The general aptitude test battery gatb quizlet

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Learning Outcomes

After reading this chapter, you should be able to

De�ine I/O psychology.

Explain the history and evolution of I/O psychology.

Understand how positive psychology can in�luence I/O psychology practices.

Identify ways in which I/O psychology can lead to quanti�iable return on investment in human capital.

Describe the different roles I/O psychologists play in organizations.

Identify the major opportunities and challenges that I/O psychology can help organizations navigate.

1What Is Industrial/OrganizationalPsychology?

David Ridley/Getty Images

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1.1 De�ining I/O Psychology

According to the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology can be de�ined as the scienti�ic study of working and the application of that science to workplace issues facing individuals, teams, and organizations. I/O psychology uses rigorous scienti�ic methods to investigate issues of critical relevance to individuals, businesses, and society, including talent management, coaching, assessment, selection, training, organizational development, performance, and work–life balance. In other words, I/O psychology is a branch of psychology that uses methods, facts, and principles of psychology to enhance employee productivity.

I/O psychology originates from two distinct but related areas of study: industrial and organizational psychology. Industrial psychology focuses on individual-level phenomena in the workplace. This includes assessing workers’ personalities, knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) in order to match them with the right jobs; measuring and managing employee attitudes and emotions; using the right working conditions and reward systems to motivate employees; training and developing employees for their current and future roles; and ensuring that workers have healthy, safe, and balanced jobs and lives. Organizational psychology focuses on group- and organizational-level phenomena, which may occur in both work and nonwork settings. Examples include communication, negotiation, con�lict resolution, and team processes. The purpose of organizational psychology is to facilitate the understanding of interactions and relationships among individuals and collectives in order to achieve common goals.

I/O psychology is also related to several other �ields, especially in the organizational sciences. For example, business scholars in the �ield of organizational behavior are interested in similar topics—especially at the individual and group levels—such as personality traits, motivation, and group dynamics. However, their approach tends to be more conceptual or theoretical. On the other hand, scholars and practitioners in the �ield of human resources (HR) are more interested in the practical applications of I/O psychologists’ and organizational behavior specialists’ methods and tools in organizational contexts. They apply these when making quality selection decisions; designing and administering effective compensation, bene�its, training, development, and succession programs; and complying with labor laws and regulations.

The Importance of People

What is an organization’s most important asset? As you can imagine, chief executive of�icers (CEOs) and organizational leaders are asked this question all the time. Many factors in�luence an organization’s overall performance, including �inancial resources, technology, customer service, creative organizational strategies, innovative products, and superior logistics. However, there is one factor that ultimately in�luences all others and is consistently identi�ied by organizational leaders as most important: people. For example, Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Inc., once stated, “People are de�initely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.” Herb Kelleher, former CEO of Southwest Airlines, echoed this sentiment when he said:

If the employees come �irst, then they’re happy. . . . A motivated employee treats the customer well. The customer is happy so they keep coming back, which pleases the shareholders. It’s not one of the enduring . . . mysteries of all time; it is just the way it works.

What these business leaders know is that without high-quality, highly motivated employees, companies have no one to execute strategies, satisfy customers, or develop new products—and without these imperatives, they fail. Considering how important people are to an organization, managers naturally want to make sure they hire the right person for each job. However, the costs associated with �inding, hiring, and retaining employees—called people costs—are consistently among the top operating costs for companies, and these expenses continue to rise. Examples of people costs include salaries, bonuses, health care costs, bene�its, and retirement expenses.

Creating a working environment that most effectively promotes employee performance and ef�iciency is another top priority. Managers must not only hire the right people; they must keep them. In order to attract and retain employees, a manager must address many elements, including employee health and safety, group dynamics,

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leadership effectiveness, organizational communication, decision-making processes, organizational structure, and corporate culture.

As people costs rise, organizations are looking for the most effective and cost-ef�icient way to identify, develop, and retain quality personnel. The �ield of I/O psychology is uniquely suited to help with these challenges and to optimize organizations’ most important asset—their people.

Concepts in Action: Corporate Focus on Employees

Ernst & Young, a large accounting and consulting �irm, starts a "People First" program. Accounts are staffed more ef�iciently, and more people are informed of the details of each deal.

The Nature of Work

As you will learn in this course, I/O psychologists are scientists who systematically study human behavior in the context of a work environment. It is, however, impossible to study this behavior without �irst understanding the nature of the work and the environment in which it is performed.

So, then, what is work? At its most basic level, work can be described as being made up of tasks. A task is a cognitive and/or physical operation that is performed actively and with purpose. For example, tasks performed by a bank teller include greeting customers, counting money, and answering customer questions. To perform tasks, employees must use their knowledge, acquired skills, and innate abilities. A bank teller needs to understand bank processes (knowledge), have strong communication skills (skill), and possess a friendly disposition (ability).

At a more advanced level, work can be organized into a job, which is a set of related tasks or activities that are performed by one or more people. People who work the same job perform tasks that are essentially the same. Our bank teller performs almost the same tasks and activities as most other tellers in a given bank, regardless of where in the country its branches are located.

Similar jobs can be grouped into a job family. At our hypothetical bank, a bank teller job family could be composed of three levels of tellers. The tellers at each level would all perform the same basic tasks, but at each level the tasks become more challenging and complex. The total work of an organization can be divided into a number of job families, with the number depending on the complexity of the organization.

Corporate Focus on Employees From Title: 9 to 5 No Longer (https://fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?

wID=100753&xtid=40875)

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Dominique Deckmyn/CartoonStock

Some work-related terms are general and are not associated with one speci�ic organization. An occupation is a job that is, in essence, the same no matter where or for whom a person works; a person’s occupation does not depend on employment in a speci�ic organization. In fact, a person could be unemployed and still have an occupation. Examples of occupations include law, medicine, nursing, teaching, auto repair, psychology, and computer programming. The term career has a developmental connotation and refers to changes in job or organizational level over the course of a person’s work life. A person’s career, like his or her occupation, can develop at one or multiple organizations.

Tasks and jobs are not performed in a vacuum. They are embedded and develop within an organization, and many contextual factors can in�luence how work is performed. Some of these factors include culture, job design, and interpersonal relationships. People of different national cultures, for example, assign different value to individual and collective work. North American and western European cultures tend to place a higher value on individualistic goals, whereas Latin American, Asian, and African cultures tend to be more collectivist, placing a higher value on the needs, goals, and activities of the group (Hofstede, 1980; House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004; Triandis, 1989).

