Work Smarter, Not Harder!

The time has come! September is Smarter Workplace Awareness Month! The goal of Smarter Workplace Awareness Month is to help others learn how industrial-organizational (I-O) psychologists use science to make the workplace smarter—more efficient, healthy, just, productive, and engaged. 

“Work smarter, not harder,” is a phrase I heard many times during my time in the military. This phrase engages people with an emotive and rational desire to make the workplace work for themselves and make their job easier. Although the phrase evokes an individual ideal, it doesn’t address how to make the workplace smarter. It is up to us, as I-O psychologists, to let the working world know what they can do to create a smarter workforce. 

Similar to last year’s communication campaign, we will focus on the Top 10 Workplace Trends, sharing information on 2-3 trends each week. We will be sharing I-O research, news, and history on our website and social media platforms.

What You Can Do to Get Involved

Throughout the month of September, SIOP encourages I-O psychologists to take extra time to promote the many ways I-O psychology makes the workplace smarter. Here are several simple ways you can get involved and help spread the word about Smarter Workplace Awareness Month and I-O psychology:

• Submit information, ideas, or research about things SIOP should post on their social media here!
• Keep an eye out for all of the posts labeled #SmarterWorkplace on SIOP’s social media. These are posts specifically written for Smarter Workplace month and will contain links to new research, articles, history facts, and more interesting information about I-O psychology.
• Use the hashtags #SIOP and #SmarterWorkplace for all of your I-O and SIOP-related posts.
• Read and share SIOP’s #SmarterWorkplace posts on social media and share or repost with your network.
• Engage with your institutions and organizations to open a dialog in which we can better our workspaces. 
• Encourage your organization to participate by creating their own #SmarterWorkplace communication campaign.
• Share your own or colleagues’ research articles and links to stories in which they are interviewed. Don’t forget bullet point #2.
• Send any articles that mention SIOP members to comms@siop.org so we can promote them.

Be sure to also check the Smarter Workplace Awareness Month web page for links to press releases, downloads, and more!

In the spirit of the month of September, I challenge everyone to promote a change, be an advocate of innovation, and participate in open discussions.

Andrew Pepper
Visibility Committee
Chair, Media Subcommittee