Psychology and Work: Examining the Issues of Individual Difference at a Workplace (Coursework Sample)
Word count: 3000 words (plus or minus 10%)
Title: With reference to theories and models from the Psychology and Work module, to your experiences of work, critically examine the importance of individual differences in understanding behaviour at work.
Theories of individual differences are relevant for exploring a variety of experiences at work, including interpersonal interactions, performance, work attitudes, motivation, well-being and stress, and wider organisational processes.
Factors such as personality, emotion, and ability influence all of these kinds of work experiences and outcomes.
This assignment asks you to consider these issues, and to reflect on your own personality traits, and your experiences at work*.
Your essay should review and discuss relevant research and theory, and then draw on your own experiences to illustrate your arguments and discussion.
The reflective part of the assignment should be no more than 1000 words.
A final requirement in the assignment is to consider ways of improving work processes. Based on your assignment, identify one area for improvement in the organisation you worked in, and develop a recommendation for addressing it.
*Note: If you have no experience of employment, then refer to your experiences of group working at University.
Essays will be assessed on the basis of the following:
-Introduction that describes the relevance your essay
-Identification of relevant theories / models / research
-Appropriate reflection and examples of experience from the workplace,
including reference to personality traits
-Critical analysis of the usefulness of theories and research to understand
work experiences
-Theory-based recommendation and critical discussion of its advantages and disadvantages
-clear and logical structure
Guidelines for essays
If you require guidance on this assignment, then please email me in the first instance. Most enquiries can be answered by email, although in some instances I’ll arrange an appointment to discuss your questions with you. Please note that although I will answer questions about the assignment, I cannot review individual essays or essay plans, as this is an assessed piece of work.
FAQs
What line spacing should I use?
Line spacing should be single; please use font size 12.
How do I reference?
Please use the referencing guidelines in your 2011/12 handbook; use the Harvard system; don’t use Footnotes or Endnotes to reference.
What if I refer to your lectures in my essay?
Information presented in the lecture is typically taken from published work, such as textbooks, edited work or journal articles. You should read this original work and reference the original source (i.e., check the Essential Reading or the reference on the slide). If no original source given, then quote Woods, S. (2010). Psychology and Work lecture, Aston Business School.
Is length critical?
The essay guidelines say plus or minus 10%. So stick to that.
Can I use bullet points?
Within reason, yes. But some students over-do it, such that their essay is not an essay but a shopping list of ideas. This does not go down well.
What about headings?
The guiding principle should be: how can I best communicate with the reader? If you find headings help you to convey your ideas better, then use them. It does help to break up the text. But don’t include too many or the essay becomes too disjointed.
PSYCHOLOGY AND WORK
Dasom Kim
Class
Institution
City and State
Date
Psychology and Work
Workplace psyche initiates productive or counter productive behavior. The psyche develops within the environment and humans are environment creators. Therefore, workers working at one place should have effective interpersonal working relationship to spread productive behavior. Lack of effective interpersonal working relationship means lack of productive behavior at a workplace and boosts the counter productive behavior.
So, there are two major factors that play a vital role in the psychology of workers. The first one is ethical business environment, and the second one is interpersonal working relationship between coworkers. Who is responsible? It is the responsibility of each participant who is working therein to maintain the productive environment, as well as interpersonal relationship between each other. But, the managers are responsible for managing these things.
Examining the issues of individual difference at a workplace
Sometimes a group of individuals who get together for forming a business concern for the monetary benefits of each other encounter differences. Each time these differences would not be similar. There are several issues of individual differences that have been briefly described further in the research:
Lack of interpersonal relationship
First and the most influential issue of individual differences at a workplace is a lack of interpersonal relationship. It is first and the utmost duty of an employer to provide good working environment to the employees to get the work force in one unit. Moreover, lack of interpersonal relationship deteriorates the progress and performance. Therefore, from the employer’s point of view it is mandatory to provide environment to its employees for building interpersonal relationship between them.
