Google as one of the tech giants in the world maintains increasingly huge efforts in boosting

their employee morale and work productivity all at once. They made this possible through
certain programs that will help their workforce feel pampered and valued.
According to Entrepreneur Asia Pacific, a company doesn’t need to be generating millions
in revenue to “hack” the fundamental principles that set the Google team apart.

Here is an example of their employee-centered programs based on the research conducted

by their People Analytics Department:

PROJECT ARISTOTLE
In 2012 Google launched an in-depth study to determine what set the teams that
struggled to work together and effectively meet their outcomes, apart from those that
excelled. Google put together a team of statisticians, organizational psychologists,
sociologists, and engineers to solve this dilemma. This project, known as Project
Aristotle, reviewed studies spanning over five decades, as well as every possible
characteristic of the teams within the organization.

They looked for patterns in how the teams socialized outside of work, the personality
traits (ie. Introverts or extroverts) of the team members, educational levels, hobbies and
so much more. It soon became clear that these traits, the ones that most would think
would logically impact a team’s ability to perform, were not key traits. As they dug
deeper into understanding group norms (the unwritten rules by which a team governs
itself) there was one characteristic that stood out – psychological safety. Psychological
safety is defined as “an individual’s perception of the consequences of taking an
interpersonal risk". In other words, it’s how any member of the team perceives their
ability to be innovative, admit to a mistake, or ask a question without the worry of being
judged or lowering their status within the group.

Through Project Aristotle, Googlers discovered that team effectiveness is less about who is
on team and more about how the team interacts with each other. They found that the teams
who excel are ones where the team members feel they are able to contribute equally to any
meeting or conversation with a trust that their teammates respect them enough to not reject,
embarrass or punish them for doing so.

The Field of I/O Psychology

Industrial and Organizational Psychology defined as:

a branch of psychology that applies the principles of psychology to the workplace.

characterized by the scientific study of human behavior in organizations and the workplace.
It focuses on increasing workplace productivity and related issues such as the physical and
mental well-being of employees.

perform a wide variety of tasks, including studying worker attitudes and behavior, evaluating
companies, and conducting leadership training.

Principles of I/O Psychology

1. Principles of learning are used to develop training programs and
incentive plans;

2.Principles of social psychology are used to form

 workgroups and understand employee conflict;

3. Principles of motivation and emotion are used to motivate and

satisfy employees

What Is Industrial-Organizational Psychology?

You can think of industrial-organizational psychology as having two major sides. First, there is
the industrial side, which involves looking at how to best match individuals to specific job roles.
This segment of I-O psychology is also sometimes referred to as personnel psychology.

People who work in this area might assess employee characteristics and then match these
individuals to jobs in which they are likely to perform well. Other functions that fall on the
industrial side of I-O psychology include training employees, developing job performance
standards, and measuring job performance.

The organizational side of psychology is more focused on understanding how organizations affect
individual behavior. Organizational structures, social norms, management styles, and role
expectations are all factors that can influence how people behave within an organization.

By understanding such factors, I-O psychologists hope to improve individual performance and
health while at the same time benefiting the organization as a whole.

While industrial-organizational psychology is an applied field, basic theoretical research is also

essential. With roots in experimental psychology, I-O psychology has a number of different sub-
areas such as human-computer interaction, personnel psychology, and human factors.

When it comes to developing the leadership potential of every employee in an organization there
is no doubt the Organization side of psychology plays vital role in providing leadership training
programs. Let's take a look at how Google determines the best qualities of the best managers in
their workplace.

Project Oxygen

The impact of having a strong manager wasn’t a new finding for Google. In 2008 Google
launched Project Oxygen – an undertaking to determine the best qualities of the best managers.
The Google team gathered over 10,000 observations on their managers to determine what traits
employees found to be helpful, and which traits were unattractive. Before Project Oxygen, the
working theory within Google was that good managers or leaders needed to have greater technical
knowledge than those they were leading. Project Oxygen found that this was not the case. Based
on the data, Google found that accessibility, strong communication, and empowering the
members of the team were among the most valuable traits of good managers.

