Occupational Psychology - Assignment

Occupational Psychology
- Business report

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Employees of the organisation are facing psychological issues related to their job and
while working in the organisation. This leads to poor performance of hotel in the past few
months and to resolve the issue services of occupational consultant is hired. The occupational
consultant has identified two main issues that are prevailing among employees of Excelsior hotel
are stress at workplace and no job satisfaction among workers. To resolve these issues two
theories are adopted that are Hertzberg's two factor psychophysical theory and Hawthorne effect
psychological theory. Both the theories will help in resolving the issues and interventions and
recommendations are made that will be followed by the organisation in long run. Monitering
issues related to employees employed in hotel will help in minimising the issues of employing
satisfaction at workplace.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
CASE ANALYSIS..........................................................................................................................1
CONTEXTUAL THEORY: REDUCED JOB SATISFACTION...................................................2
CONTEXTUAL THEORY: STRESS AT WORKPLACE.............................................................3
SUPPORTIVE INFORMATION....................................................................................................5
INTERVENTIONS..........................................................................................................................6
RECOMENDATIONS....................................................................................................................7
SUMMARY.....................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Occupational psychology is the application of science of psychology at the workplace.
Occupational psychologists uses psychological theories and approaches that will provide tangible
benefits by enhancing the effectiveness of an organisation through its performance. Motivating
employees at workplace with giving priority to them in the workplace will help in resolving
issues at workplace. In the given project it can be seen that employees are facing several issues
but primary matters that needs to be provide concern are regarding job satisfaction and stress at
workplace (Beehr, 2014).
CASE ANALYSIS
The Excelsior was an prestigious hotel that had been offering high quality facilities and
services from last twenty years in Sri Lanka. Number of employees in the organisation is 500
with reasonable job security, decent salary and all the welfare benefits. A high level of
administrative control is applied on the business and employees are required to follow managers
instructions. Profitability of the company is declining and three months ago it was sold to large
hotel chain. A new general manager, Dillon John was appointed to run the hotel. In the first
month 100 employees are laid off from different departments to reduce operating cost.
Employees in the hotel are empowered to use their own judgements to make their customers
more satisfied. Minor issues in the hotel can be resolved with granting decision making power to
all the levels. Through delegation of decision making power employees can be held accountable
for non completion of business objectives.
In contrary to expectation of John, room occupancy and overall performance of the
organisation is deteriorated. Problems related to employees absenteeism due to illness,
employees turnover had reached at its peak (Chmiel, Fraccaroli and Sverke, 2017). It was
noticed that employees in the organisation is in stress due to non availability of job security and
change in organisational structure. With the reduction in a hotel staff the remaining staff have to
work for long hours to cover the shift of absent and laid off employees. This increased working
hours has taking a toll on the mental and physical health of the employees. Due to exit of
employees and reduced performance of business John has decided to conduct exit interviews of
the employees. Employees behaviour towards the organisation and its objectives of the has
changed for the worst. Together with this a newspaper has published a negative review in
1

relation to standard service and attitude of staff of hotel Excelsior. This is an issue related with
the problem of lack of satisfaction, motivation among employees for their work. When
employees in the business suffers the ultimate striving lies to objectives of business. Problems
related to employees are all psychological issues and these issues can be resolved through
adopting appropriate psychological theories and models.
CONTEXTUAL THEORY: REDUCED JOB SATISFACTION
Job satisfaction is termed as pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting form the
appraisal or evaluation of one's job and job experiences (Cooper, Quick and Schabracq, 2015)
This helps to reflect personal feeling of an individual regarding his/her job. Job satisfaction is the
extent to which an individual likes a job on the basis of pay, working conditions, behaviour of
colleagues and boss and career prospective while working for the organisation. Job satisfaction is
important because it helps in developing a positive working environment of business. It is an
indicator of person's psychological well being or mental health of an employee. Job satisfaction
leads to motivation and good work performance.
Employees of Excelsior hotel is lacking in self satisfaction in relation to their jobs. This is
because of changes in the organisational structure that is not appropriately applied over the
organisation. Together with this employees are laid off to reduce operating cost in the business
that leads to insecurity regarding job security and becoming another reason for reduced job
satisfaction. There are three approaches to job satisfaction-
 First says that job satisfaction is dispositional in nature that means level of satisfaction of
same job will depends on personal characteristic of an employees. A same job can giver
different level of satisfaction (Cooper, 2018).
 Second is social information processing model. Job satisfaction and other workplace
attitude are developed and constructed out of experience and information provided by
other at work. Satisfaction is how other persons evaluate and interpret what goes on.
 Third one is information processing model that involves accumulation of cognitive
information about workplace. Job satisfaction is influence by characteristic of the job and
how much these characteristic match with wants of an individual.
Issue of reduced job satisfaction in Excelsior hotel needs to be resolved with Hertzberg's
two factor psychophysical theory that will help to motivate employees and to enhance
satisfaction among them. The two factor theory was developed by psychologist Frederick
2