In addition to national culture, organizational culture can also affect tasks and jobs. Organizational culture has been de�ined as “a set of shared mental assumptions that guide interpretation and action in organizations by de�ining appropriate behavior for various situations” (Ravasi & Schultz, 2006, p. 437). Dimensions of organizational culture include shared norms, beliefs, and values. Organizational culture has a direct impact on the more transient dimensions of the organization’s climate. Organizational climate has been de�ined as “beliefs about the organization’s environment that are shared among members and to which members attach psychological meaning to help them make sense of their environment” (Dickson, Resick, & Hanges, 2006), or simply “how things are supposed to be done around here.” At the individual employee level, organizational climate in�luences psychological climate. Koys and DeCotiis (1991) de�ine psychological climate as “an experiential-based, multi-dimensional, and enduring perceptual phenomenon that is widely shared by the members of a given organizational unit. Its primary function is to cue and shape individual behavior toward modes of behavior dictated by

organizational demands” (p. 266). They identify eight speci�ic dimensions for psychological climate: autonomy, cohesion, trust, pressure, support, recognition, fairness, and innovation.

The way in which a job is designed can also have a notable impact on job performance. Typically, employees who work in jobs that are more autonomous, complex, and offer control over decision making will be more motivated to perform their best. Studying work, then, involves more than simply learning an employee’s set of tasks. It also requires understanding the ways in which contextual factors affect how work is done.

Work is not only �inancially essential; it also has social and psychological importance. Have you noticed how much time and effort we spend becoming quali�ied for work, searching for work, and, after �inding a job, working, thinking about, and talking about work—even when we don’t have to? A 2014 survey of time use by the U.S. Department of Labor (2015) found that the typical American aged 25 to 54 spent more than a third of his or her day at work.

Our work can in�luence life outside the workplace. You have probably been asked what you do. Perhaps you said you are a student pursuing a particular major or studying for a speci�ic occupation. Or, if you already have a job or an established line of work by which you identify yourself, you might have talked about that. Most of us have been asked this question, and we ask it of others—because our answers provide insight into our identity. What we learn

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about someone’s work helps us determine our potential relationship with that person and indicates how we think we should behave toward one another.

Consider This: Work Identity

Can you think of a time when you changed your perception of someone after learning what he or she does for a living?

Methods of I/O Psychology

I/O psychology is by its very nature a science. Scientists use a systematic process of examination. They are empirical, which means they rely on veri�iable observations, experimentation, and experience rather than on opinions, hunches, or private prejudices. A science is objective and therefore deals with facts that can be seen, heard, touched, measured, and recorded. The sections below elaborate on the scienti�ic method used in I/O psychology, as well as in the sciences in general.

Regarding its methods and procedures, I/O psychology attempts to be as scienti�ic as physics or chemistry. When I/O psychologists observe how people act at work, they do so in the best traditions of science: objectively, dispassionately, and systematically. Much of the subject matter of I/O psychology is observable, consisting of overt human behaviors such as movements, speech, writing, and other creative works. Observing and measuring these behaviors allows I/O psychologists to understand and draw conclusions about the people they are studying.

For example, an I/O psychologist might examine how a factory worker puts together a machine, how many keystrokes a computer clerk makes per minute, how effectively a team works together, or how a manager interacts with employees. These behaviors are overt and observable, and they can be objectively measured and recorded. The I/O psychologist might then associate these behaviors with other measurable or observable workplace characteristics such as lighting, noise levels, working hours, available tools and equipment, training and development opportunities, leadership styles, or reward systems. Based on correlations between workers’ behaviors and workplace characteristics, the I/O psychologist may conclude that factory workers’ performance is higher when they are given a particular tool set, led through a particular management style, or rewarded in a certain way. Similar conclusions can be drawn about what works best for other kinds of jobs.

Additionally, based on these kinds of observations and associations, I/O psychologists may experimentally manipulate various workplace characteristics and observe how various behaviors increase or decrease in frequency. For example, employees’ behavioral changes can be monitored as different working conditions, tools, equipment, training methods, or rewards are applied. Finally, based on conclusions from such experiments, interventions can be implemented to enhance the workplace characteristics that most strongly relate to the desired work behaviors.

Of course, not all of human existence is directly observable. Sometimes, I/O psychologists must study intangible qualities such as motives, emotions, needs, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. Fortunately, I/O psychologists have rigorous methodology to scienti�ically design and implement objective tools, techniques, and methods to accurately measure such qualities. For example, I/O psychologists have developed many tools and assessments to measure intangible characteristics such as personality traits and job attitudes; mental processes such as perceptions, interpretations, and judgments; and emotions such as various moods.

Consider This: I/O Psychology as a Science

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1. What are some examples of mental processes needed in your job? 2. What are the behaviors that give evidence of these processes?

Find Out for Yourself: Psychological Assessment

Two of the most important job attitudes I/O psychologists measure are organizational commitment and employee engagement. To become familiar with the types of psychological assessments that I/O psychologists design to evaluate employees for these qualities, visit the following links.

Organizational Commitment Scale (http://journal-bmp.de/2013/12/validation-of-the-organizational- commitment-questionnaire-ocq-in-six-languages/?lang=en)

This article offers an example of the rigorous process typically used by I/O psychologists to design an objective measure of an intangible human quality. Although the details and methods are advanced and not required for this course, reading the abstract at the beginning of the article and skimming the rest of it should give you some appreciation for this elaborate scienti�ic process.

1. Scroll down to Table 1: Items of the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire at the end of this article and attempt the assessment. Respond to each item in the �irst column on a 5-point scale (1 = totally disagree, 5 = totally agree).

2. Items denoted by (-) are reverse scored, which means that after you respond to them, a score of 1 should be converted to 5, 2 should be converted to 4, 4 to 2, and 5 to 1.

3. Calculate your average score for the 15 items, then answer the following questions.

What Did You Learn?

1. As shown in Table 4, in this study the average level of organizational commitment in the United States and Canada was 3.4. Is your level of commitment to your organization higher, lower, or comparable to this score? Why do you think this is the case?

2. If you can speak one or more of the foreign languages in this study, to what extent do you consider the translation accurate? How would you have modi�ied the items to make them more re�lective of the characteristics being measured?

Gallup’s Q12 Employee Engagement Instrument (http://strengths.gallup.com/private/Resources/Q12Meta-Analysis_Flyer_GEN_08%2008_BP.pdf)

This report is a user-friendly version of a much more complex set of studies conducted by the Gallup Organization to design and re�ine this widely used instrument for measuring employee engagement. Again, the statistical details are beyond the scope of this course, so you only need to skim them to appreciate the scienti�ic process involved. Afterward, go to pages 10 and 11 of the report and attempt the assessment. Respond to each item on a 6-point scale (1 = extremely dissatis�ied, 5 = extremely satis�ied, 0 for items to which you do not know how to respond or that do not apply to you). Then answer the following questions.

