Absolutely I see the value in taking cognitive, neuro, biological psych courses outside of IO...if for no other reason than the fact that psychology is part of the IO title. The study of human behavior, whether at work, in a clinical setting, or just in your everyday population requires an understanding of the processes that make humans feel, act, and think.

One of the best classes I ever took was intro to behavioral endocrinology. I loved the topic in general and I found myself still applying what I had learned to my thinking about employees at work. Example: Violence in the workplace - 2 months after an employee is laid off work, they go back to that office and shoot 2 coworkers. Your HR Generalist will likely go straight to "what policy can I put in place to prevent this from happening again?" IO can add value by being able to think deeper and get to the root cause of human behavior issues: What hormone shifts, cognitive processes, emotional states had to change to cause this previously "normal" employee to reach this level of outrage? What can I do to examine the cognitive, emotional, motivational factors involved in an employee termination process? How will this incident affect the motivation, performance and engagement of all employees?