Lecture 1 – Work & work behaviour
Why bother about work?
Work divided in 3 sectors
1. Agriculture – including forestry, hunting, and fishing
2. Industry – including manufacturing, mining, and construction
3. Services – including transportation, communication, public utilities, trade, finance, and public
administration
Work is an essential part of our lives
- Super prevalent: > 3.5 billion people are employed
- It’s super invasive
- Full-timers spend half of their time on work
- Private time is partly spent on work (overtime,
commuting, thinking about work)
- Impact on health, happiness, and personality
- It’s here to stay
- Working life will be prolonged
Benefits from work
- Income (independence, availability of new resources)
- Social benefits
- Time structure, regular activity
- Opportunities for social contact
- Social identity (source of status and self-esteem)
- Sharing a common purpose
- Opportunities for learning and development
Leading to higher levels of general health and life satisfaction
Drawbacks from work (2020 in the EU)
- Health problems
- Bone joint, muscle problems
- Risk factors for the mental well-being at work
The dynamic scope of W&O psychology
Definition work
A set of coordinated and goal-directed activities that are conducted in exchange to something else
The scope is dynamic
1
,Life expectancy is rising, but the healthy life expectancy isn’t rising to a similar extent
- Strongly related to educational level
- People with lower education are working
under poorer working conditions
- Physical more demanding,
pollution
- People with lower education are more
likely to have a less healthy lifestyle
Organizational change
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?
3 overlapping subdisciplines in work & organizational psychology
- Work (and health) psychology: how should work, work conditions
and work and resting times be structured to guarantee work quality
and good health, and to optimise performance?
- The fit between the job and the person
- Central topics: job design, fatigue, stress, motivation, and
sickness absence
- Organizational psychology: how should organisations and business processes be structured
to make people collaborate as efficiently and effectively as possible?
- Central topics: organisational structure & culture, leadership, organisational change,
dealing with resistance
- Personnel psychology / HRM: how can we ensure an optimal person-job fit and flow of
people through an organisation, in which individual capacities and desires (continue to)
match work demands and opportunities within the organization?
- Central topics: recruitment & selection, development of competences, performance
appraisal, (financial) reward systems
2
, History of W&O psychology
Industrial revolution: first scientific studies about people at work
Scientific management assumptions
- One best way to establish / conduct a task
- Workers are stupid and lazy by nature
- Money is the only motivator
- Managerial control is necessary to gain more profit
Principles of F.W. Taylor
1. Scientific approach: time & motion studies
2. Selection of right worker for the job
3. Training and development of worker
4. Separation of head and handwork: managers think, workers do
Thanks / due to scientific management
- Rise of productivity and profit
- Workers felt exploited
- Protests form labour unions
- US Congress investigations lead to a ban on stopwatch in the work environment
Taylorism is still alive and successful
Ford Motor company
- First assembly line
- Man is extension of machine
- Standards products
- No right to labour unions
- Ford ‘gestapo’ and culture of fear
Between the World Wars After World War II
Current challenges for W&O Psychology
3
Why bother about work?
Work divided in 3 sectors
1. Agriculture – including forestry, hunting, and fishing
2. Industry – including manufacturing, mining, and construction
3. Services – including transportation, communication, public utilities, trade, finance, and public
administration
Work is an essential part of our lives
- Super prevalent: > 3.5 billion people are employed
- It’s super invasive
- Full-timers spend half of their time on work
- Private time is partly spent on work (overtime,
commuting, thinking about work)
- Impact on health, happiness, and personality
- It’s here to stay
- Working life will be prolonged
Benefits from work
- Income (independence, availability of new resources)
- Social benefits
- Time structure, regular activity
- Opportunities for social contact
- Social identity (source of status and self-esteem)
- Sharing a common purpose
- Opportunities for learning and development
Leading to higher levels of general health and life satisfaction
Drawbacks from work (2020 in the EU)
- Health problems
- Bone joint, muscle problems
- Risk factors for the mental well-being at work
The dynamic scope of W&O psychology
Definition work
A set of coordinated and goal-directed activities that are conducted in exchange to something else
The scope is dynamic
1
,Life expectancy is rising, but the healthy life expectancy isn’t rising to a similar extent
- Strongly related to educational level
- People with lower education are working
under poorer working conditions
- Physical more demanding,
pollution
- People with lower education are more
likely to have a less healthy lifestyle
Organizational change
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?
3 overlapping subdisciplines in work & organizational psychology
- Work (and health) psychology: how should work, work conditions
and work and resting times be structured to guarantee work quality
and good health, and to optimise performance?
- The fit between the job and the person
- Central topics: job design, fatigue, stress, motivation, and
sickness absence
- Organizational psychology: how should organisations and business processes be structured
to make people collaborate as efficiently and effectively as possible?
- Central topics: organisational structure & culture, leadership, organisational change,
dealing with resistance
- Personnel psychology / HRM: how can we ensure an optimal person-job fit and flow of
people through an organisation, in which individual capacities and desires (continue to)
match work demands and opportunities within the organization?
- Central topics: recruitment & selection, development of competences, performance
appraisal, (financial) reward systems
2
, History of W&O psychology
Industrial revolution: first scientific studies about people at work
Scientific management assumptions
- One best way to establish / conduct a task
- Workers are stupid and lazy by nature
- Money is the only motivator
- Managerial control is necessary to gain more profit
Principles of F.W. Taylor
1. Scientific approach: time & motion studies
2. Selection of right worker for the job
3. Training and development of worker
4. Separation of head and handwork: managers think, workers do
Thanks / due to scientific management
- Rise of productivity and profit
- Workers felt exploited
- Protests form labour unions
- US Congress investigations lead to a ban on stopwatch in the work environment
Taylorism is still alive and successful
Ford Motor company
- First assembly line
- Man is extension of machine
- Standards products
- No right to labour unions
- Ford ‘gestapo’ and culture of fear
Between the World Wars After World War II
Current challenges for W&O Psychology
3
