My mentor, Toby Wall, who has died aged 77 of cancer, was a committed educator and scholar who made a globally significant contribution to the field of occupational psychology.
Through his research as director of the Medical Research Council Social and Applied Psychology Unit (Sapu), then its successor, the Institute of Work Psychology (IWP), over three decades at Sheffield University, Toby identified aspects of jobs that enhance workers’ motivation, health and wellbeing, transforming the quality of millions of lives. He developed new theoretical explanations for how work affects learning, as well as how, working with automated robots, human workers might retain their agency and health. These and other discoveries still resonate, with Toby’s research reminding us of the need to keep human interests front and centre in today’s digital revolution.
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