With technological advancements redefining workplaces, the way in which people work is constantly shifting. Not only have many people’s methods of working changed, but so too have approaches to hiring employees. And yet, there are few professionals better equipped to guide leaders through these changes than industrial and organisational (IO) psychologists. At a time when organisations are learning to navigate new tools like AI, an opportunity for IO psychologists is becoming evident.
Ahead of the APS 16th Industrial and Organisational Psychology Conference, two keynote speakers explain how IO psychologists can guide the way for leaders seeking to introduce new technology, foster a better quality of work for people, and create stronger teams in a digital age.
Among the keynote presenters at the conference, held in Melbourne from 29-31 October 2026, are Professor Sharon K Parker and Professor Nicolas Roulin. Here, both experts suggest IO psychologists can find ways to work with the technology – while acknowledging the risks involved – that are beneficial to humans and organisations simultaneously.
How is AI redefining the way organisations hire new staff?
Nicolas's research at Saint Mary’s University in Canada is centred on personnel selection, applicant behaviours, and employment discrimination. In his work, Nicolas has observed both the threats and opportunities that AI can create during the hiring process.
With easy access to AI tools, most applicants can now use the technology to prepare their job applications. But, as Nicolas says, this can be both a positive and a negative situation. He explains that it's never been easier for applicants to generate multiple cover letters in a day and it’s never been easier to deceive on an application.
“People have always ‘faked’ in applications,” Nicolas says, “but more recently AI has made us need to consider whether applicants are presenting their own experiences in interviews or relying on an external source to generate them. The tools are easy to use for most people and they’re not expensive, so now you can have an applicant asking ChatGPT to give them an answer to a question or provide scenarios, and they can read it aloud. AI can also create a customised resume and cover letter, which means people can apply to, say, 40 jobs in a day. This means organisations are flooded with applications that are all AI generated.”
“There’s also the positive side of it,” Nicolas says. “People can use AI to practice for interviews now, which means if individuals are bit anxious in job interviews, they can use AI as a coach to help them prepare and present their best selves in the interview.
“There are other silver linings here too, for both applicants and the organisations they’re applying to. For companies, AI can reduce costs and make the hiring process cheaper and faster. You can process more applicants, whereas in the past, you might have only had the resources to sort through a small number of applicants. This means you can cast a wider net.”
Another key benefit Nicolas identifies is, “There are potential opportunities to make the process more fair and less biased. We all know humans can be biased when they are judging people, whether that’s in an interview or looking at a resume. An AI system can be prompted to look at things in a systematic way, like ignoring specific elements that could create bias. For example, it could be programmed to ignore age, gender, disability or race.
“And if you think about applicants who are working in a country where they are applying in a language that's not their first language, AI can level the playing field. If their writing skills aren’t on par with locals, and this doesn’t make them any less qualified for the job, they can make a better impression by removing typos or errors.”
How IO psychologists can help select the best AI tools for the job
Drawing on the knowledge and experience of IO psychologists, Nicolas says, can help organisations to choose and implement the best tools available to optimise the hiring process.
“When I talk to HR professionals, especially those who don’t have a psychology background – but who might have a business or commerce background, for example – I suggest there are four key concepts about selection we need to understand before choosing an AI tool to assist in hiring. It’s important to ask: ‘Can the tool help predict behaviours for on-the-job performance? Is the tool reliable? Can it assess the things you want it to assess precisely and effectively without too much error? Is the tool biased in some way? And, is the tool resistant to faking?’ Because an ideal tool will meet all of those criteria. It will be valid, reliable, unbiased and faking-resistant. It can be hard to find something that does all of that, but IO psychologists know what questions to ask.
“So many tech companies are developing selection tools without understanding those key principles, and if you have HR managers who are impressed by the shiny new tech but don’t know which questions to ask, it can be a big risk. This is where IO psychologists come in.”
Beyond the hiring process, many organisations are also seeking AI tools that can not only create efficiencies but also ensure a better quality of work for the people within them.
What does quality work look like in the age of AI?
Professor Sharon K Parker is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Laureate Fellow and the Director of the Centre for Transformative Work Design at Curtin University. Following decades of research, Sharon developed her renowned SMART Work model is a framework that has become influential in creating and developing positive work outcomes for organisations. Sharon defines quality work as work that’s "good for humans.”
“In a digital age, we deliberately define quality work a bit more broadly. It’s about healthy, meaningful work that’s inclusive. Quality work is also productive work. What we’re trying to do at the Centre is find the synergy between work that’s good for people and good for the organisation – and we believe that it’s possible to achieve work that is healthy, inclusive, and productive simultaneously,” she says.
The five themes for Sharon’s framework for SMART work are ‘Stimulating, Mastery, Agency, Relational and Tolerable Demands’ – and Sharon says there are opportunities for SMART work design that use AI.
“The traditional notion of technology is that it should remove the dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks, which should make work more stimulating, and the demands more tolerable. In theory, AI makes work easier and more efficient. I think it can be positive for all the aspects of SMART.”
