In his book, Industrial/Organizational Psychology: An Applied Approach, professor Michael Aamodt (2010) describes a typical day in the life of a typical person in this manner:
| Work | 8 hours |
| Commute to work | 1 hour |
| Watch TV | 3 hours |
| Sleep | 8 hours |
| Prepare and eat meals | 2 hours |
| Other | 2 hours |
“With the possible exception of sleeping, people spend more time at their jobs than at any other activity in life. . . . If a person is unhappy at work for 8 hours a day, the residual effects of this unhappiness will affect the quality of that person’s family and leisure life as well” (Aamodt, 2010, p. 3).
What’s truly amazing is even though we spend 8 to 9 hours a day, 5 days a week working, when given a choice to work or stop working, people still choose to continue working! From 1973 to 1996, the National Research Council asked people one simple question, “If you were to get enough money to live as comfortably as you would like for the rest of your life, would you continue to work or would you stop working?” Over the span of two decades, 7 out of 10 people said that they would keep on working (NRC, 1999).
What’s different about WorkplacePsychology.Net?
- Coverage of the world of work (the workplace and workers) from a scholarly perspective. The references cited are from well-respected sources (e.g., I-O and OHP textbooks and academic journals, as well as highly-regarded business websites like the Harvard Business Review and Wall Street Journal).
- Information is presented in a clear, concise, and easy-to-understand manner. A major challenge for psychology is that information is often packaged in academic jargon and is delivered to the audience in a long-winded, complicated, and/or boring manner. This results in messages that are confusing or difficult for laypeople (i.e. those without specialized knowledge of a particular topic, such as psychology) to comprehend. I’ll do my best to avoid these mistakes on this site.
The focus of this blog is on Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology, Occupational Health Psychology (OHP), and Organizational Behavior (OB). I am fascinated by the impact of work and workplaces on employees’ health and well-being and vice versa, how employees’ health and well-being affect their jobs.
Employment and its impact on individual lives and our society as a whole are more paramount today than ever before. In October 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 15.7 million Americans were unemployed and an unemployment rate of 10.2%. In October 2010, the unemployment rate improved to 9.6%, but 14.8 million Americans were still unemployed. By October 2011, the employment situation had only improved slightly, with 13.9 million Americans still unemployed and the unemployment rate at 9.0%.
Today’s work is less stable, more diverse, and involves more work-life balance. It is the ever-changing workplace and its impact on workers’ health and well-being that served as the catalyst to starting this workplace psychology blog.
Thank you for visiting and I hope the information here will help you in some way to improve your own work life, health, and well-being.
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References
Aamodt, M. G. (2010). Industrial/organizational psychology: An applied approach (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
National Research Council. (1999). The changing nature of work: Implications for occupational analysis. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov
