It is recommended that companies and associations have psychological counseling to be able to cope with the work life of employees. Although many companies are beginning to opt for more automated processes, it is important for the well-being of society that people continue to be an active part of the world’s development. There is a strong link between professional and personal success and, therefore, companies have to be aware of this and take maximum care of employees. In this Online Psychology article we are going to talk to you about psychology applied to organizations and companies so that you understand the relationship that exists between work and the human being.
Love and work, the two fundamental principles of mental health
A journalist conducted an interview with S.Freud in his London exile a few months before his death. In the course of the talk he asked him what we could understand today as the million-dollar question or the question that he thought would serve as a synthesis of his thinking: what variables would be essential to become a mature person with good mental health? ?
The interviewer himself, perhaps influenced by stereotypes and prejudices regarding the audience, acknowledged that he expected a dense and long speech from the father of psychoanalysis in which he would lecture on the structure of the psyche and the fundamental principles of mental health. Freud simply responded with two terms: Love and work.
Although brief, the answer took into account two fundamental dimensions of human existence. On the one hand, affectivity, with everything it encompasses regarding emotions, human relationships, feelings, or sexuality, and on the other, personal fulfillment, which includes creativity, carrying out tasks or projects, productivity. , satisfaction or feeling useful.
Although almost seventy years have passed since the death of S. Freud, his response has not remained outdated.
The relationship between work and our personal life
Both the human being himself and its relationship with the work environment have gained great importance. A greater sensitivity is being developed towards the recognition of the person as something essential and basic in any business project. For example, with this perspective in mind, it is not unusual that today terms such as motivation, teamwork, leadership, communication are familiar to us, or that some organizations strive to offer alternatives that would have been unimaginable before. Thus, one tries reconcile professional life and family life or enhance the flexibility of the work day. How have these approaches been arrived at?
It is often said that Psychology “has a short history but a long past.” Although there have been people interacting in groups and organizations for many centuries, however, it will not be until the beginning of the 20th century when psychological principles are related to the professional world. Why did interest in Psychology arise at that time? It is evident that something is not attempted to be faced until it is raised as a problem.
Precisely, it will be at the beginning of the last century when psychologists are asked to collaborate to resolve some issues. For example, how to select officers for the merchant navy after the Titanic disaster? How to recruit personnel with a certain probability of success to properly classify the troops? Or how to design appropriate situations to carry out work activity and be effective and productive?
Along the same lines, Psychology will not be applied directly to the environment of organizations until work as such begins to raise certain questions.
Industrial psychology
Thus, the first use of the term Industrial psychology It was made in a 1904 publication and was the result of a typographical transcription error. A psychologist named W. Bryan wrote an article in which he talked about the need for more research in “Individual Psychology” and here he made a mistake and wrote “industrial”, whose mistake he did not even realize.
Perhaps the unconscious played a trick on him since the same author was one of the first who tried to approach the examination of everyday skills in order to carry out psychological research on them. Hence his studies on how professional telegraphers developed their skills in using Morse code.
The new times are going to make possible a different approach to the relationship with the work context. Let us not forget that for many centuries “good people” did not work, but rather dedicated themselves to the care of the arts or virtue. In short, his work focused on the cultivation and occupation of “leisure.” Precisely, it will be with the bourgeoisie when “business” emerges as “non-leisure” or a set of tasks that deny it.
Throughout history, the human experience regarding the relationship with the world of work has changed significantly. So, work has stopped being conceived as a burden and a burden – “you will earn your bread by the sweat of your brow” -, to experience not being able to access it as a certain punishment, with all the social and personal problems that situations of instability or unemployment entail. Work today occupies a key place in human existence.
It is a reality that we dedicate a very important portion of the pie of our time to its realization. Hence, it is not strange that from the first research on the world of work, for example those carried out by E. Mayo, the implications of different states and personal situations in the execution of tasks and vice versa were highlighted. Therefore, the better we can develop this activity, the greater our professional performance and more satisfied and happy personally we’ll meet.
The actual situation
If we approach any publication related to the business environment, it is not uncommon to find terms like motivation, empathy, cooperation, communication, teamwork or leadership. At the same time, if we read an interview with managers from different organizations, it is easy to discover expressions that highlight the importance of people in being able to carry out any business project. It seems that variables related to Psychology are being highly valued. For example, in any bookstore it is normal to find specific sections on these topics, there are specialized newspapers and magazines, and there are plenty of courses or seminars.
It is normal that some questions arise: Is there a change of direction in business management? Is it simply a fashion? However, in practice it is once again experienced that common sense is not always the most common of senses. Experience shows that What an organization most quickly dispenses with are people. Who is harmed first when a crisis looms? There is a lot of talk about human relations, but is attention really paid to these types of issues in the training of future businessmen or directors of organizations? In how many study plans of the different Spanish universities is there a subject of Work Psychology or Behavior in Organizations?
The expression “Like a drop of water” wants to reflect this situation: little by little, psychological concepts are “soaking” the business environment and beginning to “pierce” the thick wall of excessively technical organizational architectures or too reductionist economic approaches. Whether we like it or not, a reality prevails: we are people, we have to work with people and the result of our decision-making will impact people. Hence, paying attention to the contributions of Psychology in the environment of organizations (profitable or non-profit – Foundations, Associations, NGOs, etc.) is something basic and fundamental.
The need to care for people in the work environment
We are aware that the importance of people development in organizations is not a matter of good words or intentions. “Works are loves and not good reasons.” You not only have to have the will but also have the means to properly put into practice what is formulated in the theory. Would we let a good friend operate on us if he were not a surgeon? Could a company’s accounting be kept with only good intentions without having any notion of what a balance sheet is? However, what happens with those variables related to human behaviors in work environments?
If we look around us we could see that reality, although progress has been made in recent years, leaves much to be desired. Are there Human Resources departments in most companies? What is your orientation? Interestingly, certain organizations that are taking these issues seriously are often the ones that get greater economic and social success. For example, in the latest surveys on the best companies in Europe, those that have innovative staff development policies stand out.
Our goal is not “to surprise with magical recipes.” Although “the Mediterranean has already been discovered”, it is important to raise awareness of its presence and recognize its value so as not to ignore or destroy it. The human being is the same in the various contexts and hence the need to know his psychological characteristics in order to be able to enhance your possibilities.
If there is one thing clear to us from our experience in the business world, it is that managing relationships is as important as designing the business strategy. We must consider the need to conceive of people as “long-term assets” rather than as “resources or consumer goods” that are exchanged, sold or bought. We must be clear that people “are living beings” and not mere “passive entities or pieces of a machine.” We cannot forget that “resources” do not have rights, but exclusively duties. People are and can build another reality.
For example, getting involved and making the project achieve the intended objective or becoming uninhibited and causing it to collapse. As we stated in a previous article (Teamwork: talent and disposition), “the whole is more than the sum of the parts” and never better said two plus two are not necessarily four, since when people come into play and mobilize positive or negative synergies, the result can be more than one hundred or less than two hundred. Hence the need to offer means and tools to people to facilitate their full human, personal and professional development.
Many will think that carrying out this project may be utopian or impossible. However, there is no excuse to justify doing nothing based on difficulties. Our human vocation requires us to carry out without delay ways of manage people who create enthusiasm and energize business projects.
We conclude by remembering the anecdote of the general…