Herzberg in the year 1950. in this theory Herzberg finds 2 factors that influence employees
motivation and satisfaction. These factors are-
 Motivator factor: Enjoying the work performed, feeling recognised for good work and
career progression are some motivator factors that helps in improving level of satisfaction
among employees for their work (Davey, 2018).
 Hygiene factor: These are some factors that leads to dissatisfaction and a lack of
motivation if they are not present in the job. Such as good salary, liberal policies for
employees and good relation with managers and colleague.
Application of this theory to Excelsior hotel-
This theory implies that to get the happiest and most satisfied employees in the
workplace, both the factors needs to be improved. Employees of Excelsior hotel will be provided
work as per their core area. Each employee will be recognised for good performance and fear of
loosing job will be minimised by providing them career progression options in the organisation.
To prevent dissatisfaction from the job each employee of Excelsior hotel will be treated right by
offering the best working condition and fair pay. As employees in the organisation are provided
with long working hours will be reduced so that level of satisfaction from job can be obtained by
employees of Excelsior hotel (Hodson, 2014). Motivation tool for each employee can differ for
each employee that will provide them satisfaction so different sets of motivational tools must be
introduced for employees that will help business to gain large amount of satisfied and highly
motivated employees that will help in attaining business objects. Excelsior organisation first
needs to remove reasons of dissatisfaction among workforce after that policies to ehnace
satisfaction must be introduced as per Hertzberg's two factor psychophysical theory.
CONTEXTUAL THEORY: STRESS AT WORKPLACE
The term stress is used by Hans Selye in 1936 to define stress as the non-specific reaction
of the body to any demand for change. Stress is used to refer to an overbearing or some
unpleasant situation. Selye identifies three distinct stages of general adaptation syndrome the
initial stage is the alarm reaction stage which occurs shortly after the stressful event. This is
followed by a resistance stage, during which body's autonomic nervous system resists the impact
of the stressful stimulus. Final stage is the stage of stress. Stress is segregated between types one
is good stress that is termed as eustress and other one is bad stress that is distress. Eustress
3

provides challenges that motivates individual to work hard and meet their goals. On the contrary
distress results from chronically demanding situations that produces negative health outcomes.
In the present case scenario employees of Excelsior hotel are in stress because of lack of
job security at workplace and non adaptation of changes in organisational structure. Together
with this due to reduction in number of employees working in the hotel by lay off and increased
in quantity of absenteeism and voluntary turnover (Ivtzan and Lomas, 2016). The amount of is
divided among the employees available. This situation effected working hours of employees as
hotel is serving to customers 24 hours and for that number of hours an individual was working
before has extended. Before adopting John as manager in hotel all the employees were secure
regarding their job but after lay off by John no job security is their with John. A poor job security
and long working hours leads to creation of bad stress among employees. Hard work of
employees in the organisation is not recognised this gives them mental pressure that again leads
to stress.
Stress at workplace is a very critical situation as it directly affects performance of the
business. In the present case it can be seen that employees of Excelsior hotel are in stress and this
leads to reduction in the quality performance of the employees and business is suffering losses.
Stress at the workplace is due to reduced job security that needs to be reduced through providing
them assurance for job. Together with this new organisational structure is not known to
employees so John needs to make each and every effort so that new structure can be easily
adopted by the human resource.
To manage level of stress in the organisation Hawthorne effect psychological theory is
used. This theory was first described by Henery A. Landsberger in 1950. The basis of this theory
is on the tendency of some individuals who work harder when they are observed by researchers.
Number of psychological conditions are used to make research on this by experimenting lighting,
working hours and breaks. It is seen that when employees are monitored by their superiors then
they gets motivated to work hard rather then actually performing changes by themselves.
This theory can be used to minimise stress of employees due to change in organisational
structure (Laschinger and Fida, 2014). As decentralisation in Excelsior hotel leads to poor
quality of work and employees are required to be monitored through manager to enhance
productivity and quality of work. When manager will interact with employees regarding their
work then a good relation among managers and employees will be created and job security will
4

