Chapter 1: Introduction: People at work Flashcards
work
a set of coordinated and goal-directed activities that are conducted in exchange for something else.
sustainable performance
maximizing work performance as well as worker health and well-being
work psychology
the way workers’ behaviours, motiviations, thoughts, emotions, health and well-being relate to each other, and about ways to influence these concepts
the world’s workforce
all people who supply labour for the production of goods and services during specified period. It’s the economically active population aged 15 and older, employed and unemployed.
selection bias in contemporary work psychology
an inclination to focus on white-collar, professional and middle to highly educated employees working in large organizations
the reason why being unemployed yields negative consequences is explained by Marie Jahod’s (1982) Relative Deprivation Model.
she concluded that apart from providing an income, having employment also provides five calsses of social benefits: time structure, opportunities for social contact, sharing of a common purpose, social identity or status, and regular activity.
psychotechnics, applied psychology - founders Münsterberg and Stern are founders of vocational psychology, the branch of personnel psychology
focuses on the link between workers’ characteristics and job requierments, assuming that worker well-being and productivity are optimal when there is a good match between the job and the worker
Scientific management approach / Taylorism by Frederick Taylor 1850-1930
Concentrating on the task itself, especially by simplifying it such a degree that any worker would be able to do it. Fitting the worker to the job. Two assumptions: workers are lazy and stupid. To counter the stupidity taylor suggested: simplifying tasks, examining the best way, training workers, separating the planning of tasks from their execution, selection workers.
Human relations movement (1930-present)
fit the job to the worker, paying special attention to the human side of working. In attempt to promote sustainable performance: hihgh productivity combined with much attention for worker health and well-being
Western Electric - Hawthorne studies (1930-present)
teamwork and cooperation: the fact that being a team is the main driver of increased productivity
increase in service sector jobs (1970) with emotion labour
in which employees have to adhere to rules regarding the expression of emotions
growing segment of workforce: knowledge work
characterized by a high degree of cognitive load (in load or effeort realted to the executive control of the working memory). In knowledge work the level of information processing is high in order to produce intellectual performances.
a new way of working (NWW) flexible work design, because of globalization and ICT
flexibility in the timing of work, flexibility in the place of work, the facilitation of new media technologies
psychological contract
what employees and employers want and expect from each other changed from stability and permant employment to flexibility and employability
intensification of work
referes to increasing work hours and work pressure, the need for lifelong learning and the ability and willingness to contiuously change the type of work one does
