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Occupational psychologist: Job description and activities

Job description

Occupational psychologists apply psychological knowledge, theory and practice to the world of work. They focus on how work conditions and tasks can affect people by developing or constraining them and influencing their well-being, and on how individuals and their characteristics determine what work is done, and how. Occupational psychologists also identify and resolve organisational issues with, for example, team culture, training, and health and safety, applying expert knowledge to all levels of working (individual, team, organisational and global). They may work in a consultancy role, or in-house, with management, training officers, trade union representatives, teams and individual staff.

Typical work activities

Both individual and consultancy-based occupational psychologists carry out a range of work according to the needs of their clients or employing organisation. The British Psychological Society (BPS) divides this work into eight key knowledge areas:

• human-machine interaction;
• design of environments and work - ergonomics and health and safety;
• personnel selection and assessment, including test and exercise design;
• performance appraisal and career development;
• personal development and counselling;
• training (identification of needs, training design and evaluation);
• employee relations and motivation;
• organisational development and change.

Typical activities for occupational psychologists working in the area of organisational development include:

• designing/applying methods to understand an organisation's or team's current culture and helping them develop a new culture or achieve specific performance objectives;
• advising on new technologies, such as e-learning, portfolio working and virtual team working;
• helping people to develop leadership, teamwork and communication skills, working with groups or individuals;
• advising on employee relations and schemes to motivate staff.

Activities for those working in the areas of assessment and training include:

• developing, implementing or evaluating selection procedures, including psychometric tests, assessment centre exercises and structured interviews;
• developing and evaluating a training and appraisal programme;
• giving guidance and counselling to help staff plan their career or cope with redundancy.

Activities for those working in the area of ergonomics and health and safety include:

• working with engineers, physiologists and ergonomists to improve the design of the working environment and equipment;
• improving companies' health and safety performance by studying the causes of accidents and their prevention, designing and applying behavioural change interventions and assessing safety culture;
• advising companies of stress prevention and stress management initiatives, and training staff in techniques.

AGCAS

Written by Beverley Spilman, AGCAS

Last updated:

November 2007

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