A guest blog by Dr Antonia Dietmann, Head of the Government Occupational Psychology Profession
Ever wondered why some teams just click? Or how to find the right person for a job? What about creating a workplace that truly supports your well-being? That's where occupational psychology comes in. It's the science of understanding how people, groups, and organisations behave at work. The goal is simple: to make the working experience better for individuals and to make organisations more effective, without one being at the expense of the other.
We help answer the big questions that affect us all at work, and we do it using a scientific process. We gather evidence from four key sources — organisational data, stakeholder information, scientific evidence, and practitioner expertise. We use all four because we're an applied science. This means we're doing real-world work to solve real-world problems for workers, teams, and organisations.
What kind of questions can we answer?
Our work covers five main areas:
1. Psychological assessment at work
- How do you choose the best people for jobs or promotions?
- How do you know who's doing a good job?
- How can you improve the performance of an entire organisation?
2. Learning, training, and development
- What do people need to know to do their jobs well?
- What's the most effective way to give people the skills they need?
- How do you make sure new learning actually 'sticks'?
3. Leadership, engagement, and motivation
- How do you get the best out of your team?
- Why do some teams work better together than others?
- What motivates people to do a good job, stay in an organisation, or go the extra mile?
4. Wellbeing at work
- How do you design jobs that keep people mentally and physically healthy?
- How do you create policies to prevent, address, and help people recover from illness and injury at work?
- What's the best way to prevent bullying, harassment, and discrimination?
5. Work design, organisational change, and development
- How do you identify and change the culture of a team or organisation?
- How do you bring people along with a change?
- What are the best ways to structure and organise work and an organisation?
We all work in the Civil Service, and getting answers to these questions, plus many more, would help make our experiences at work even better.
My journey into occupational psychology
Dr Antonia Dietmann, Head of the Government Occupational Psychology Profession
During my undergraduate psychology degree, I completed a module on ‘work psychology’ and it hit me like a ton of bricks that I would be working for the next 40+ years. I had to be part of making that experience better for myself and as many others as possible. That's what started my career in occupational psychology, which has now lasted nearly 25 years, and I've no plans to stop now. Being part of the Government Occupational Psychology profession has given me a wonderful network, opportunities for professional and career development and roles across the Civil Service.
Our thriving community
We have around 250 members of the Occupational Psychology profession across the Civil Service. This makes us the largest occupational psychology community in the UK. Our members work in dedicated occupational psychology roles, but also in other professions and teams, all using their occupational psychology skills to solve organisational challenges.
I recently spent two days at our annual member conference, and I'm full of joy and energy seeing the contributions they're making. We heard about how members are:
- Providing coaching to help welfare customers find work
- Developing new tools to help 'find your SPARK' at work
- Designing a values assessment for probation roles
- Creating a 'neuroinclusion' model for job fit in digital roles
- Designing a police promotion process
Our commitment to continuing professional development is one benefit of joining the Government Occupational Psychology Profession. We run an excellent programme of learning events, including our annual conference. Other benefits include:
- A professional home where you belong
- A network of over 250 members across the Civil Service, all applying their occupational psychology knowledge in diverse and fascinating ways
- A newsletter every two months
- Project opportunities to expand your skills and meet qualification requirements
- Collaboration and resources on our KnowledgeHub group
The Government Occupational Psychology Profession is open to current civil servants (and some Crown servants) who have an undergraduate degree in psychology (or equivalent, including conversion courses) and intend to complete, are currently undertaking, or have completed a postgraduate (MSc) qualification in occupational psychology (or a similar course, e.g. Business Psychology, Organisational Psychology, Work Psychology).
Please check out our Government Occupational Psychology Careers Hub. If you meet our criteria, we'd be delighted to welcome you. You don't need to be a fully qualified Occupational Psychologist to make positive changes in your workplace – even small steps can make a big difference. Joining a Profession and building relationships with others across the Civil Service is a great way to increase collaboration and community amongst us all.
Occupational Psychology is one of the 31 government professions. You can find out more on the Join a profession page.
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