The risks, Sharon predicts, are, “If AI takes all the dull, routine tasks, it should leave people with more interesting tasks. But what we’re also seeing is the growth of what are called ‘oversight roles.’ A classic example of this is a pilot. Once upon a time, pilots manually flew the plane, and now it’s automated so they oversee autopilot, which flies the plane. That’s an oversight role. Their role is to check that autopilot is doing the right thing effectively and jump in if there’s a problem. So, what we will see into the future is more of those roles because AI systems will increasingly do the work and then the human role will be to check that it's okay.
“But those roles are not necessarily very meaningful. They can be if they're carefully designed, but they can also be a kind of ‘leftover’ role. Watching something for hours and hours is pretty boring, and, interestingly, very fatiguing. You might think doing nothing sounds great, but it’s actually quite stressful to be watching something for hours, waiting for something to go wrong. It’s also very hard for people to keep their attention focussed for that long. So that would not only make work less stimulating, but it would make work potentially more intolerable and more demanding because you're having to pay close attention all the time.”
Sharon says workers’ autonomy could also be at risk due to AI. “Autonomy is an issue because what makes AI systems different from previous technological systems is the fact that they are self-learning and increasingly able to operate autonomously. If the machine is autonomous, it means the machine's in control – meaning the human is not.
“I think it's very much possible to, with careful work design, create roles where there is a human meaningfully in control of the system. It’s about understanding the risks.”
Reimagining quality work in a digital age: New opportunities for IO psychologists
Sharon believes IO psychologists have the ideal skillset necessary to help organisations navigate the challenges that digital-focussed workplaces can face – particularly with the introduction of AI.
“I think for IO psychologists, this should be our time. What I often think of as a one of the unique value contributions of IO psychology is that we understand multiple levels of analysis. We understand individual psychology, motivation, identity, and why people experience stress. IO psychologists have a fundamental understanding of individuals, personality, and skills, but they’re also trained to understand teams and organisations. And there are individual issues and challenges around attitudes to AI, resistance to AI, or mistrust.”
Right now, Sharon says, "Some people are experimenting with AI and learning to do great things, while other people are cognitively offloading their jobs and sort of de-skilling. Individuals use these systems differently according to their skills, preferences, motivation and knowledge, and so on. IO Psychologists can assess, ‘how do things work at that team and organisational level?’ They can think about the work design and how it flows down and affects individuals. So, I think that an understanding of both individuals and organisations, and the breadth of knowledge that IO psychologists have, could be really, really helpful.”
One misconception about IO psychologists, Sharon explains, is that they are solely concerned with wellbeing. “Wellbeing is certainly one concern, and people in the field are interested in psychosocial hazards, but IO psychologists are also taught to think about performance and productivity. So, I think that's another bridge that this discipline can span. While HR professionals traditionally focus on productivity, IO psychologists span those two different foci.”
What leaders should consider when introducing AI to their organisations
Both Nicolas and Sharon agree that well-established problem-solving skills held by IO professionals are well suited to answering questions these new technologies raise.
“I'm encouraging leaders to ask questions of work design that are grounded in the 100 years of research that we've had on human aspects of work design. Leaders of organisations need to recognise that it's really important to look at work design from a more psychological perspective, rather than through a narrow productivity or efficiency perspective. And I think that means looking at the roles that people will do with AI from a holistic sense of the quality of that role,” says Sharon.
“I’m encouraging leaders to use the SMART model as a useful synthesis of what we know really matters to human beings and what influences their motivation, their performance, their energy, and their well-being,” she adds.
The key question Sharon poses is: “How are humans and AI going to work together in a way that generates good outcomes that are also meaningful, healthy and SMART for humans?
“That's not the first thing that comes to many leaders' minds. It's often considered by information systems or technical departments driven by productivity and efficiency, and they're not really thinking about the human role. When you have thoughtful work design, achieving productivity and meaningful, healthy work for humans is possible simultaneously,” she says.
Another question Sharon poses is: who faces legal repercussions when errors occur because of AI?
“I think one of the things that's underestimated is the legal repercussions of these autonomous systems because ultimately, when something goes wrong, there needs to be a human, or set of humans, that are legally liable. You can't sue a machine, you know. There's got to be a human somewhere that is accountable and I think because of that, there will always be more need for human input than what people seem to think.”
The upshot for leaders, Sharon insists, is that “If we harness the opportunities inherent in AI, it should make work easier. Right now, we have a burnout epidemic across many sectors. Workloads are very, very high for many professionals. So perhaps, with AI used wisely, people could have more leisure time. That said, I don’t see it as ideal that humans don’t work, because I think that work brings enormous benefits to people. It's a source of identity, it's a source of connection, it's a source of purpose, and provides skill, development, and growth.
“I would never want to see a world where AI agents do everything and humans do nothing. I just don't think that will be a healthy world. Currently the balance is tipped too far, where many people are working too long and too hard. I'd love to see that AI help with that challenge. This is what I'd love to see IO psychology guiding. I'd like to see IO psychologists, who are in the psychosocial hazard space, promoting the value of work design – not purely from a psychosocial hazard perspective, but from a broader productivity space as well.”
Sharon, like Nicolas, believes, “There is a real opportunity for IO psychologists to be shaping this agenda strongly.”
To find out more about the upcoming 16th APS Industrial and Organisational Psychology Conference, visit the website.