They also created the “Eight Habits of Highly Effective Google Managers” which included:

1. Be a good coach
2. Empower your team and don’t micromanage
3. Express interest in the team members’ (individual) success and personal well-being
4. Don’t be a sissy, be productive and results oriented:
5. Be a communicator and listen to your team:

Six Major Subject Areas in I/O Psychology

According to Muchinsky's book, Psychology Applied to Work: An Introduction to Industrial and

Organizational Psychology, most industrial-organizational psychologists work in one of six major
subject areas:

Employee selection: This area involves developing employee selection assessments, such as
screening tests to determine if job applicants are qualified for a particular position.

Ergonomics: The field of ergonomics involves designing procedures and equipment designed to
maximize performance and minimize injury.

Organizational development: I-O psychologists who work in this area help improve
organizations, often through increasing profits, redesigning products, and improving the
organizational structure.

Performance management: I-O psychologists who work in this area develop assessments and
techniques to determine if employees are doing their jobs well.

Training and development: Professional in this area often determine what type of skills are
necessary to perform specific jobs as well as develop and evaluate employee training programs.

Work life: This area focuses on improving employee satisfaction and maximizing the productivity
of the workforce. I-O psychologists in this area might work to find ways to make jobs more
rewarding or design programs that improve the quality of life in the workplace.
I/O Psychologist
I/O psychologist relies extensively on research,
quantitative methods, and testing techniques

I/O psychologists are trained to use empirical data and

statistics rather than intuition to make decisions.

I/O psychologists are not clinical psychologists who

happen to be industry, and they do not conduct therapy for
workers.

A factor that helps differentiate I/O psychology from other branches of psychology is the
resilience on the scientist-practitioner model.
 Why study I/O Psychology?

CHED RECOMMENDATION

Education of I/O Psychologist Graduate Schools that offer MA I/O Psychology

Salary of I/O Psychologist

Personnel Psychology/HRM Professionals

They are responsible for assuming the role and task of the following:
Analyzing jobs
Recruiting applicants
 Selecting employees
Determining salary levels
Training employees
Evaluating performance
Choosing appropriate testing tools for the selection and promotion
process
Identify training needs
Design training programs for employees
Evaluate training success

Personnel Psychologist is involved in analyzing the jobs of every employee to get a clearer picture
of how these people can contribute to the organization well. each position has its assigned monetary
values. This professional is also involved in constructing performance-appraisal instruments to
evaluate employee performance it is often referred to as PMS Performance Management System. If
there is a performance gap detected among workforce units psychologists in this field are also
skillful in identifying training needs, designing training programs, evaluating training success.

Organizational Psychologist/Consultant

They are responsible for assuming the role and task of the following:

Leadership
Job satisfaction
Employee motivation
Organizational Communication
Conflict Management
Organizational Change
Group Process
Conducting Surveys of Employee Attitude
Management Style

An Organizational Psychologist is involved in honing the leadership potentials of rank&file level,

measure employee satisfaction. Identify how current job and organization changes affect the
motivation of employees. improve organizational communication. They are also involved in
resolving organization conflicts and grievance handling. They made sure when organizational
change happens, people can and will adapt well.

Human Factors/Ergonomics
Human Factors and Ergonomics are all around us! Any time you’ve
engineered a product, process or system to work more efficiently with
humans, you’ve practiced human factors. The goal of human factors is to
reduce human error, increase productivity, and enhance safety and
comfort with a specific focus on the interaction between a human and the
thing of interest.

Brief History of I/O Psychology

What is the psychology behind advertising?

 THEORY OF ADVERTISING

Scott was one of the first psychologists to apply psychology to

advertising, management, and personnel selection. In 1903, Scott
published two books: The Theory of Advertising and Psychology of
Advertising. They are the first books to describe the use of psychology in
the business world.

