Industrial and organisational psychology is a subfield of Psychology that applies the knowledge

and skills of Psychology in organisations/work places (Riggio, 2009; Schultz & Schultz, 2010).

Reduction of costs and increase of productivity

Organisations are fast adopting the principle of reducing costs and increasing productivity, this
then means that organisations are employing a whole lot less people currently. Although this
may be means of reducing costs for the organisations, it does however pose a big problem for
trade union companies whose main objectives are to organise people into workplaces. Human
resource managers have the responsibility of

Diversity in work places

One of the key problems or challenges faced in Organisational psychology is the increasing
diversity in the workplaces. This diversity refers to how different people from various
ethnicities and cultures are now coming to work in the same place and the Managers or Human
Resource managers now need to adopt new ways of having and keeping different people
together, that is to say to ensure that people are able to put their differences aside and work
together effectively and efficiently to meet the objectives of an organisation and this is
according to Edewor and Aluko (2007).

Employer of choice

Another major problem that is faced by Industrial/Organisational psychology or the Human

Resources Managers to be specific is the struggle to become and remain the employer of
choice; an employer that applicants wish to work for as supported by Sutherland, Torricelli &
Karg (2002). For a company to be seen or deemed as an employer of choice means that job
seekers see the place as one with a good culture and one that can allow them to grow in
experience and skill. It is thus the responsibility of HR to ensure a company has and keeps their
employer of choice status which is quite difficult and this then serves as one of the challenges
faced by Industrial psychology in South Africa. Seeing that SA is quite a rich country in its
people, linguistics, race and culture means that HR this side has to work very hard to bridge
the gap between a Venda speaking person and an Afrikaans speaking person in order to meet
the objectives of that organisation.

Psychological health/disorders
Another uprising problem in organisational psychology is psychological health or disorders, at
work in particular. Psychological health at work plays an integral influence on not only the
performance of the employee but ultimately the production or performance of the organisation
as a whole. Psychological health refers to a multidimensional concept that is based on the
physical, emotional, social, economic and spiritual, intellectual, moral/ethnic and occupational
functioning of an individual (Heslop, 2017) . Whilst an employee may be well capable and
efficient in doing his/her job once the persons mental wellbeing is not in a good condition the
person may not be well able to do all that he is supposed to do and efficiently so. It is therefore
the responsibility of the Human Resource management to actually ensure that the employees
are doing well in all aspects of their lives which will would therefore lead them working
productively and optimally.
REFERNCES

Aluko, A.Y & Edewor, A.P. (2007) Diversity Management, Challenges, Opportunities in
Multicultural Organisations: Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities, & Nations

Cilliers, FVN, & Rothmann, S. (2007). Present challenges and some critical Issues for research
in industrial/organisational Psychology in South Africa: SA journal of Industrial Psychology,
33(1), 8-17.

Heslop, K. (2017) Psychological wellbeing and maladjustment at work.

Schultz, D & Schultz, S.E. (1998). Psychology and work today: An introduction to Industrial
and Organisational Psychology.

Sutherland, M.M, Torricelli, D.G., & Karg, R.F. (2002). Employer of choice branding for
knowledge workers. South African Journal of Busines Management, 33(4), 13-20.