Organisational Psychology

What does a career in Organisational Psychology involve?

Organisational Psychology is the scientific study of the behaviour and attitudes of people at work.

Organisational psychologists work within companies in areas of; staff selection, performance evaluation, training, motivation, work attitudes, occupational stress and burnout, leadership, organisational culture, organisation development, and human factors.

The goal of an organisational psychologist within a company is to help make organisations more effective and to improve the well-being of their employees.

What skills are needed?

To work in organisational psychology you need to have sound listening and observation skills, and the ability to relate with those you are working with. You will need to have the skills to asses the attitudes and behaviour of employees, and to use these to motivate and train them.

Organisational psychologists need to be able to create and build organisational culture within a company, as well as collecting data on their work and analysing it.

What subjects or qualifications do I need?

It is recommended that to work as an organisational psychologist, you first complete a Masters degree. Once you have a Masters degree, you can obtain registration with the Psychologist Registration Board and become a registered psychologist.

At the University of Waikato, students can study a Bachelor of Social Sciences majoring in Psychology, from which they can move onto a Masters degree. A highly recommended Masters degree for organisational psychology is a Master of Applied Psychology (Organisational), which is available through the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

What career opportunities will I have?

Most organizational psychologists obtain employment in human resource management, organisation development, or training sections of private/public sector organisations, such as ANZ Bank, Farmers, Fonterra, The New Zealand Army and Royal New Zealand Navy, Sheraton Hotels, SmithKline Beecham (NZ) Ltd.). Employment opportunities are also available within consulting firms specialising in organizational psychology or human resource management services (e.g., Career Services, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, OPAL Consulting Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sheffield Consulting Group).

Entry-level positions for organisational psychologists are usually at the level of consultant/specialist. After a few years experience, a move to managerial roles is common.

See Also:

Graduate Profiles
Guidelines and Requirements for the BSocSc