Do What You Love... Or Not

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The pressure to only do what you want—to live your dreams—is simply not realistic. It’s an understatement to say that many people have to work to survive.

So how can we do that in the best—or least harmful—way possible? Industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology offers a number of clues.

Focused on human behavior in the workplace, I/O psychology isn’t just for human resources professionals. Sure, it researches ergonomics, efficiency, and even how being watched while we work impacts our productivity, but it’s so much more than simply how to get the most out of our workers (the cynical take).

When I teach I/O psychology, I ask students specific questions to guide them in assessing their current and future employment, questions they often say they haven’t ever thought about before.

What is your job description?

Job descriptions are essentially our contracts. A job description is what you’re signing up to do for your employer and it’s what they’re signing up to expect of you.

You need a job description but I can’t tell you how many of my students say they don’t have one. It could be that they have one but they just don’t know about it; that’s concerning.

Job descriptions aren’t only for hiring. They should be current and constantly reviewed. As an employee, you’ve agreed to the job description so you should know what’s in it. This is especially helpful when asked to do something outside of the job description because then either the position needs to change or you need to say no.

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What kind of training did you get?

I’m shocked by how many students tell me they didn’t get any training for their current jobs. It doesn’t take much to explain why training is important—they know from not getting any.

But to do good training, and for employees to get good training, the employer must understand what is needed and evaluate training effectiveness. I/O psychology does that. It helps us know what employees need to learn, how they learn, and what we can do to help them learn. And that depends on the employment context.

So more than simply the presence of job training, if your training isn’t effective, that matters, too.

How are you evaluated?

No one wants to hear they are doing a bad job and humans in general don’t really like criticism. That being said, evaluation research demonstrates that even volunteers want to be evaluated. The fact is that we may not want to be judged, but we do want feedback about our performance and that feedback does make a difference in how we perform.

I tell my students that when I worked for a national organization, I didn’t get a performance evaluation until I asked for one in my third year on the job. They’re surprised I asked. After all, what a relief to just work and not have to worry about what my employers think, right? Wrong.

Evaluations can be stressful for all sorts of reasons—the least of which is inaccurate or inappropriate evaluation—but they should take place. Employees do better when they receive (accurate) feedback. Period.

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Are you satisfied?

Given what I’m hearing from students and employers, I’m not shocked that researchers are concerned with job satisfaction. Who doesn’t want to like their job?

People tend to be most satisfied in jobs in which they have high control and low psychological demand. They also report being more satisfied when they feel their job is a calling. A career is better than “just a job,” but when you feel you’re truly called to do the work you do, that produces the best outcomes.

What’s your work-life balance like?

We’ve all heard it: Our digital lives make us accessible to our employers at all times. And more than that, it’s so hard to survive—just look at the cost of housing—that everyone is working a lot.

Work-life balance is a sort of “classic” in I/O psychology. While it may be getting harder and harder, we know that it matters for our health.

What’s your manager’s style?

While there are many different leadership styles, and nuances between management and leadership, ultimately it’s important to know our manager’s style because we are unique, different humans trying to work together toward a common goal.

Management styles tend to center around how controlling and caring… or inspirational… managers are. The managers with the best outcomes tend to be less controlling and more “transformational.” They really are leaders to whom employees look up, they invest in and care about employee success, and so much more. Essentially, these are the managers who believe in their employees as more than simply a means to an end (production).

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I tell students that at a large university, I had a wonderful department chair who, when some of us were leaving for new jobs, said it’s a good thing because it demonstrates that they had prepared us to advance in our careers. That’s transformational leadership.

What’s the organization culture?

Focusing on organizational culture is difficult because when you just have to work to survive, who can truly afford to care about anything but getting your work done? There is an element of privilege here. But I’d argue that everyone deserves a good organizational culture and I/O psychology would agree.

Most of us have heard countless stories about, and/or experienced, “toxic” work environments. Conflict, harassment… you name it, we’ve studied “the bad.” What about the good? What can we promote and look for in organizations that will help us thrive?

A good organizational culture has values, norms, practices, and behaviors that not only are not bad or “toxic,” but that also contribute to employee well-being and, as a result, organizational success.

So by all means, “just work” if you need to work. I/O psychology has your back and I hope that we as employees and employers are listening.