Psychological Foundations

1. Psychological Foundations  Industrial-Organizational Psychology

2. What Does Industrial-Organizational Psychology Study? • Attributes of jobs, applicants of those jobs, and methods for assessing fit to a job • Orientation of new employees and ongoing training of employees • Process of hiring employees • Performance appraisal systems

3. Training New Employees Many organizations have orientation which includes information about: • Company history, policies, and rules • Organizational culture • How to use new tools • Job-specific training

4. Mentoring at Work Mentoring is a form of informal training in which an experienced employee guides the work of a new employee • Significant but small positive effects on performance, motivation and satisfaction, and actual career outcomes • May be especially important for women

5. Evaluating Employees Performance appraisals are a formal process with an annual face-to-face meeting between an employee and his or her supervisor at which they discuss: • progress on meeting goals • concerns about employee performance • positive aspects of performance • performance rewards or consequences of poor performance Part of the function of performance appraisals for the organization is to document poor performance to bolster decisions to terminate an employee

6. 360 Degree Performance Appraisal Supervisors, customers, direct reports, peers, and the employee rate the employee’s performance

7. Problems with Performance Evaluations • Many performance evaluations are disliked by organizations, employees, or both • Few of them have been tested to see if they improve performance or motivate employees

8. Federal Laws on Hiring

9. Bias and Protections in Hiring and Promotion • It is illegal for a potential employer to ask your age, whether you are married, a U.S. citizen, have disabilities, or your race or religion • Pay must be equal for men and women who perform equal work • Employers cannot discriminate against pregnant women or people with obesity, psychiatric disabilities, or a history of substance abuse • Retaliation for making a civil rights claim is illegal • Some states and cities protect LGBT people from discrimination

10. Exceptions to Federal Law Bona fide occupational qualifications (BFOQs) are requirements of certain occupations that would otherwise be discriminatory • Examples: gender might be a qualification to teach breastfeeding or religion is a qualification for a minister

11. Where to Report Discrimination When people feel they have been discriminated against at work, they can inform the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) • The EEOC received more than 94,000 charges of various kinds of employment discrimination in 2013 Harassment based on sex, race, disability, age, or religion is illegal • Many employers offer diversity training and sexual harassment prevention training

12. Management Styles

13. Leadership Styles Transactional Transformational Charismatic (role models) Inspirational (optimistic about goal attainment) Intellectually stimulating (encourage critical thinking and problem solving) Considerate • Focus is on supervision and organizational goals, which are achieved through a system of rewards and punishments (i.e., transactions) • Maintain the status quo • Are managers

14. Organizational Culture • Values • Visions • Hierarchies • Norms • Interactions between its employees • How an organization is run • How it operates • How it makes decisions

15. Practice Question Why is organizational culture important?

16. Quick Review • What is industrial and organizational psychology? • What are types of job training? • What are some approaches to and issues surrounding performance assessment? • What are the laws designed to prevent bias and discrimination in hiring and promotion? • What are some management styles including Theory X and Theory Y and transactional and transformational leadership? • What is organizational culture?