SIOPSA Invitation

You are invited to join SIOPSA members in the
Eastern Cape for our upcoming
 Information Session / Opening Event

 Monday, 26 July 2010

We invite all those interested in joining an Eastern Cape branch of SIOPSA, to attend our opening event on 26 July 2010.  This event will serve to bring together all Eastern Cape Industrial Psychologists, HR practitioners, and HR academics, in order for us to consider the development of a branch in our province.  You do not need to be a current member of SIOPSA to attend this event!

 Two papers will be briefly presented at the event:

Paper 1: The Impact of the Global Recession on the Work & Family Involvement of Managers in the South African Automotive Industry – Michelle Paddey

Because the roles of work and family are the most significant aspects of any individual’s life, there exists a need for employees raising children to maintain some form of balance between being involved in their work and seeing to the needs of their families. Conflicts between these two areas are expected to occur, which may be resolved through making changes in an individual’s work and family behavior.  This paper aimed to discover how the current global economic recession is affecting the work-family balance of managers employed in the SA automotive industry.  

The results of this study have been accepted for presentation at the South African Institute for Management Scientists (SAIMS) Conference in September.  The researcher lectures in the Industrial Psychology Department at the NMMU.  She will also be presenting a research paper at the International Research Symposium in Service Management in Mauritius in August.

Paper 2: Employee Value Segmentation for Rewards Practices…forget Cohort, Culture, and Personality Traits…What about ‘Desire’? – Anton Botha

Since Industrial Psychologists have recognised that motivational theories which attempt to classify employees as structurally similar (i.e. treat people the same) have shown themselves to have shortcomings, a kind of ‘race’ has developed to see which theory can most successfully ‘value segment’ employees in order to provide them with rewards that are synergetic with their intrinsic values, thereby increasing satisfaction and motivation. The major contenders that have emerged to segment the workforce attempt to do so along lines as diverse as culture, cohort, and personality traits. It will however be argued in this paper that none of these approaches can, or will, provide adequate grounds for employee value segmentation because of the possible permutations that exist among employees in each cohort, culture, and among personality traits, when one considers these dimensions in relation to a complexity model of motivation. Instead, while acknowledging the complexity of the subject, a Lacanian model of desire is proposed as a means to value segment employees according to nine possible kinds and modes of desire. Each one of the proposed kinds and modes of desire in turn has unique rewards implications which will be elaborated on.

The above paper will be presented at the SIOPSA conference in July in Johannesburg. The researcher is a lecturer at the NMMU in Industrial Psychology and has recently completed his Masters Cum Laude in the field of work motivation and has been award a Fulbright scholarship to continue this research in the US at PHD level in 2011.

please RSVP to michelle.paddey@nmmu.ac.za

by Tuesday, 20 July 2010  

Feel free to forward this invitation to other interested parties.

 We look forward to seeing you there!