June 16, 2014
Helping SMEs and NGOs with business
pressure points
For many small and medium-sized
enterprise (SME) owners, and non-government organizations
(NGOs) finding time to deal with organisational details and
processes can seem overwhelming, but a new weekly service at
Massey University’s Albany Centre for Psychology aims to
provide an affordable service to help ease those pressure
points.
Director of Professional Training in the School of
Psychology Professor Stuart Carr says it’s an open service
that will fill a gap that many SMEs and NGOs may find too
expensive to access currently.
“Most of New Zealand’s
businesses are small to medium enterprises, and we also have
a lot of NGOs who don’t have a lot of money. Work
psychology – industrial and organisational psychology –
is often fairly expensive to access. It’s seen as
something for the corporates and big government
departments.
“This drop-in service is about reaching out
to ordinary businesses — someone in the Albany area, for
example, running a little garage or a cleaning firm on their
own, having to write job descriptions, hire people, dealing
with performance management, and then sometimes the negative
aspects like stress management. Business owners carry a lot
of stress overload, dealing with occupational health
regulations – all those kinds of things that mean you’re
having to deal with people without necessarily having the
training.
Professor Carr says NGOs may be facing similar
issues, whether they operate in New Zealand or abroad, and
the added benefit of this service is that it is available by
dropping by in person, or by dropping in electronically –
from anywhere in the world.
“It’s designed to make
industrial and work psychology accessible, and we have a
diverse group of people, including professional clinician
Anne Rundle and Dr Dianne Gardner, who can offer advice in
areas like vocational guidance and managing workplace
bullying – or the positive aspects of ensuring wellbeing
at work. We also have consultants, including the director of
the Centre for Psychology Dr Clifford van Ommen, consultant
Jeff Godbout, and myself who all have experience working
with NGOs, both internationally and locally.”
The
service run every Friday morning from 8.30 am to 10.30 am,
with initial consultation times set at 30 minutes.
Consultations can be done either face-to-face or via Skype,
and the first half hour is free. Any subsequent sessions are
charged at NZ $70 per half hour, or part therof.
Professor
Carr says the drop-in service offers a chance for business
owners to find ways to manage the demands of being in
business. “Things that you’ve never been trained for can
be stressful – it can get more complicated as you go
along, and as the business grows. How do I manage people,
and make sure they get decent work opportunities? How do I
foster wellbeing at work? We think this applied service will
fill a need that is currently out there.”
To find out
more about the drop-in service, visit the website: http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/learning/departments/school-of-psychology/psychology-services/albany/io-psych-service/io-psych-service_home.cfm
Or
contact the Centre for Psychology at the Albany Village
Library Building on (09) 441 8175 or by emailing: centreforpsychology@massey.ac.nz
ENDS