PSYCHOLOGY AND INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY

The term “founding father” of I/O psychology is usually

associated with Hugo Munsterberg of Harvard University. His
1913 book on Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, is
considered to be the first textbook in I/O psychology.

Munsterberg was an applied psychologist who wrote an early

text on how psychology could be used for industrial,
occupational, and organizational purposes. His work had an
important impact on the early development of the field.

In Increasing Human Efficiency in Business, Scott explores how

to create motivation for success. He looks at factors such as
imitation, competition, loyalty, concentration, wages, pleasure,
"the love of the game," relaxation, and habit formation.

TERM INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY

"Economic Psychology, Business Psychology, and Employment

Psychology"

ARMY ALPHA ARMY BETA

I/O psychology made its first big impact during World War I. Because of the large number of
soldiers who had to be assigned to various units within the armed forces, I/O psychologists
were employed to test recruits and then place them in appropriate positions.

WORLD WAR I

BEHAVIORISM

He developed tests for recruitment and selection of military

during war efforts.

OTHER PIONEERS INCLUDES...

James McKeen Cattell: Cattell was an early proponent of looking at how individual differences
influence human behavior.

Kurt Lewin: Lewin was an influential applied psychologist who described a number of
leadership styles that people may exhibit. His work also focused on looking at all of the forces
that influence a situation rather than just taking individual behavior into account.

Robert Yerkes: Yerkes was a psychologist known for his work in the field of intelligence
testing. He developed the Alpha and Beta Intelligence Tests for the U.S. Army, which were used
to evaluate military recruits during WWI. Scores on the tests were used to determine respondent's
capabilities, including the ability to serve and leadership potential.

Henry Grantt an engineer known for increasing the efficiency of logistics such as cargo ships,
repair, and load.

Thomas Edison: developed a 163-item knowledge test design for selecting the right employees.

Frank Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbert: They are the first scientist to improve productivity
and reduce fatigue by studying the motions used by workers.

HAWTHORNE STUDIES

Examine how different aspects of the work environment, such as lighting, the timing of breaks, and
the length of the workday, had on worker productivity.

RESEARCH IN I/O PSYCHOLOGY

Why conduct Research?

Answering Questions and Making Decisions

- It saves the organization from economic turmoil.

These monetary savings can result from many factors, including increased
employee satisfaction, increased productivity, and fewer accidents. Perhaps an excellent example of how
research can save organizations money involves the employment
interview
 Research and Everyday Life
- Understanding research helps you to critically listen and analyze the results of these studies to make
more intelligent decisions. After all, you would hate to buy a fitness product based on the results of
poorly conducted
research!

Common Sense Is Often Wrong

- Often, there is a temptation not to conduct research because the answer to a question is
“common sense.” Unfortunately, common sense is not so common and is often
wrong.

Another best example from Google's People Analytics Department and how they use
their data in making critical decisions in the workplace.

DATA IS EMPOWERING

It should come as no surprise that a tech company, that creates complicated algorithms, makes
their decisions based on data. Google takes this to a new level. In fact, Google’s human resources
department is called the People Analytics Department because of their commitment to making
decisions that follows the data.

In Project Oxygen, Google collected over 10,000 observations over 100 data points from
performance reviews and employee surveys. With Project Aristotle, the Google team analyzed
over fifty year’s worth of data on effective teams. They also compared their teams looking for
patterns in those that were effective compared to those that weren’t. They looked at every aspect
of their teams – from gender balance to the length of time the team had been together to how the
teams were motivated and rewarded.

Google’s attention to detail and willingness to look at the data from all angles to fully understand it has allowed them to
create an environment that is highly sought after to work in. While Google has spent millions of dollars in analyzing every
aspect of their employees' lives (inside and outside of the workplace), the lesson smaller companies can take from this is
the importance of regular performance r