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What all are the uses of Industrial Psychology?
Posts: 615
Threads: 461
Joined: Oct 2010
Since Industrial Psychology is the study of people at work and is concerned with the entire spectrum of human. Its scope is the entire process of management dealing with people at work. There is hardly a field in industry where human understanding is not required; there is hardly a problem in industry and business where human aspect is not involved and hence there is hardly an area in which industrial psychology cannot play its role. Industrial psychology is a useful aid to the efficient management of people at work. The principles and techniques of industrial psychology may be applied to the following areas of management:
(1) Recruitment—Appropriate matching of job requirement with the employee's abilities lead to reduction in the cost of hiring, supervision and production. Accurate job analysis, standardised application forms, scientific screening of applications, use of psychological tests for vocational fitness, final overall rating and continuous review and check-up of the entire programme are some of the spheres where the psychologist can make an important contribution several psychological tests may be developed for the proper screening of the people. In this way, psychology may help in recruiting the right man to the right job.
(2) Selection and Placement-Right man should be selected for the right job and industrial psychology helps in this effort also. It develops various devices such as interviews and psychological tests in order to achieve the objective of the selection. It also helps the placement of workers at different jobs scientific assignment of job is possible only with the help of industrial psychology.
(3) Executive Development and Training—A psychologist by studying and investigating managerial problems like delegation, communication and supervision vitalises the already practiced managerial psychology. Individual differences can well be measured by psychological study of the people for training purposes. Continuous and effective use of the capabilities of workers necessitates training of the workers and supervisors. Psychology determines what type of training should be given to the workers.
(4) Promotional Schemes—Why should a man be promoted or transferred or demoted or discharged. These employment situations should be based on abilities, usefulness and seniority. Performance appraisal is one of the psychological techniques to recognise the peoples' ability mere seniority should not be the guiding principle for promotions.
(5) Motivation—The psychologists assume that the causes of different types of human behaviour in industry and business are the needs or the motives that drive an individual to behave in a particular way. Industrial psychology problems into behaviour of people at work to determine the conditions in which an individual or people at work to determine the conditions in which an individual feels motivated and is willing to work whole-heartedly to maximise the productivity. Industrial psychology has identified the financial and non-financial incentives which are used by the management to motivate the personnel.
(6) Attitude and morale—The psychologists have established the relationship between the attitudes of the employees and their performance. Psychological studies outline the major factors favourable or detrimental to good morale and give some class as to the steps which can be taken to give further understanding of needs, perceptions, satisfaction and motivation of people in relation to their working situations.
(7) Wages and salary administration-The wage rates in the industry should be fixed on some suitable and scientific formula. The psychologists have developed the techniques of job evaluation, merit-rating and job analysis as basis for rational wage and salary structure. Job evaluation and merit-rating are the techniques which evaluate the worth of the job and of the man respectively. Merit-ratings technique evaluates the men while the job analysis determines the job description and worth of the job.
(8) Human relations—Human relations may briefly be described as the relations or contacts among individuals in an organisation and the group behaviour that emerges from these relations. The modern industrial psychologists treated people in industry as human being and have made significant contribution to industrial management by developing concepts and techniques of effective leadership. They suggest the possible ways and means to solve the industrial strife.
(9) Human engineering-It is designing and laying out equipment in order to get the greatest efficiency of man-machine system. The industrial psychologists working in human engineering provides data on which management can decide to improve the design and the product for the comfort and to increase the sale to the satisfaction of customers. It also helps in reducing machine breakdowns, wastage of raw materials and training time to workers, to minimise accidents and introduce better performance and job satisfaction. Industrial psychology has humanised the management and opened the way to a much fuller utilisation of the human factor in industry.
(10) Accident prevention—The psychological studies show that 98% of the accidents in industry are preventable. It means personal or psychological factors play an important role in any programme of accident prevention. Monotony and fatigue studies help in minimising the accidents. Psychologists have made the contribution of signals to the development of safety programme and the preservation of human factor in industry.