What Did You Learn?

1. How important are each of the 12 items to you personally? Explain. 2. Which of the 12 items did you score highest and lowest on? 3. What have you learned about organizational commitment and employee engagement in general and

about your own levels of each?

http://journal-bmp.de/2013/12/validation-of-the-organizational-commitment-questionnaire-ocq-in-six-languages/?lang=en
http://strengths.gallup.com/private/Resources/Q12Meta-Analysis_Flyer_GEN_08%2008_BP.pdf
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Stock Montage/Contributor/Getty Images

When Hugo Munsterberg published the �irst book on I/O psychology in 1913, he set the foundation for future research.

1.2 A Brief History of I/O Psychology

The �ield of I/O psychology formed out of circumstance and necessity. In the late 19th century, industrialism was on the rise. Businesses were facing challenges such as how to increase worker safety in factories, train workers on the new assembly lines, and optimize worker productivity. Additionally, as businesses grew larger, employers realized that they needed to �ind a way to identify and select quali�ied workers to �ill the expanding workforce. Some early psychologists saw an opportunity to apply psychological concepts to these sorts of business problems.

Key Founders of I/O Psychology

The initial foray of psychologists into industry was in advertising. American psychologist Walter Dill Scott (1869– 1955) studied how human psychology could increase the effectiveness of businesses’ advertising efforts. Scott’s two books, The Theory of Advertising (1903) and The Psychology of Advertising (1908), were the �irst to identify advertising characteristics that stimulate people’s purchasing behaviors. Interestingly, Scott found that the real problem in sales did not pertain to advertising materials, but rather to the characteristics of those employed as salespeople. Scott thus proposed that organizations needed more rigorous selection methods when hiring salespeople. This led him to start the �irst consulting practice in 1919, which provided personnel selection services to many large organizations.

Hugo Munsterberg (1863–1916), a German-born Harvard psychologist, is considered a founder of I/O psychology. He published the �irst book on industrial/organizational psychology, The Psychology of Industrial Ef�iciency, in 1913. This work set forth the major research topics of employee selection, training, vocational guidance, and the social in�luence of work during the early years of I/O psychology. As one of the �irst psychologists to conduct psychological research in business settings, Munsterberg used psychological tests both to measure employee skills and to match people to jobs. Additionally, Munsterberg was responsible for organizing the International Congress of Arts and Science at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, where visitors had the opportunity to experience new mental and physical tests (Brown, 1992).

Much early I/O psychology focused on worker productivity and ef�iciency. Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) is considered the father of scienti�ic management, which is the use of scienti�ic methods to design work that optimizes worker productivity. In his book Scienti�ic Management, Taylor (1911) outlined ways to improve both machinery and individual worker performance after observing employees at work and then analyzing his data to determine optimal job performance. Despite the success of his methods, not everyone agreed with Taylor’s scienti�ic management philosophy. Some thought his approach, which reduced jobs to speci�ic tasks and the amount of time workers should spend on each, seemed to dehumanize the worker (Hoxie, 1916).

Early I/O psychology principles became mainstream in 1915 when the �irst university-based program on the topic was founded. Walter Van Dyke Bingham (1880–1952) established a center at Carnegie Institute of Technology to study the applications of psychology to business. Called the U.S. Bureau of Salesmanship Research, the program focused on conducting research for the life insurance industry on how to select and develop salespeople, clerks, and executive personnel.

In the 1940s German scholar Kurt Lewin, now considered the father of social psychology, established several streams of applied research. Lewin developed well-recognized and widely referenced models of organizational research. For example, Lewin’s approach, which he called action research, focuses on practical applications of scienti�ic theories and rigorous methods to solve everyday problems. Lewin also proposed that organizational change is a function of forces that both promote and hinder that change. According to Lewin, organizational change involves three stages: unfreezing, where the inertia of resisting change must be overcome and existing mind-sets challenged; actual change; and refreezing, where new mind-sets are established and the new status quo becomes the

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norm. Lewin also initiated the study of group dynamics, which emphasizes groups as unique entities that may exhibit characteristics that are distinct from and go beyond their individual members (in other words, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts). Although scholars and practitioners have built more elaborate models, Lewin’s models are foundational to many contemporary theories and areas of scienti�ic research today.

Find Out for Yourself: Scienti�ic Management at a Fast-Food Restaurant

Set aside about 30 minutes this week to visit your favorite fast-food restaurant. You may want to bring along a notebook and writing utensil or some other convenient way to record your observations.

1. While there, observe the processes that the workers engage in: taking and queuing orders; division of labor; cooking and preparing the food; wrapping and bagging each item; compiling each order; adding napkins, utensils, and condiments; and delivering the order to the customer.

2. Take note of the workers’ physical movements, eye–hand coordination, and speed.

What Did You Learn?

1. What are some ways this work might be performed more ef�iciently? 2. To what extent does working at a fast-food restaurant resemble working on a factory assembly line?

Contributions to the War Efforts

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, many psychologists were commissioned to identify ways to increase soldiers’ effectiveness. Their research goal was to understand soldier morale and enhance their overall motivation. For the �irst time, psychological tests such as the Army Alpha—a group-administered cognitive ability test—were designed to identify and place enlisted soldiers. Although the war ended before the Army Alpha test data could be implemented, after the war, researchers discovered a strong relationship between soldiers’ scores on the Army Alpha and their subsequent job performance. Additionally, tests such as the Personal Data Sheet (a precursor to the modern personality test) were used throughout the war to place of�icers and other specialized personnel. After the war ended, psychologists were able to use their experiences with the army to help businesses screen employees.

During World War II psychologists again worked closely with the military, developing more sophisticated assessments. For example, the Army General Classi�ication Test was designed to evaluate and place new draftees. Other screening tests included speci�ic skill and ability tests as well as leadership-potential tests. The Of�ice of Strategic Services, predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency, commissioned psychologists to design screening tests that identi�ied candidates who were well suited for sensitive services (e.g., espionage). These assessments evaluated candidates as they completed multiple job-related exercises over the course of several days. Eventually, such screening tests evolved into the assessment centers used in the business world today.

The Hawthorne Studies: A Precursor to Human Relations

In 1924 Elton Mayo and researchers from Harvard University conducted a series of extensive studies at the Western Electric Company’s industrial plant in Hawthorne, Illinois. The Hawthorne studies, as they became known, began as straightforward studies based on scienti�ic management principles. Researchers were commissioned to study the optimal physical and social environment needed to produce maximum employee ef�iciency. For example, in one study, management was interested in optimizing the lighting levels for workers producing telephone equipment. Another study of a group of telephone-relay assemblers investigated the effects of allowing workers to choose their

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team members, varying break frequencies and lengths, providing food during breaks, varying the length of the workday, and having the workers discuss their preferences regarding these issues with their supervisors.

