South African organisations suffer from a severe shortage of critical skills and the retention of talented individuals is a major challenge.
Colleen Bernstein, coordinator of the organisational psychology master’s programme at Wits University, says graduates of this programme are trained in the methodologies of attracting talent to an organisation through an advanced understanding of recruitment and selection strategies. They also acquire an in-depth understanding of how to grow and develop talent among existing employees.
In addition, they are enabled to create innovative and advanced motivational and remuneration strategies designed to retain talent within organisations. ‘Students have the opportunity to attain a professional qualification that equips them with superior analytical and critical strategic management skills,” says Karen Milner, professor in Wits’s psychology department.
‘Organisational psychologists, also referred to as industrial psychologists, make decisions that ensure business effectiveness through an understanding of human behaviour in the workplace,” she says.
Within the organisation, organisational psychologists are involved in a number of work spheres including recruitment and selection, assessment, stress management and employee wellbeing, performance appraisal and enhancement, leadership and staff development, and workplace and job design.
Graduates of the Wits programme ‘will have the capacity to think, plan and problem-solve strategically within all these spheres, managing an organisation’s human capital at a level that adds value to the ‘business’ of the organisation while at the same time ensuring and enhancing employee wellbeing”, Bernstein says.
The degree is designed to develop within its graduates the ability to analyse organisational needs that relate to the management of one of its most important assets: its people. The programme places strong emphasis on the development of research skills within its graduates.
Milner says ‘the research skills that our students develop are generalisable to a range of situations where critical analytical thinking is required”.
Students also obtain a theoretical and practical understanding of ethics and their importance in workplace practice. ‘With such skills Wits graduates are well positioned to enter the
marketplace,” Bernstein added, ‘and to occupy high-level positions in organisations that have an interest in both their people and their performance.”
Wits graduates have historically attained senior human resource management positions within a wide range of South African organisations.
Graduates are in demand as consultants because the wide variety of skills they develop within the programme make them highly attractive to organisations wishing to hire consultants and to consultancies offering their services to such organisations.
The course takes place over a single year. After completion of all course requirements, students who fulfil an internship approved by the Professional Board of Psychology are eligible for registration as industrial psychologists with the Health Professions Council of South Africa.
For further information please contact Colleen Bernstein at [email protected].
Laurike Wilkens is a fourth-year journalism student at North-West University who recently completed a short internship at the Mail & Guardian