Bias performance evaluation
Employee’s bias performance evaluation can be a start of ruination of the organization. The studies tell that organizations who apply the system of favoritism and bias performance evaluation are likely to witness a downfall of their businesses. This is because the bias performance evaluation will never scrutinize the best among the betters. So, the system of performance evaluation must be crystal clear to find crystal workers.
Attitudes at a workplace
The attitudes at a workplace by the workers restrain effective working. It is an employer’s responsibility to look into the attitudes of their workers as well as managers who are involved in the work progress. Otherwise, the organization will eventually involve itself into rash outcomes.
Lack of motivation
Motivation is one aspect that encourages workers to do their best for mutual benefit. It is a matter of fact that nothing is done without motivation. Hence, elements of motivation should be promoted by both business participants i.e. an employer and employee to have healthy work environment. Without motivation, it looks like a non-effective effort that will eventually have no results.
Lack of organizational processes
An organization that keeps strong concerns about their workers must develop efficient organizational processes to reach directly to the problems of their workers. The studies proved that the organizations that are committed to providing better working environments to the workforce get better business progress.
My outcomes on the issues of individual difference at a workplace
Finally, a few conclusions have been made after examining the issues of individual differences at a workplace. I have found out that those organizations that possess issues with interpersonal relationship, performance evaluation, attitudes to a workplace, motivational encouragement, and have problems with organizational processes as briefed above will influence negatively the overall environment of the organization.
Therefore, it is better to promote better interpersonal relationship amongst the employees. At the same time, managers must apply ethical reforms to each of the business procedures to have a healthy environment for business prosperous progress.
Interpersonal relationship is important
Interpersonal relation demands cooperation, coordination, and consideration between two or more personalities working for the same target. The personality differences could evolve on the basis of psychology, culture, religion, demography, and gender. It is really difficult to develop and maintain interpersonal relationship between two individuals with different personalities, as well as different background.
However, in most cases individual personality, emotional quantum, and environment influence determine the quality of interpersonal relationship. It has been proved that building interpersonal relationship with dissimilar psychological differences is quite hard but not impossible. Therefore, it is possible to build interpersonal relationship between two since tendencies can be built and a relationship can prosper by showing affinity.
Business environment needs mutual ethics
Ethical relationship within organizations is a guarantee of the prosperous environment. Employee and employer relationship completely stand for the business relationship. On the one hand, it is an employer that needs services of employees to run his/her business. On the other hand, it is an employee that renders his/her services to get financial rewards for coping with the financial needs. Therefore, both sides are considered to be initiators of the business environment and are actually working for their financial gains. Thus, both sides must follow business ethics regarding each other to create a healthy business environment.
Business ethics on the side of employer
From an employer’s point of view, ethics is the most essential component to maintain a healthy business environment. Indeed, managing business activities within set forth budgets is essential. Still employees’ concerns should be addressed and should be considered.
It’s an employer’s duty to provide reasonable environment and controllable tasks to the employees. In other words, an employer should place a mechanism of decentralizing responsibilities to manager them properly. Hereinafter, the matter of multitasking should also be addressed and controlled in all its aspects.
Business ethics on the side of employee
From the worker’s perspective, ethical working activities are a mandatory part of their job. Sometimes, employees break the rules and code of conduct and take a decision on their own end. Moreover, sometimes for purely economical reasons, multiple working does not allow employees to concentrate on their first job or any of them.
Therefore, multiple working should be discussed. and the prior aspects of workers’ activity need to be determined. This should not be discouraging. Instead, it should consider all constituents and reasons which are insisted upon by the worker who wishes to engage in multitasking. It is worker’s responsibility to discuss its financial constraints with his/her employer and concentrate on one task in order to do it properly and enhance skills and wage rate.
Manager’s responsibilities
A manager is supposed to be equipped with the basic organizational skills so that his/her work force contributes its share towards the growth a...
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