The results of the Hawthorne studies were unexpected, for both the researchers and the managers. The researchers found that productivity gains were unrelated to the changes researchers made to the physical environment. For example, in the illumination studies, even when lights were so dim that workers could barely see, productivity increased. In the relay-assembly experiments, every change resulted in an increase in productivity, even when the change was back to the original condition.

Researchers concluded that the physical work environment did not affect worker productivity as much as the extra attention they received during the research, which increased workers’ perception that management cared about them as individuals. Additionally, as evidenced by the relay-assembly experiments, human dimensions such as supervisory style and team dynamics were discovered to be more important than physical working conditions. Another plausible interpretation is that workers may have been concerned that management had intentions behind the experiments. For example, in another set of studies in a bank-wiring room, introducing �inancial incentives actually resulted in a decrease in productivity because workers were concerned that increasing their productivity might lead management to �ire some of them. Moreover, established group norms for productivity exerted a stronger in�luence on the workers’ behaviors than the newly introduced incentives. In all cases the physical environment was not the major in�luencing factor. Rather, the human dimensions and interpretations (positive or negative) were the key contributors to productivity changes. This notion is now often referred to as the Hawthorne effect.

The results of the Hawthorne studies changed how organizations would attempt to motivate workers. Prior to the studies, organizations designed jobs according to both scienti�ic principles and the will of management and then used incentives to get workers to comply. The Hawthorne studies made it clear that employees rejected management practices based on economic incentives. Instead, workers were motivated by feeling that they were accepted socially, held status within their work group, and would receive compassionate supervision. Out of the Hawthorne studies emerged the �ield of human relations, which studies the factors that produce motivated and satis�ied employees. I/O psychologists began to explore topics such as effective leadership, quality communication, group formation, employee attitudes, and other factors that improve worker ef�iciency and job satisfaction.

Consider This: The Hawthorne Effect

Can you think of a time when the Hawthorne effect occurred in your work setting?

Postwar, 20th-Century Approaches

Following World War II large organizations began to leverage I/O psychologists’ capabilities. I/O psychologists began to focus on different aspects of worker effectiveness, which resulted in a number of subspecialties, including personnel psychology, human factors psychology, and organizational psychology. During the 1960s and 1970s, organizations began using groups to accomplish work, and I/O psychologists were instrumental in developing tools and techniques needed to understand and deploy large, task-orientated groups. Additionally, I/O psychologists began to assess how an organization’s structure and operation affects its employees. These and related inquiries grew into the study of organizational development, a systematic approach to organizational-level change and improvement. At the time, it included such topics as participative management, self-managing teams, employee empowerment, and employee feedback, but has since evolved to include a variety of other areas as well.

A number of work-related laws have passed since the 1960s that have increased organizations’ need for I/O psychologists. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other civil rights legislation, the courts have required employers to develop recruiting, selection, and promotion procedures that are job relevant and

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antidiscriminatory. Many employers have concluded that to comply with this and subsequent antidiscrimination legislation, and to successfully defend themselves against employment discrimination lawsuits, they need I/O psychologists to help them validate their hiring and promotional practices. Today I/O psychologists are often used as expert witnesses in trials about civil rights violations because of their ability to prove the validity of an organization’s selection practices.

Find Out for Yourself: The Civil Rights Act and Discrimination

The Our Documents website provides free access to historic American documents. Visit the website to access a transcript of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

1964 Civil Rights Act (http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=97&page=transcript)

What Did You Learn?

1. Against which protected classes does the act prohibit discrimination? 2. What are some of the implications of Title VII—which is speci�ic to employment—for organizations

in terms of recruitment, selection, training, promotion, and termination processes? 3. Why is it important for an I/O psychologist to understand Title VII?

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=97&page=transcript
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1.3 Emerging 21st-Century Perspectives

The changing business landscape continuously presents opportunities and challenges regarding an organization’s most important asset—its people. As discussed earlier, the science of I/O psychology can help managers and organizations formulate new theoretical frameworks and methods for effectively navigating these uncharted territories. Two emerging perspectives that are particularly pertinent for I/O psychologists are positive psychology and quantifying the return on investment (ROI) in human capital. These two topics are introduced in this section and will be revisited throughout the text.

Positive Psychology

One of the major challenges I/O psychologists face today is mainstream psychological training’s focus on curing mental illness and dealing with dysfunctional thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Before World War II psychology was believed to have three missions: healing mental illness, helping healthy people become happier and more productive, and achieving full human potential. However, by the end of the war, healing mental illness had received the majority of resources and attention due to the tremendous amount of psychological damage caused by the war. In the meantime, psychology’s other two missions had been nearly forgotten. As a result, by the end of the 20th century, psychologists had made signi�icant strides in diagnosing and treating hundreds of mental problems but only limited progress in understanding and capitalizing on human strengths (Keyes & Haidt, 2003; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).

Problems With the Disease Model Although important for the good of society, healing mental illness follows what has been referred to as a “disease model.” There are two problems with this. The �irst is that the disease model is problem focused; it seeks to bring troubled individuals and low performers back to average. However, in the highly competitive business world, employers need employees who can deliver superior performance and execute the organization’s strategic initiatives with excellence. Freedom from pathological symptoms such as depression is not enough in itself to lead to this type of exceptional performance (Keyes & Haidt, 2003).

The second problem with the disease model is that even if psychology’s greatest contribution is in healing mental illness, most psychological theories and practices cannot be applied to the business context. Struggling organizations are not sick people. Organizations are made up of diverse individuals who have varying interests, motivations, strengths, and vulnerabilities. These organizational characteristics are to be appreciated and leveraged. They are not problems to be solved (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2005).

Via the popular press, thousands of positively oriented self-improvement and management best-sellers became available in the absence of a widely recognized method of positive organizational psychology. Some of that literature, such as Gallup’s strengths-based approach (Rath, 2007) and the Q12 measure of engagement (Wagner & Harter, 2006), is based on the scienti�ic methods discussed earlier. Both of these methods have shown success in predicting superior performance at work and in many other areas of life such as academics and relationships, as well as in increasing business-unit pro�itability (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002). However, the majority of self-improvement and management literature is speculative, anecdotal, and based more on folk psychology than on rigorous scienti�ic research.

