Communication
1. We communicate broadly and are active partners in social dialogues
IWOPs have evidenced-based views on unemployment, precarious work, fairness and equal opportunities in the workplace, selection, performance appraisal, occupational stress, health and well-being, counterproductive work behaviors, leadership and followership, teamwork, telework, and many other work-related topics. We share, disseminate, and exchange these viewpoints with all relevant stakeholders.
We shall:
- Voice expert knowledge to the general public’s attention via popular media outlets.
- Speak in simple, understandable, customer-oriented terms that align with the context of the conversation.
- Engage third parties that could support our mission (lobbyists, private company management, decision makers, non-profit sector).
- Engage with society (NGOs or other private or public organizations), with policy-makers and other relevant decision-makers.
- Continue building evidence by conducting research and disseminating it broadly.
Actions to plan and implement:
- Acquire media and digital communications skills.
- Supervise and mentor others to build their skills in communicating effectively across environments and audiences.
- Study and practice effective communication with other stakeholders.
2. We communicate in the language of different stakeholders
As scientists and practitioners, we are getting more and more technical and advanced in our quest to understand people’s behavior. Nevertheless, we have created a language of internal discourse that is not always fully understood by others. In order to increase the effectiveness of communication we should tailor our language to reach our intended audience clearly and effectively.
We shall:
- Communicate effectively across disciplines and cultures, and with various stakeholders who use our scientific evidence to address organizational problems.
- Translate our knowledge and expertise by speaking the language of other stakeholders, such as decision-makers in industry and government.
Actions to plan and implement:
- Study and practice the language (and lingo) of other stakeholders in order to be effective at transmitting our knowledge and expertise.
- Create a discipline-based translation dictionary of IWOP, business, government, healthcare, and other industry terms.
3. We strive to have an ethical, evidence-based impact on decision makers
IWOPs provide expert analyses and recommendations that enable politicians and policy-makers to deliberate and decide on matters related to human behavior, affect, and cognition in the workplace and work-related settings.
We shall:
- Present decision makers with evidence-based insight that adds value to their projects.
- Write white papers, trade publications, and engage in social media to raise the profile of IWOP expert knowledge and present data that provides decision makers with information that helps them tackle difficult problems.
Actions to plan and implement:
- Offer insights through consultations, chairing events, and engagements with decision makers (both inside and outside organizations) whose decisions have an impact on work-life or potential impact of others’ work experiences.
- Develop action plans, implementation guides, and best practices to support IWOPs in their efforts to inform leaders’ strategic thinking.
- Provide input and issue statements on legislative contents and processes, via our professional organizations.
- Identify key lawmakers whose influence can be leveraged to support healthy workplaces.
Contextualization
4. We voice needed change
IWOPs utilize theories, methods, and instruments to guide change initiatives. IWOPs’ international codes of conduct guide ethical application of psychology for the betterment of individuals and organizations.
We shall:
- Adopt a proactive stance on ethical issues central to our expertise.
- Assume a position of support when change is needed in research and practice.
Actions to plan and implement:
- Practice proactivity, forecasting, and risk-taking in the name of worker well-being.
- Partner with other IWOPs to stimulate visibility and audibility of our professional expertise.
- Participate in global and local events to stay current.
- Understand one’s own limitations and overcome them through training and education.
- Tailor and design change initiatives that align with business needs.
5. We provide rigorous and relevant answers to address critical questions
IWOPs can demonstrate their ability to tackle important humanitarian and social issues, such as poverty reduction, and be known as a discipline that can contribute to solving problems of social and global significance.
We shall:
- Apply psychology to real world problems and offer our expertise to support working or worker-eligible people.
- Speak up to facilitate and encourage change that is grounded in scientifically valid findings, even if it seems inconvenient.
- Our professional organizations should contribute to lawmakers’ understanding of the effects of policies and laws on work experiences.
Actions to plan and implement:
- Educate decision-makers and lawmakers, who lack evidence-based knowledge, on the science of people, work, and organizations.
- Approach sensitive or uncomfortable issues that would benefit from IWOP input.
- Create infographics that clearly articulate IWOP competences.
- Support humanitarian rights everywhere.
