every employer demands his employees to engage in activities that will constructively build the organization. Meeting the organizational goals is what the management aims in order to meet profit targets and projections. However, time and effort put in a task is under the control of individual employees. Lateness and absenteeism have a significant impact on productivity of an organization while positive behaviors of employees are beneficial. Extra-role behaviors of employees are those that go beyond the expectations of the organization and are usually not part of an evaluation. Staying late to finish a project, mentoring a recruit or volunteering for work are some of the actions that wholly depend on someone’s job satisfaction, autonomy or an organizational culture. If their organizational culture supports such actions, then they can positively affect performance.
Counterproductive behaviors and withdrawal are a considerable challenge to the progress of any organization. Unhappiness due to lack psychological satisfaction can cause problems when employees engage in such activities. Behaviors that are adopted by the employee’s to avoid their roles and duties include lateness, missing meetings, leaving early and use of organizational resources for personal benefits (Anderson et al 2005). Other intentional tendencies, which are against the organizational code of conduct such as intentional violation of safety regulations, destruction of resources, poor attendance and drug use are costly to the organization in one way or another. The main reasons for such actions to happen are lack of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Researchers have in the past conducted researches on the relationship between moral attitudes, job satisfaction and counterproductive behaviors and it is evident that there is a link among the three (Wright & Mcmahan, 1992).
References
Anderson, N., Ones, D. Sinangil, H. & Viswesvaran, C. (2005). Handbook Of Industrial, Work
And Organizational Psychology. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Print
Mann, R. (1999). A Review of the Relationships between Personality and Performance in
Small
Groups. Psychological Bulletin, 56, 241-270. Print
Schein, E. (1985). Organizational Leadership and Culture: A Dynamic View. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass. Print
Spector, P. (2005). Industrial Psychology Research And Practice. John Wiley and Sons. Print
Wright, P. & Mcmahan, C. (1992). Theoretical Perspectives for Strategic Human Resource
Management. Journal of Management, 18, 295–320. Print