Business consultants have found that positive approaches appeal to their clients and constitute a great source of revenue for their consultancies, which has led to the popularity of many unfounded management fads by those who are less discerning or familiar with scienti�ic methods. In their seminal book Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense (2006), Stanford professors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton uncover many of those lies that managers believe and act on, to the detriment of their organizations. Pfeffer and Sutton call for what is known as evidence-based management—practices that are based on rigorous scienti�ic research and consistently deliver real results. Evidence-based management has become an important way to bridge the gap between rigorous scienti�ic research and organizational practice (Latham, 2009a; Rousseau, 2012).

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Psychological capital increases a person’s con�idence, optimism, hope, and resiliency,

Seligman Calls for a Positive Approach Fortunately, around the turn of the 21st century, former president of the American Psychological Association Martin Seligman called for a “positive psychology” that brings back psychology’s two forgotten missions: helping healthy people become happier and more productive, and achieving full human potential. His call was well received, and positive psychological research and practice has grown exponentially over the past decade. Examples can be found in seminal references such as Handbook of Positive Psychology (Lopez & Snyder, 2016) and Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classi�ication (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). This is not to say that psychology was a negative science prior to the positive psychology movement. However, negativity was widespread, and it was time for a more balanced perspective.

The positive psychology movement triggered a ripple effect across the business world. Organizational research and practice is generally positive, because organizations deal primarily with healthy and productive people. Extremely dysfunctional or disturbed individuals are unlikely to hold a job. Thus, positive psychology is appropriate for the target population of I/O psychology.

Two Approaches: POS and POB Speci�ically, two approaches have developed in organizational science over the past decade. The �irst is positive organizational scholarship (POS), which focuses on positive organizations as a whole. Cameron and Caza (2004) de�ine POS as a “movement in organizational science that focuses on the dynamics leading to exceptional individual and organizational performance such as developing human strength, producing resilience and restoration, and fostering vitality” (p. 731). POS is making signi�icant strides in the scienti�ic understanding of positive dynamics such as positive individual attributes, positive emotions, strengths and virtues, positive relationships, positive HR practices, positive organizational practices, and positive leadership and change (Cameron & Spreitzer, 2012).

The second approach is positive organizational behavior (POB), which focuses on the positivity of individual managers and employees. Luthans (2002b) de�ines POB as “the study and application of positively oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, developed, and effectively managed for performance improvement in today’s workplace” (p. 59). POB emphasizes the scienti�ic criteria of theory, application, measurement, and development. In other words, for a psychological capacity to be included in POB, it has to be positive, scienti�ically testable, applicable to the workplace, measurable, and developmental. Four speci�ic psychological capacities have been found to �it these criteria: con�idence, hope, optimism, and resilience. These capacities have been integrated into what has been termed “psychological capital.”

Psychological Capital Psychological capital (PsyCap) has been de�ined as:

an individual’s positive psychological state of development that is characterized by: (1) having con�idence (self-ef�icacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resiliency) to attain success. (Luthans, Youssef-Morgan, & Avolio, 2015, p. 2)

Unlike many positive but unfounded management fads, PsyCap has been shown to relate to many of the outcomes that I/O psychologists wish to help their organizations realize: higher productivity, job satisfaction, organizational

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which can lead to increased performance at work.

commitment, and employee well-being; more frequent organizational citizenship behaviors; lower cynicism, stress, anxiety, and turnover intentions; and less frequent counterproductive work behaviors (Avey, Reichard, Luthans, & Mhatre, 2011). Positivity and positive interventions have been applied in many organizations around the world, including manufacturing, hospitality, franchise, banking, insurance, marketing, health care, telecommunications, aviation, aerospace, military, police, sports, oil and gas, education, government, nongovernmental organizations, and nonpro�its. A notable example is the Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness training program, established in 2008 by the U.S. Army to proactively build resilience in soldiers and their families as a preventative measure and a positive alternative to the prevailing reactive treatment programs (Seligman & Matthews, 2011). The U.S. military made large investments in developing and evaluating this program, and empirical studies provide evidence to support the ef�icacy of these initiatives in building positivity, buffering negativity, and promoting well-being among those serving in stressful and mission-critical roles (Krasikova, Lester, & Harms, 2015; Schaubroeck, Riolli, Peng, & Spain, 2011).

Figure 1.1: Psychological capital

Many people use a variety of social networking sites to stay connected with friends, family, former classmates, and colleagues.

Consider This: Positivity and Negativity

1. Describe an instance in which you received positive feedback. 2. Recall and describe your thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors after receiving the positive

feedback. What were some of the outcomes of positivity? 3. Describe an instance in which you received negative feedback. 4. Recall and describe your thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors after receiving the negative

feedback. What were some of the outcomes of negativity?

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It is important to acknowledge that positivity and negativity are not opposite sides of the same coin; they operate very differently. Cameron (2008) notes a paradox: On the one hand, humans are attracted to what is positive and pleasant. On the other hand, there is a prevalent bias toward negativity. Negativity tends to grasp more of our attention and physical, mental, and emotional resources. This is because negativity indicates an urgent de�iciency to be addressed and resolved. Positivity implies “business as usual,” which provides limited motivation for change. That is why balancing positivity and negativity requires intentional effort. In other words, both positivity and negativity are necessary, and while positivity is more appealing, negativity can be necessary for change.

Quantifying the ROI in Human Capital

Beyond positive psychology, there is an increasing emphasis in business practice on employee well-being, not only as a valuable and worthwhile pursuit in its own right but also as a strategic opportunity to earn signi�icant returns on investment in terms of reduced health care costs, increased engagement and commitment, and enhanced productivity (Cascio & Boudreau, 2011). In other words, human resources are increasingly being recognized as assets and a form of capital rather than just an expense.

However, quantifying the ROI in human capital is another area that I/O psychologists struggle with as they �ind themselves increasingly expected to link psychological measures to �inancial outcomes, especially in today’s tight economy. Strategic investments in human assets can yield quanti�iable returns on practices such as effective selection, training, and performance management. When I/O psychologists understand the methods of quantifying such returns, they are in a better position to effectively in�luence �inancial and HR allocations in their organizations.

As discussed earlier, both the popular psychology and business literatures include signi�icant amounts of unsubstantiated advice. I/O psychologists strive to correct many of these misconceptions and educate managers and organizational decision makers. Unfortunately, many managers believe that managing is more of an art than a science, which can lead them to make subjective decisions based on hunches, personal opinions, or politics and ignore the research that can lead to effective, evidence-based management (Latham, 2009a; Rousseau, 2012).

Furthermore, many managers believe that people are impossible to measure, quantify, predict, and explain. The problem with this notion is that no matter how important you believe people are, if you cannot quantify the ROI in them, they will be viewed as an expense. Resources and attention will then be allocated to more tangible assets that have quanti�iable returns on investment, and it may no longer be desirable to invest in people. When people are viewed as only an expense, they are often considered expendable, especially in tough economic conditions, as evidenced by the massive layoffs and high unemployment rates that characterized the Great Recession.

