One of the more challenging issues facing I/O psychologists is explaining what it is we do. Few people are familiar with the field, and many dont realize how I/O psychology can be useful to a company. Thus, I/O psychologists have to be prepared to educate others in a simple and polite manner about what I/O psychology is. In addition, I/O psychologists who choose to work in consulting firms have to be persuasive and convince business owners to use their services to help improve their company.
Below is an e-mail from a potential client, Chris. Read the e-mail and then draft a response to Chris that will answer his questions.
Hello
My name is Chris Covey, and I am the CEO of RainCloud, a tech start-up based in Colorado. RainCloud allows users to manage several social media accounts at once, and obtain data about their followers to help them market products. We have recently gone from 12 employees to 130 employees within a few months, and we are having a hard time managing the increased staff. Recently, weve run into some problems. First, because weve grown so quickly, many of our new employees are still waiting to be trained, but we dont really have a program that will get them oriented quickly. We also have some problems with our supervisorsmany of the people who are currently supervisors have never managed a team before. Im getting reports that these supervisors spend a lot of time either yelling at their team, or avoiding their teams entirely because they dont want to deal with the problems. Finally, the work that we do at RainCloud requires quick response times, and as a result, many people on my staff work long hours to make sure everything is running smoothly. Employees have begun complaining about stress and exhaustion, and some are starting to call in sick quite frequently.
I was speaking with one of my VPs, and she suggested I contact an I/O psychologist for some help. I looked up your company online, and I am curious about what you do. So, if I hired you, what sorts of things could you help me with?
Thanks for your time.
Chris
Draft a brief, persuasive e-mail to Chris explaining the work your company does and how it might help him. Keep in mind that this client may not be familiar with technical psychological terms.
