«Workplace psychologists help firms develop ways to improve behavior»
The article chosen for summarizing is titled ‘Workplace psychologists help firms develop ways to improve behavior’, and is authored by Susan Kreimer. It focuses on the activities of a workplace psychologist named Joel Philo, who is balancing between his career in academics and business. He is an employee of Frito-Lay North America in Texas, as well as a member of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
Susan begins the write-up by a brief introduction of the psychologist Philo, and then moves on to the growth of the field of industrial and organizational psychology since the last few years. She explains that this field is a relatively small one, but has been facing a steady growth with time, and now almost every enterprise is incorporating practices that may help improve employee behavior and attitudes. This includes training programs and feedback systems, which enable employees to advance in a positive manner, with provision of better services to the company, leading to overall enhancement of the organization. To achieve this goal, companies are hiring workplace psychologists, who design programs that would lead to perking up of employee behavior.
Susan quotes Philo while signifying the importance of the recognition of individual talent at workplaces; Philo has stated the essentiality of the identification, boosting, and retaining of employee talent, because talent is becoming scarce these days. It is of topmost priority to bring out the abilities of the employees in order to gain maximum benefits from them, in running the organization.
Philo has been further quoted to have said that workplace psychologists like him are hired in order to design programs by their understanding of psychology and statistics, which would make them perceive the individual differences and provide motivation for better performance at work. Susan praises the works of these psychologists, by mentioning their positive aspects of being able to carry out good human resource management, statistical analyses, and computer based learning and training programs. Another industrial psychologist has been quoted in the article, who states that all the training that is implemented in organizations is based on scientific principles, and not on speculations.
The article describes the work of the industrial psychologist as being a problem solver in most cases, after helping to identify problems. The workplace psychologist goes to an organization and studies the previous data, according to which new plans and programs are devised, leading to scientific solutions of the problems diagnosed. Another member of the society of industrial and organizational psychology has declared the shortage of trained employees in the crime labs sector, which hampers case solving. If workplace psychologists are hired, they could improve the performance of employees and lessen such inefficiencies which tend to hinder work. Susan states that the field of industrial and organizational psychology is slowly growing as people are recognizing its importance and need, for the betterment of their enterprises. The article concludes with a statement which announces the significance of workplace psychologists once again, who optimize performance of individuals, further leading to improved running of businesses.
Two Journal Articles: Article No. 1
The article that has been chosen is a study conducted by Leonard and Harvey. The authors have explored the effects of negative perfectionism in the workplace. They have described the emergence of negative perfectionism as being a continuous and compulsive behavior, when individuals are trying to achieve their goals at the workplace.
Many psychologists regard personality traits as psychological disorders. This is why the concept of negative perfectionism and types of negative behavior resulting from it are probed into.
A proposal that four types of negative or excessive behavior result from negative perfectionism in organizational settings was put forth by the two authors. These include compulsive behavior, neurotic behavior, imposter behavior, and narcissistic behavior.
The self-concept-based motivation theory was used to understand how inaccuracies or inconsistencies between the behavior of the individual at the workplace and the feedbacks they wish to attain lead to negative behaviors in the work settings.
The authors have discussed personal and managerial aspects of negative perfectionism in the workplace have been discussed by the authors.
Article No. 2
This article is an effort by Youssef and Luthans, and focuses on the positive organizational behavior in the workplace. The researchers may have been led to this study due to the emergence of positive psychology these days, and also because of the emergence of positive organizational psychology at the workplace.
Three selected aspects of employee attitudes, namely, hope, optimism, and resilience, were seen on the outcomes of organizational behavior of the employees. The outcomes include happiness at work, job satisfaction, performance and organizational commitment. The findings of the study showed that positive psychological resource capabilities are directly linked to the outcomes achieved. Hope contributes greatly to the outcomes attained, and optimism and resilience have different effects on the outcomes. Utility analysis was shown to support the realistic implications of this study.
The article addressed in the beginning states the importance of having workplace psychologists mould employees in a way so that they can give optimal performance in their work, and produce effective results for the business or the organization as a whole. This proposal is strongly agreed with, because the following two studies also mention the importance of positive attitudes towards work, for achievement of better results. Because positive organizational behavior is stressed immensely in today’s business world, there needs to be some sort of proper and good quality guidance for attaining such behavior at workplaces. The employment of these psychologists may enhance the work effectiveness of the existing employees, after devising plans for them according to previous statistics and records of the company status.
This idea may be improved by setting up departments in enterprises, in which not only the psychologists work, but they could be accompanied by more personnel, in helping them out, so that they are not stressed to look at previous records and devise new plans simultaneously. Just like every good company has a human resources department, a separate department for record keeping of previous performances and future plan making could be beneficial.
Conclusion
The way companies may employ psychologists for their benefits, similarly, medical institutions may also consider keeping such employees, in which they can enable others to give their best services, and bring a good name to the institute by their optimal performance. In this way, any shortcomings may also be identified along the way, and room for improvement may be filled positively. This is the best way such ideas can be put into practice, and bring greater advantage to the corporate world, and to institutions of all types. Therefore, it is advisable for all companies to begin considering the employment of workplace psychologists specifically, to attain maximum effectiveness.
References
Kreimer, S. Workplace Psychologists Help Firms Develop Ways to Improve Behavior. Web.
Leonard, N. & Harvey, M. Negative Perfectionism: Examining Negative Excessive Behavior in the Workplace. Journal of Applied Social Psychology Vol 38:3 (2008). Web.
Youssef, C. & Luthans, F. Positive Organizational Behavior in the Workplace. Journal of Management, Vol. 33, No. 5, 774-800 (2007). Web.