Jeffery Pfeffer and Robert Sutton (2000) refer to this thinking as the knowing–doing gap. Pfeffer’s (1998) earlier book, The Human Equation, built a convincing case for the quanti�iable ROI in human assets. He showed that about half of all organizations believe that people are their most important asset. Within this half, about half act on their belief. They implement systems and policies that show they value their people. Then within that quarter, about half stick to their beliefs and actions, even under business pressures to abandon their beliefs in order to cut costs or reallocate their investments. Interestingly, over the years, this one eighth has shown superior results on every measure of pro�itability, ef�iciency, and effectiveness when compared to the other seven eighths. The lesson: People do matter, and with the right measures, their value is quanti�iable. Latham (2009a) offers speci�ic areas for evidence- based management, such as using the right tools to hire high-performing employees, training and development to create high-performing teams, and motivating employees to be high performers. I/O psychology uses rigorous scienti�ic methods such as experimental designs and statistical analyses to help employers develop and use the right measures to quantify the ROI in people.

Find Out for Yourself: Human Assets and Human Costs

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Every year, Fortune magazine publishes a list of America’s largest corporations. Visit the website to �ind out which corporations are on the current Fortune 500 list.

Fortune 500 (http://beta.fortune.com/fortune500)

What Did You Learn?

1. According to Fortune’s methodology, what are the selection criteria and some indicators of these organizations’ performance?

2. Visit the websites of several Fortune 500 companies of your choosing. Read their mission, vision, and values statements. How many of them refer to people as one of their assets?

3. Take a look at the �inancial statements of those companies that are publicly traded. How much did they spend last year on people costs? Look for payroll, bene�its, training and development, and similar expenses.

4. How do these expenses compare to other expenses and investments for each company?

http://beta.fortune.com/fortune500
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1.4 The Role of I/O Psychologists

As previously discussed, I/O psychologists use psychological principles to improve employee performance. They do this by using a variety of methods that span various stages of an employee’s relationship with an organization, also referred to as the employee life cycle. These stages are introduced in this section and will be covered throughout the text.

Employee Selection Tools and Practices

Selecting employees requires tools that help identify the most quali�ied job candidates in a fair and unbiased manner. I/O psychologists study a job’s requirements and then develop job-speci�ic interviews and psychological tests that meet strict scienti�ic criteria. These topics are discussed in detail in Chapters 2 and 3.

Employee Performance Evaluations

Most organizations use some method to evaluate employee job performance, and they often base promotions, pay increases, transfers, and dismissals on these appraisals. Naturally, it is extremely important that performance evaluations be based on data that is as fair and objective as possible and not on a supervisor’s individual likes and dislikes. I/O psychologists design evaluations that avoid the potential pitfalls of subjectivity and personal preference. Designing and implementing high-quality performance evaluations are covered in detail in Chapter 4.

Find Out for Yourself: The Employee Life Cycle

Figure 1.2 provides an example of the employee life cycle. While each of these stages is discussed in detail in one or more chapters of this book, it will be helpful to familiarize yourself with them early on. Keep in mind that there are similarities and differences in employee life cycles across various jobs and industries. While the cycle is largely the same, the speci�ic processes have subtle but important differences.

Figure 1.2: The employee life cycle model

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Employee Training and Development

One of the constants in the working world is that things are constantly changing. Technology, products, strategies, services—so much about a job can change so rapidly that all employees must continue to learn, rookies and veterans alike. I/O psychologists research and develop the most effective ways to train employees and maximize transfer of knowledge to the learner. You will learn about these topics in Chapter 5.

Employee Motivation

Many aspects of the work environment affect employee motivation, such as pay, bene�its, recognition, job security, the quality of leadership, and the physical and psychological work climate. I/O psychologists work to identify and modify these conditions and others in order to provide motivating jobs and work environment. Chapter 6 addresses work motivation.

Organizational Processes

I/O psychologists are concerned with studying, understanding, facilitating, and increasing the effectiveness of organizational processes such as leadership, communication, decision making, problem solving, creativity, and group dynamics. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 focus on these critical organizational processes.

Employee Safety and Wellness

Managers are constantly searching for ways to increase worker productivity. Workers who feel safe, have an appropriate work–life balance, and are healthy tend to be the most productive. I/O psychologists help organizations create work environments that support employee health and wellness and reduce the damaging effects of physical hazards as well as the psychological risks of excessive stress and burnout. These topics are covered in Chapter 10.

Organizational Outcomes

The principles and methodology of I/O psychology can be an organization’s most important tool as it attempts to achieve the greatest return on its most important asset—its people. I/O psychologists recognize that pro�it and �inancial performance are valuable indicators of an organization’s success, even in not-for-pro�it enterprises. Even if �inancial success were an organization’s only reason for hiring an I/O psychologist, the organization’s managers would soon discover that they had made a good investment. The following section offers some ways in which I/O psychologists can contribute to an organization’s bottom line.

Reducing Employee Turnover Consider the costly problem of employee turnover. Whenever an employee quits, the company loses the investment it made in recruiting, selecting, and training that person. The company must then spend additional money to hire and train a replacement, during which time the company is short an employee. The ultimate cost of turnover can reach three times the original employee’s salary (Cascio, 2000). Programs devised and applied by I/O psychologists can improve retention and reduce turnover. For example, at Mutual of Omaha, a Fortune 500 company that provides insurance and �inancial services, a successful turnover reduction program reduced turnover by 15%, which in turn yielded $250,000 in savings for 3 consecutive years (Noon, 2004). Even in minimum wage jobs, replacing an employee has been found to cost as much as $5,000 (Mushrush, 2016).

Reducing Absenteeism

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Bradford Veley/CartoonStock

Another costly problem organizations face is absenteeism. Organizations lose a large amount of money when their employees don’t show up for work: projects stall, customers can’t be helped, and products can’t be made or sold. According to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and Kronos Inc., U.S. companies spent over 20% of their payroll in 2013 on costs associated with absenteeism. European companies spent almost double that percentage (Lacapo, 2014). Examples of these expenses include the cost of hiring temporary workers or paying overtime to existing workers. Temporary workers cost about 15% more than permanent workers, and overtime can cost 30% to 40% more than the regular rate. Also keep in mind that replacement workers are only 70% to 80% as ef�icient as permanent workers and that absenteeism slows down the productivity of coworkers by about 20% (Bass & Fleury, 2011).

