Organizational Psychology is a subject that applies the principles of psychology into one of the most important areas of life – work. Specifically, we work with the human aspects of the workplace and are designed to improve efficiency and thus the effectiveness of the organization, through our knowledge of human functioning.

There are a group of professionals who share the same goal and are working closely with us, the human resource professionals. Despite the close relationship with human resource professionals, organizational psychologists are professionals. Unfortunately, there is some confusion among the general public that people just can not tell who is who. More importantly, even some human resource professionals do not know what they are doing and what we can offer you.

When we say we are Psychologists, a frequent response is, “but we do not have mental problems”!

Psychologists and organizational work with a wide range of areas that relate to people’s daily lives work. Design work activities, schedules and workplaces that reward design principles that are based on theories of human motivation, to develop the principles of training and training of trainers, to develop selection procedures and tools, which make systems performance evaluation and counseling on issues related to organizational development and career development decisions.

As you may recognize our work reaches every working person on the planet and our field of work is very closely related to the work of human resource professionals.

Although there are many overlapping areas between Organizational Psychology and Human Resource Management (HRM), there are fundamental differences between us.

The first and perhaps the most obvious difference between us is the knowledge base. As psychologists, we base our work very much on science. All work must be backed by scientific evidence and statistics provided in our toolbox.

In contrast, human resource management is essentially a business that emphasizes the practical side, with less attention to the science. In addition to work in overlapping areas, we work at different levels. Organizational psychologists focus more on design and development of procedures, tools and principles, while the most human resource professionals at the operational level, such as accounting systems selection and implementation of the principles of training scenarios actual training.

The discrepancy between the database of organizational psychologists and human resource professionals has been documented in academic journals.

For example, Sally Carless and colleagues noted that although there are important developments in human resource-related research, the daily practice of human resources have benefited from it to a minimum. They realized that this is due to lack of knowledge among human resource professionals, especially when the training of human resources in general, the emphasis is on skill and knowledge in favor of science.

In contrast, the formation of organizational psychologists is based on the scientist-professional model that emphasizes research and requires skills and practice must be supported by scientific evidence.

Another reason may lie in the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirement. As an organization Psychologists, CPD is a condition of registration, and this helps them stay current with the latest developments in the field. However there is no requirement for human resource professionals. Carless of the study confirmed that the organization Psychologists are experts in the field, especially in the area of selection and authors articulated that the “scientific integrity is a key feature of differentiation of I / O (organizational) psychologists.”

Having closely related areas of work, our work is in fact complementary. Without organizational psychologists in the design and development of various HR processes and tools, human resource professionals are not enjoying these scientists and highly effective.

Furthermore, without the help of human resource professionals that our work could never apply to such a wide range of people. In addition, our relationship is much more complex and interactive that you can be aware of. In addition to the user-provider relationship, human resource professionals are also partners, consultants, and sometimes suppliers organizational psychologists.

HR professionals are our partners in the projects where they provide the knowledge and technical skills while dealing with the operational part. In addition, experts are human resource professionals in your company, so we worked side by side during the consultancy work where we need to help us with internal affairs, and that gives us a privileged view.

More importantly, as human resource professionals are frequent users of our services and products, we rely greatly on their views and requests in the development of our products and services. They are also valuable data providers and participants to conduct scientific studies (eg, validation of assessment tools). However, the parties are dependent on relationships with interlaced instead of separate parts or competitors.

Organizational psychologists are, what we can offer to professionals in human resources? Much. With experience in the assessment of human characteristics and knowledge about human performance, we are experts in the selection.

On the basis of understanding about the job requirements and the characteristics necessary for any position, we can reach an ideal profile of the organization is looking for. Then we can design or choose from the tools that accurately measure the required characteristics, skills and abilities.

According to the investigation of these procedures allow us to create the best selection system that predicts future performance of the employees of the staff. No one should be surprised that the best selection of tools such as psychometric tests, assessment centers and structured interviews, as well as standardization of selection procedures are designed and developed by the psychologists.

Another contribution of organizational psychology in the profession of human resources in the field is in training. A brief look at the training market is flooded with shows that many training courses and providers.

Obviously, the quality varies, and some of them do not even know what they are talking about! Our company has undertaken work for clients who have come to us after being satisfied with the trainers, who seem to just have some information from the Internet to create a training session, without a true understanding of the matter!

Psychologists as an organization we are working hard to reverse this situation. We are experts in training design, few understand how people learn and how people learn best! In the formulation and implementation of training courses, scientific theories human learning and training principles are followed, but not by intuition or experience. Factors such as the transfer of learning, the specific needs of the organization and maintenance of all learning is considered fully.

Besides the selection and training, organizational psychologists also provide various consulting services and advice to human resource professionals. The range of work can be as small as a review of a checklist of performance appraisal or an assessment center for the exercise as large as the design of a system of measurement.

Above all, we can also go in the organization of diagnosing the root of the problem and therefore, our scientific approach and a sophisticated understanding of the mechanisms and dynamics in the workplace.

However, as mentioned earlier in this article, a major obstacle we face is lack of knowledge about our profession within the profession of human resources (especially in Asia) and the general public.

The consequence is that they often face questions like “what is organizational psychology”, “What is the difference between the psychologists and HR consultants?” and “Why do I have to use scientific tools and procedures?” It can be difficult to explain all this work to potential customers! Another related problem is people always seem to be very expensive!

But the fact is that all products and services offered are based on scientific research, which means they have undergone long and complex development processes and the cost of all this are enormous. Using our scientific instruments and the principles of the benefit is long lasting and continue to contribute to organizational performance, and all are documented in the scientific literature.

Another hidden obstacle for us in Asia, is caused by the organizational hierarchy. Very often the first point of contact between our clients and ourselves are the assistant human resources professionals who have a minimum understanding of what we are talking about. When you do not understand that they can not relay the message, precisely, his manager.

The result is, obviously, that the level of management do not receive our message and Organizational Psychology of the name only remains unknown, no matter how hard we try!

Organizational psychologists, we see a real need to educate the public, and more importantly, the human resource professionals on the topic of Organizational Psychology, so that the fruits of science can be returned to them.

There are large areas of overlap between the work of organizational psychologists and human resources professionals, such as selection, training, professional development and performance management, but we are working on different levels and perspectives, so our relationship is collaborative rather than competitive .

Psychologists organization can provide assistance to human resource professionals in various areas such as training design, development of selection systems, supervising the processes of performance management and more. Psychologists, however, the organization in Asia is faced with obstacles such as the topic is relatively unknown among human resource professionals and communication is often impeded by the organizational hierarchy.

Therefore, a very important task for us as an organization is to promote Psicólogo this topic so people know what we can offer and make use of our experience! We are confident that with the growing popularity of the subject, the human resource professionals, and other related professional career as trainers and advisers will benefit very Organizational Psychology.