improve. When managers will look after all the operations in the business then it will help
Excelsior organisation to reduce number of absenteeism and all the work will be allotted in most
effective manner (Riggio, 2017).
SUPPORTIVE INFORMATION
Numerous studies show that job stress is far and away source of stress among adults and
that it has escalated progressively over the past few decades. Increased level of job stress as
assessed by the perception of having little control but lots of demand and this leads to various
health issues among employees working in an organisation.
Source: Main sources of stress, 2006
From the information that is provided with the pie digram it can be seen that more then
50% of stress is generated because of lack of job satisfaction and workload. As Excelsior is
suffering form the issue related to stress among employees and no job satisfaction both the issue
are hindering performance of organisation as whole (Main sources of stress, 2006).
5
Illustration 1: Main source of stress, 2006

From the recent reports statistics of workplace it is recorded that 65% of millennials are
satisfied in their current job. 62% of the millennials are generally satisfied with benefits and 63%
with their company. 72% of the employees said having more work benefits with increased job
satisfaction. Only 10.8% of the employees call their manager awesome and are recognised
weekly. 29.4% of the employees call their managers pretty one and call them once in a month.
Together with this in terms of satisfaction level among employees it can be seen that 31.3% of
the employees consider that they are not fully engaged in their work and their employee can
improve their work performance. Whole this scenario of 2019 explains that only a minimum
amount of employees are satisfied with their job performance. The statistical data will help to
understand how badly service industry needs to take care regarding their employees. Excelsior
organisation is lacking behind because of the stress at workplace and lack of job satisfaction
among employees (Workplace Satisfaction Statistics, 2019).
INTERVENTIONS
The Excelsior was one of the most successful hotels in Sri Lanka which was sold to a large scale
hotel and a new general manager Dillon John was appointed to the organisation. Around 100 of
the employees were laid off by John in order to eliminate redundant positions within the
enterprise. All the activities of new manager resulted in different issues for hotel as well as
employees. All of them are not satisfy with their jobs as they have a threat that they could be laid
off by the organisation in upcoming period. As most of the staff members were terminated by
John so that burden of work is faced by remaining workforce. Number of sick leaves is
continuously increasing which is resulting in long working hours for those employees who are
working there (Leka, 2014). All these issues have created stress at work place for them. In order
to deal with all the issues it is very important for manager to find interventions for the same.
Some of the interventions which could be applied by managers of entity are as follows:
Communicating with staff members on regular basis: In order to provide job
satisfaction to employees and reducing their stress level it is very important for managers to
communicate with them on regular basis. With the help of it they will be able to find out the
reason behind problems which are affecting workforce. It can help manager of the hotel to deal
with challenge of reduction in employee engagement.
Establishing good relationship with employees: In order to become a successful
manager or leader it is very important for individuals to maintain good relations with employees.
6