I/O psychologists can devise and apply techniques that reduce absenteeism, resulting in substantial savings for a business. For example, a nonpro�it hospital with 3,000 employees estimated that it saved $50,000 in 1 year simply by heeding a consulting psychologist’s advice to implement a positive incentive program to control absenteeism. In this program, employees were allowed to convert some of their unused paid sick leave into additional pay or paid vacation time (Schlotzhauer & Rose, 1985). The original use-it-or-lose-it policy may have triggered excessive sick leave and an entitlement mentality in which employees used their sick-leave days whether they were sick or not. In another study, contingent rewards such as public feedback and �inancial incentives were shown to successfully reduce unplanned absences among grocery store employees (Camden, Prince, & Ludwig, 2011).

In times of economic instability, however, many employees do not use their paid time off in order to cash it in, or even forfeit much-needed sick leave and vacation time for fear of losing their jobs, which can be detrimental to health and well-being. For example, much like how sleep

is necessary for optimal functioning, vacations have a similar positive impact on physical, mental, and psychological health (de Bloom, Radstaak, & Geurts, 2014). Thus, a balance is needed between strict attendance policies and �lexibility to allow workers to stay healthy, recover from illness, and attend to personal matters.

Improving Employee Attitudes Research also shows that positive employee attitudes such as job satisfaction, engagement, and organizational commitment can reduce grievances and other labor disputes as well as decrease absenteeism, turnover, work slowdowns, faulty products, and accidents. These are major �inancial concerns for businesses today. Research by the Gallup Organization, such as the Q12 employee engagement report you reviewed earlier, strongly supports that organizations with high employee-engagement scores have 3.9 times the earnings per share growth rate of organizations with lower employee engagement scores (Harter et al., 2002). Thus, corporate leaders call on I/O psychologists to improve employees’ attitudes toward both their jobs and their organization as a whole.

Consider This: Your Dream Job

Imagine that you have the opportunity to design your dream job. Make a list of all the characteristics this job would have: title, duties and responsibilities, salary, bene�its, incentives, working conditions, performance standards, promotion criteria, who you will report to, and how many employees you will manage (if any).

Questions to Consider

1. What KSAOs can you bring to this job? What should be the selection criteria for the right candidate for this job?

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2. What do you expect your attitudes to be toward your job and your organization? Will you be satis�ied? Engaged? Motivated? Happy? Committed?

3. What do you expect your behaviors to be if you get this job? Will you go above and beyond your direct responsibilities to give better service to your customers? Will you volunteer for additional projects that help your organization grow, even if you do not receive additional compensation for them? Will you consider leaving the organization for a better offer?

Maintaining Employee Rights and Dignity Creating jobs and work environments that maintain workers’ human rights and dignity is a critical mission within I/O psychology. I/O psychologists help organizations maintain their employees’ legal rights by complying with labor laws that pertain to various aspects of the workplace, such as hiring and �iring, compensation and bene�its, training and development, promotions and discipline, and others that you will learn about throughout this text.

However, legal compliance is not suf�icient to show workers respect and dignity. A person’s work life is critical for his or her self-identity and self-esteem (Gioia, Patvardhan, Hamilton, & Corley, 2013). Employees perceive themselves to be treated with dignity when their employers go beyond the letter of the law to provide jobs that offer additional dimensions such as meaningful work, personal accountability, and respectful treatment from those who supervise and lead them (Rucci, 2008).

What can I/O psychologists do to enhance employee dignity? One factor they can help improve is employees’ feeling that they have contributed to the organization’s success, which studies have shown in�luences job satisfaction. I/O psychologists can work with organizations to establish a closer �it between workers’ skills and key job requirements so that workers are able to use their skills and abilities to perform their jobs successfully. As discussed earlier, these factors have been shown to increase organizational commitment and employee engagement, with notable impact on the organization’s bottom line.

Employee dignity is also enhanced by employee-centered leaders. I/O psychologists have discovered that leaders who show an interest in their employees’ development, empower and challenge their employees, and encourage creative work can enhance employee dignity by creating a compelling, purposeful organizational environment. Employee-centered leaders not only elicit greater performance from their workers that translates into company pro�its (Colbert, Kristof-Brown, Bradley, & Barrick, 2008); they also have more productive, satis�ied, and committed employees, as well as high-performing teams and organizations (Banks, McCauley, Gardner, & Guler, 2016).

Consider This: Employee-Centered Leaders

1. Who is or was your favorite leader or mentor? What characteristics did you value in this person? 2. Think about the way this leader related to you or others. What made the strongest impact on you,

and why? 3. Who is or was the worst leader you have ever had? Why?

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1.5 I/O Psychology as a Profession

I/O psychology is a diverse �ield with a variety of professional opportunities. Many I/O psychologists work in business positions that deal with worker productivity, employee training and assessment, and HR. Others work in research or hold academic positions. For the experienced I/O psychologist, consulting is another option. But regardless of which position an I/O psychologist decides to pursue, the �irst step is to obtain the appropriate experience.

Educational, Licensing, and Certi�ication Requirements

I/O psychologists actively contribute to the workplace with both their research and applications. However, to be able to contribute effectively, they need to be appropriately educated and trained. Based on the results of the SIOP 2016 Income & Employment Survey (Poteet, Parker, Herman, DuVernet, & Conley, 2017), there is a strong emphasis in the �ield of I/O psychology on completing higher education. For example, most SIOP members have at least a master’s degree, and the majority have a doctorate. This trend is re�lective of the psychology profession in general. Most psychologists �ind it necessary to earn graduate degrees and professional certi�ications in order to advance their careers or further the scope of their practices. Therefore, education and experience are highly valued in this profession.

Although there is no speci�ic licensure for I/O professionals and the current licensure tests are weighted heavily in the clinical domain, I/O psychologists who are licensed in speci�ic �ields are in higher demand than nonlicensed ones, and they earn signi�icantly more (Poteet et al., 2017). Examples of licenses and certi�ications pursued by I/O psychologists include licenses in clinical, counseling, and school psychology; HR professional certi�ications granted through the SHRM or the Human Resource Certi�ication Institute; training and development certi�ications granted through the Association for Talent Development (ATD; formerly the American Society for Training and Development); and nonpsychology certi�ications such as Project Management and Lean Six Sigma (quality management and continuous improvement). Each of these licenses and certi�ications requires a preset number of examinations and professional development hours. Finally, many of the licenses are state governed and may vary from state to state.

Find Out for Yourself: State- and Domain-Speci�ic Licensures

The American Counseling Association website provides links to various state licensing boards. Visit the website to research licensure requirements in your own state or for any state you would consider working in.

