Whitepaper: Boosting HR’s psychological literacy to tackle future crises

With research suggesting an organisation’s level of psychological know-how can improve its response to disruption, this whitepaper will explore how business and HR leaders can draw upon psychological resources as part of their crisis management strategy.

In a period where all of humanity is experiencing a variety of unprecedented challenges, we can be certain that further crises will significantly impact organisations in the near future – the climate emergency being one such example.

It's no longer possible for businesses to act as if they are separate from the natural world and social change. Employers must tackle these issues head on, and can do so by boosting their knowledge of psychology to create better businesses for their employees, clients and communities.

In this whitepaper, Dr Volker Patent, a lecturer at The Open University's School of Psychology, examines the aspects of psychology that come to the fore during disruption and explores how to build psychologically resilient organisations and workplaces.

In this whitepaper you'll learn:

Why psychological impacts matter
How leaders should prepare for future crises
Five ways humans react to crises
How to better communicate through the next crisis

At The Open University we are fortunate to have the academic expertise to evaluate the challenges and responses to Covid-19 and Dr Volker Patent and colleagues have risen to this challenge.

This whitepaper investigates how HR can better understand psychology and use it to steer their employees and organisations through future disruption on the horizon, such as climate change.

We hope these insights help you to reflect and learn from your response to the pandemic and better understand how employee wellbeing can be impacted by a crisis. There are plenty of hints and tips which can be applied directly to your business – plus insights from employers who have grasped some of these challenges proactively.
Viren Patel, Director – Business Development Unit