How could the principles of industrial psychology be used to improve things where you work?

First off by running psychometric tests and classifying people into personality types you can know who works better with who(in a group or team), or who works better where (in what job or office). You can also identify the employees' needs and aspirations and make good use of them so the employees can work to their full potential. We also are needed to motivate employees and work on their welfare so they could keep working at their best. Motivation itself is a job that will take the most of your time as an industrial psychologist. We're also a liaison between the top managers and the employees. We report how the employees are working, their needs and complaints to the top managers. We could also be advisers for the CEO or the top managers, ever training them on how to deal with their employees (and thus the reason why a lot of industrial psychologists work in consultancy companies). We play a critical role in recruitment as well by testing the intelligence and personality of the recruits and help them adapt once they are hired. In short we play a critical role in the Human Resource Department and since the human capital is the most important workforce of a company, we're very much needed in advanced companies and consultancy companies.

For instance, doing mental evaluations to see who make good workers in your particular field, an artist preforms well in a creative environment for example.

Also screening for depression and stress can greatly reduce the work related accidents that happen.. If someone is depressed or stressed their logical thinking process will be impaired.

Aswell as doing personality tests on promotion candidates will help an employer chose the right person with the right traits for the job.

This is a really broad question. I worked in Organizational Development for a company for a while, and it was my full time job to apply the principles of industrial psych to my workplace in all areas - how our processes worked, how we set goals and evaluated them, how we evaluated employee performance and handled employee discipline.... the list could go on.

I'm sorry but I'm to dam lazy to truly answer your question so here is a link that will satisfy your curiosity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Its not that long...