For this purpose, managers can take advice of staff members in decision making or ask them to
provide opinion on the policies which are formulated by them. With the help of it motivation
level of workforce could be increased that may help to satisfy employees and reduce their stress
level (Milne, 2015).
Job rotation and entertainment at work: If all the staff members have to perform same
task again and again then it may affect their job satisfaction. In order to respond this problem
managers in the hotel can rotate their jobs so that they can work productively and their
satisfaction level could be increased by providing them job of their interest. To reduce level of
stress which is resulting due to long working hours managers in hotel can form strategies for
their entertainment. It will be beneficial to reduce stress at workplace.
Providing opportunities for career enhancement: As 100 of the employees were laid
off by newly appointed general manager therefore it has resulted threat for all other staff
members that they may get terminated in future. Due to this stress level of workforce is being
increased and their job satisfaction is being reduced. Manager in the hotel can provide career
enhancement opportunities to the employees which will result in enhanced satisfaction and
reduced stress regarding their job (Park and Jung, 2015).
In order to deal with problems of job satisfaction and stress at workplace managers in the
hotel can adopt all the above described interventions. With the help of all of them issues of staff
members could be resolved.
RECOMENDATIONS
Intervention through establishing effective communication system , developing a healthy
relationship among managers and employees, job rotation to improve quality of work and career
enhancement will be recommended for Excelsior (Polyakova, 2014). These interventions are
recommended for Excelsior organisation because issues related to stress at workplace can be
reduced with job rotation and generating a healthy relationship among managers and workers.
Together with this employees of Excelsior hotel are not satisfied with their job and do not
possess any job security. It is recommended for managers to have good communication with
employees. Communication will help in resolving issues of employees by taking them in
consideration. Providing good career growth to employees will help in minimising job security
issues among employees of Excelsior. All the recommendations should be implemented from the
current day and will last for long run till business is conducted.
7

SUMMARY
From the above project it can be summarised that employees are termed as one of the
greatest resource for success of organisation in long run. Each business organisation to become
successful and sustain in long run requires that employees remains satisfied and motivated
towards organisational objective. Issues that are related to employees satisfaction level and stress
among them needs to be resolved with psychological theory of motivation. A psychologically
strong employee will work effectively to achieve organisational objective. To resolve issues that
are related with employees will be resolved through interventions of recommendations that
depends on the type of issue involved.
8

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Beehr, T. A., 2014. Psychological stress in the workplace (psychology revivals). Routledge.
Chmiel, N., Fraccaroli, F. and Sverke, M. eds., 2017. An introduction to work and organizational
psychology: An international perspective. John Wiley & Sons.
Cooper, C., Quick, J. C. and Schabracq, M. J. eds., 2015. International handbook of work and
health psychology. John Wiley & Sons.
Cooper, C. L. ed., 2018. Managerial, occupational and organizational stress research.
Routledge.
Davey, G. C., 2018. Psychology. John Wiley & Sons.
Hodson, C., 2014. Psychology and work. Routledge.
Ivtzan, I. and Lomas, T. eds., 2016. Mindfulness in positive psychology: The science of
meditation and wellbeing. Routledge.
Laschinger, H. K. S. and Fida, R., 2014. A time-lagged analysis of the effect of authentic
leadership on workplace bullying, burnout, and occupational turnover
intentions. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. 23(5). pp.739-
753.
Leka, S. ed., 2014. Contemporary occupational health psychology. Wiley-Blackwell.
Milne, D. ed., 2015. Evaluating Mental Health Practice (Psychology Revivals): Methods and
Applications. Routledge.
Park, I. J. and Jung, H., 2015. Relationships among future time perspective, career and
organizational commitment, occupational self-efficacy, and turnover intention. Social
Behavior and Personality: an international journal. 43(9). pp.1547-1561.
Polyakova, O., 2014. Category «professional deformation» in psychology. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences. 146. pp.279-282.
Riggio, R. E., 2017. Introduction to industrial/organizational psychology. Routledge.
Online
Main sources of stress. 2006. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.stress.org/workplace-stress#iLightbox[f9c996f08272043984a]/0>
Workplace Satisfaction Statistics. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://blog.accessperks.com/2019-employee-engagement-loyalty-statistics#2>
9