6. We ideate and innovate in all working situations and environments
Innovations in science and practice feed off of each other. IWOPs are acutely aware of changing work contexts and conditions within varying social circumstances. With this information, IWOPs create change and improvements to working conditions, situations, and contexts, and are constantly in search for new ideas to improve work processes and experiences under many different circumstances. Through scientific methods IWOPs validate creations that are implemented and evaluate the utility of innovations to benefit the workplace, workers, and job seekers.
We shall:
- Share innovative ideas with multiple stakeholders and the general public.
- Support implementation of new ideas in the workplace.
- Keep abreast of societal changes.
Actions to plan and implement:
- Learn how to transfer knowledge to industry.
- Help create centers for innovation.
- Promote multi-disciplinary perspectives to support innovation.
- Innovate and reinforce an entrepreneurial spirit that centers around the person as a contributor to society.
Dissemination
7. We value well-being and human welfare
IWOPs advocate for the well-being of workers, unemployed workers, and precarious workers, and make sound business cases for company investment in their people and community. We present scientifically valid evidence to address worker and worker-eligible issues.
We shall:
- Promote sustainable well-being for job seekers, vulnerable workers, and workers at all stages of working life.
- Attend to the presses of contextual factors (economics, politics, social, infrastructure) and voice when organizational changes are needed to maintain or uplift others’ well-being.
- Encourage consideration of how an organization's practices affect the climate and environment (which in turn affects individuals).
Actions to plan and implement:
- Research and promote decent work and decent pay globally.
- Embrace and mobilize actions aimed at improving the human condition in the world of work, across all ages, jobs, and cultures.
- Attend to matters that affect under-supported groups, e.g., the aging workforce, workers in precarious work conditions, vulnerable workers, immigrants, and unemployed/job seekers.
- Improve the state of economically and educationally deprived individuals to impact humanitarian and social issues for the sake of improving conditions, such as poverty reduction to solve problems of social and global significance.
- Be role models for social and environmental responsibility.
8. We share scientific research, empirical methods and scientific achievements with stakeholders
IWOP competencies are readily demonstrable in small-scale to large-scale changes, that make positive impact in the world of work.
We shall:
- Disseminate accumulated knowledge and experience to share with non-IWOPs or related professionals.
- Employ rigorous research protocols and methods to design solutions that support policies, practices, procedures, and reward systems.
Actions to plan and implement:
- Articulate IWOP’s strong research tradition and rigorous research methodologies in easy – to-understand business terms.
- Accumulate meta-analytic findings and broadly share the current state of affairs on various IWOP topics with peers and other parties.
- Present state-of-the-art findings in mainstream media outlets.
- Communicate, through media outlets, successful psychological interventions that have improved human work-related conditions.
- Share and make transparent methodologies and scientific achievements to promote growth in the work domain.
Integration
9. We bridge organizational science and practice
One of the unique strengths of IWOP is that it is based on the science-practitioner model. According to the model, psychologists are to be trained to integrate science and practice, such that activities in one domain inform activities in the other.
We shall:
- Stay up-to-date with the state-of-the-art research and apply lessons learned in the changing work context.
- Stay tuned with changing work environments to solve real problems (e.g., virtual work and changes in labor market).
- Take cultural context into consideration, as globalization has brought a significant change in the work context. It is more culturally diverse and geographically dispersed.
Actions to plan and implement:
- Create open platforms on which researchers can publicize their research findings with a focus on implementation of interventions.
- IWOPs should be open to acquiring new knowledge and should participate in stimulating questions from the “field” that should be studied.
- Engage in innovative, multidisciplinary joint projects with academics and practitioners in order to guide and facilitate changes, rather than react to changes at work.
10. We balance individual and group needs with organizational goals
IWOPs balance the well-being of workers with the organization’s need for productivity, effectiveness, and innovation. We use scientific methods to derive valid research results and apply psychological principles to solve workplace problems and reconcile the interests of organizations’ members with the interests of organizations.
We shall:
- Identify with the IWOP aims, which include promoting the well-being of people as related to work, employment, and job-seeking.
- Proudly promote our discipline as seeking to create balance between worker well-being and worker performance and effectiveness.
Actions to plan and implement:
- Promote an extensive set of competencies in the field of IWOP.
- Create and market IWOP’s image to gain more publicity and stimulate good research and successful consulting assignments.
- Increase awareness of the implications of current socio-economic conditions in the global world of work.