Work, Business and Organisational Psychology

Our services span the complete 'life-cycle' of business, from recruitment, to managing redundancy/ retirement planning, including:

  • Recruitment and selection
  • Psychometric Assessment
  • Advice on career development
  • Reprogramming career
  • Mid-life issues
  • Motivating staff in post
  • Auditing motivation, staff attitudes and communication in the company
  • Staff/client satisfaction surveys
  • Staff Appraisals + 360 degree feedback
  • Work Enrichment
  • Handling difficult staff issues
  • Outplacement issues: how the organisation should prepare for and deal with staff pre/post redundancy
  • Preparing for retirement

Change Management:

Organisations are constantly changing and therefore management and staff regularly need updating or helping to cope with these processes. We can provide support with:

  • Managing change in organisations
  • Handling Mergers and de-mergers
  • Helping Teams cope with transition
  • Team building days with expert facilitators
  • Working smarter not harder

Managing Trauma and Critical incidents:

Increasingly companies are faced with major crises and may need some help in dealing with this. We can help with:

  • Developing policy on Trauma and Critical Incidents
  • Conducting debriefing sessions post-incident
  • Supporting staff within the organisation who have to manage incidents and support other staff

Equal Opportunities

All companies now have a responsibility to ensure equal opportunity. We can advise on:

  • Diversity and disability
  • Assessment and Selection processes
  • Ethnic minority and Gender issues

Drugs and Alcohol at Work

Drugs and alcohol are a major problem in companies and do require specialist help from experts with experience with dealing with these kinds of problems are they are often very complex. We have experience with:

  • Recognising drug/alcohol problems
  • Developing policy on drugs/alcohol

General Psychological well being at work and at home

Managers are often faced with staff who are not functioning at their best because of worries about problems at home. Our consultants have had considerable experience on these issues and difficulties. We can provide services for managers and employers concerning the following issues:

  • Child problems; Child/school interface; The rebellious teenager; Single parenting; Sleep problems; Drug and alcohol problems
  • Backup to staff/supervision. Updates with company nurses etc. to discuss cases
  • Support for managers in handling staff bereavements etc.
  • Support in listening skills for key staff in the organisation
  • When to refer on - what resources are available in the community; Recognising when people need help

Workplace Mediation

Disputes can be costly for an organisation, both in financial and emotional terms. Workplace mediation is becoming established as a positive alternative to grievance and disciplinary procedures. Even when such procedures cannot be avoided, there can still be a role for mediation, to empower staff themselves to find a solution to a dispute, with the aid of a trained mediator. At MPA, we have highly experienced mediators who are trained to offer a constructive way forward in such staff disputes. We can also offer training and advice on setting up internal mediation schemes in an organisation.

Managing Stress

Stress is considered to cost industry annually in excess of £3.5 billion and this does not include the cost of litigation against companies. This also does not include extra costs for people who are present but not contributing to their work or doing a poor quality service. We can provide:

  • Stress Audits in the Organisation
  • Stress awareness training for managers and key staff
  • Psychological counselling for staff
  • Psychological counselling for Senior Executives (maybe those for whom the Employee Assistance Programme is not appropriate)
  • Development of Employee Support Schemes

Staff Training

Please see our separate Training and Consultancy page.

If you would like more information or would like to book an appointment, please contact us.

 

Our Psychologists who work in this field include:

John McKeown, MA (Hons), M Ed Psych, PGCE, AFBPsS: Chartered Educational Psychologist, Managing Partner

John McKeown is the Clinical and Managing director of MPA and has been an Educational Psychologist who has worked both within the local authority service and as an independent consultant for over 25 years. He works across the full age range from young children to adults. His experience includes particular expertise in assessments for general learning and specific learning difficulties (Dyslexia), behavioural management and adjustment issues related to promoting effective learning and emotional development.

He has a particular experience in both low and high functioning autistic spectrum conditions. His work extends to the interaction between school, college, family and community in the development and support for children, adolescents and adults. He has considerable experience in working as an expert witness in the courts on educational and child care matters as well as the special educational needs and disability tribunal.

 

Marie Larkin, Accredited Counsellor

Marie is a BACP Accredited Counsellor with over 14 years experience in the mental health and emotional wellbeing sector. Marie’s career began in Recruitment, Marketing and Management in the private and voluntary sectors. She trained as a counsellor at Birkbeck College, London and the University of Sussex. Since qualifying, she has worked in a number of different settings including the NHS and Employee Assistance programmes as well as expanding her own private practice.

Marie has a growing interest in the field of Mindfulness and Interpersonal Neurobiology and regularly attends Continuing Professional Development events in this area.

Therapy

Marie has developed an integrative working model, which is tailored to individual client problems. She has trained in, and draws upon:

  • Psychodynamic
  • Humanistic
  • Solution Focussed Brief Therapy (SFBT)
  • CBT
  • Interpersonal Neurobiology

At the heart of Marie’s philosophy is the belief that life is an inevitably fluid and changing process. This requires us to develop the ability to be flexible and to develop as wide a “window of tolerance” as possible. However, our experiences, both past or present, our basic temperament skills and preferences all influence the extent to which we can find or lose our balance and become pulled into chaos or rigidity.

Marie works with clients to help them to understand themselves better, develop a greater sense of balance in their lives and within themselves, and to find ways of accepting what can’t be changed and work helpfully with what can.

Marie has always had an interest in creative writing and is currently studying for an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes. She has a special interest in the use of writing as an aid to the expression of painful, repressed or frightening feelings or experiences and as a technique for stress management. She also sees writing as a way of capturing good feelings and memories and of connecting with aspects or people in our lives that can feel lost. She believes the act of putting pen to paper and getting things “out of our head and onto the page” can provide a container outside of ourselves to capture stories and experiences to share, review or simply hold for us.

Above all, Marie’s approach is based on a belief in the importance of a safe place and relationship in which to share our stories, our hopes and our fears and to be met with non-judgemental interest, compassion and respect.

She has extensive experience helping clients with:

  • Stress
  • Work/Life Balance
  • Health in Employment
  • Managing Change
  • Relationships
  • Cultural Identity
  • Creativity
  • Counselling student counsellors

Training and other activities

In addition to counselling, between 1999-2007 Marie worked with businesses across all sectors, to resolve health and disability related problems in the workplace. This included design and delivery of a Return to Work mentoring service for an EAP provider and one-to-one support to clients with emotional and/or physical disabilities affecting their employment. She designed and delivered Stress Management Programmes and Work Based Therapeutic Groups for the Department for Work and Pensions.

 

John Revell, BA (Hons), MBA, Dip Clin Psychol, Dip Couns: Chartered Clinical Psychologist

After completing his degree in Psychology at Sussex University, John completed his professional training as a Clinical Psychologist in 1987. He also has a counselling qualification. He has experience of working as a Clinical Psychologist at Consultant level in the NHS. Having more recently obtained a Masters in Business Administration at Brighton University, John has a special interest in organisational consultancy and training. He has experience of medico-legal reporting and has appeared in court as an expert witness.

 

Lynne Spencer, MSc. C.Psychol.

Lynne Spencer is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist who has worked with both organisations and individuals. She worked initially as an HR manager in industry and at the BBC, then specialising as a consultant in assessment, psychometrics, team building, organisation and career development, training and coaching. She is the author of 'Life and Career: A workbook for Managers' available from Amazon, and is a member of the editorial board of the magazine 'Coaching At Work'.