American Counseling Association: Licensure & Certi�ication (http://www.counseling.org/knowledge- center/licensure-requirements/state-professional-counselor-licensure-boards)

Career Paths for I/O Psychologists

According to the SIOP 2016 Income & Employment Survey (Poteet et al., 2017), about 51% of I/O psychologists work in the private sector, with the majority of this group working for consulting �irms. Another 28.8% hold academic positions in educational institutions. Only 8.8% work for the public sector, and another 5.5% work for nonpro�its. The majority of I/O psychologists in�luence business organizations directly through their employment or consulting, or indirectly by teaching future generations of I/O psychologists or conducting research that can bene�it the practice of I/O psychology in organizations.

http://www.counseling.org/knowledge-center/licensure-requirements/state-professional-counselor-licensure-boards
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Business Organizations Many private sector business organizations now hire I/O psychologists, including manufacturing, health care, pharmaceuticals, retail, transportation, banking, insurance, energy, and information technology (see Table 1.1). An I/O psychologist’s role depends on the job site. For example, in manufacturing and health care, roles may relate more to safety and wellness. In high-volume retail and mass transportation, emphasis may be placed on logistics and business process ef�iciencies, such as increasing productivity and quality and reducing waste. Banking and insurance may emphasize mainstream HR functions such as employee selection, training, and performance appraisal.

Table 1.1: I/O psychology job types and hiring organizations

Job types Hiring organizations

Management Consultant AppleOne

Organizational Development Consultant FedEx Of�ice and Print Services, Inc.

Compensation Analyst GM Financial

Project Manager Bio-Rad Laboratories

Leadership Selection and Assessment Specialist Cisco

Research Manager J.D. Power and Associates

Senior User Experience Researcher Macy’s

Human Resources Analyst Vertafore

Talent Acquisition Recruiter ACCO Brands

Executive Compensation Consultant Allstate

Operational Psychologist Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.

Manager, Talent Acquisition Comcast

Most Fortune 100 companies maintain in-house I/O psychologists. I/O psychologists may occupy positions in the HR department, such as vice president of HR, HR director, and HR manager; or they may specialize in selection, compensation, training, bene�its, performance appraisal, safety, or wellness. They can also hold consultative, research, or project-based positions such as organizational development specialist, personnel psychologist, compensation analyst, project manager, behavioral scientist, or senior researcher.

Consulting Firms I/O psychologists can be the sole owners of consulting �irms. They can also have partners with whom they jointly own the consulting practice. Some I/O psychologists may also be employed by consulting �irms without having any ownership interest in those �irms. They may occupy senior leadership, middle management, or entry-level positions in these �irms.

Typically, consulting �irms that employ I/O psychologists provide the same types of services discussed earlier (selection, training, performance management, and organizational change) for organizations that prefer to outsource these services to external consultants rather than hiring I/O psychologists to perform these services in-house. An organization that has full-time I/O psychologists and other HR professionals on its payroll may also seek the services of a consulting �irm for highly specialized or complex business needs. Furthermore, an external consulting �irm may be hired to back up and enhance the credibility of the initiatives pioneered in-house. Small companies that cannot afford to staff in-house I/O psychologists full time may hire consultants for speci�ic projects, such as to design a performance appraisal system or a training program.

Academic Institutions

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Similar to those in most positions within higher education, I/O psychologists typically have a doctorate degree, and most often progress through the academic titles of assistant professor, associate professor, full professor, emeritus professor, and department chair. Some academics also occupy the nonpermanent roles of lecturer or adjunct professor, often in conjunction with other employment or during career transitions. Others progress to administrative roles in academic institutions such as college dean, provost, vice president, or president.

Like many academics, I/O psychologists who work in academia have three primary roles: teaching, research, and service. Although teaching is the most visible role, academically oriented I/O psychologists spend a substantial portion of their time and energy conducting research to further knowledge in their �ields. They also serve in many capacities within and outside their employing organizations. For example, they can serve on expert panels in academic, professional, industry, community, and political settings and as editors and reviewers of academic and popular publications.

Government, Public, and Nonpro�it Organizations I/O psychologists are frequently hired in federal and local government organizations. The U.S. Of�ice of Personnel Management, which is responsible for placement, training, and conducting background checks for government jobs, develops and implements all selection tests for civil service jobs (e.g., Postal Service, air traf�ic control, Border Patrol). I/O psychologists also play an important role for state and municipal governments. Because these entities are held to a high standard when selecting state and local civil servants such as police and �ire�ighters, I/O psychologists are tasked with selecting personnel who meet state and local civil service requirements.

Similarly, the U.S. military uses I/O psychologists to execute its extensive testing program, and the U.S. Army Research Institute employs some of the top I/O psychology researchers. Their mission is to apply research related to leadership, motivation, personnel replacement, and human–machine interaction to create the most competent military in the world. The U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and other armed forces also employ I/O psychologists to design and assess training and to monitor important well-being indicators such as post-traumatic stress disorder. I/O psychologists who work or consult for the military often need to obtain and maintain security clearances and are given permission to access classi�ied information only after completing a thorough background check.

Find Out for Yourself: I/O Psychology as a Career

Review the following websites, then answer the questions that follow.

What Do I/O Psychologists Really Do? (http://www.siop.org/psychatwork.aspx)

Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology JobNet (http://www.siop.org/jobnet/default.aspx)

Society for Human Resource Management Jobs (http://jobs.shrm.org/)

What Did You Learn?

1. Which industries are currently hiring I/O psychologists? 2. What are some common themes? What do you think it takes to land a job as an I/O psychologist? 3. If you were to choose I/O psychology as a career, what are some of the tasks you might perform? 4. How could you as an I/O psychologist help a past, current, or future employer achieve his or her

�inancial objectives? What speci�ic activities would you perform for this organization?

http://www.siop.org/psychatwork.aspx
http://www.siop.org/jobnet/default.aspx
http://jobs.shrm.org/
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Hemera/Thinkstock

The U.S. workforce is becoming increasingly diverse, with more women and minorities seeking employment. This offers organizations the opportunity to leverage the skills of a diverse workforce in ways that bene�it the company.

1.6 Organization Challenges and Opportunities for I/O Psychology

Today’s organizations face a greater rate of change than ever before, in terms of economic and demographic factors, technology, and leadership. These realities pose a number of challenges and opportunities.

Economic Factors

The collapse of the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s and early 2000s left many technology workers displaced or underemployed. The current economy has led to instability among organizations and their employees, and the 2008 economic crisis and slow recovery have forced many companies to rethink their business strategies. The ever- expanding global marketplace has not only challenged domestic companies to create innovative products faster and bring them to market sooner, it has also led U.S. jobs to be increasingly outsourced to countries where labor is less expensive. The oil and gas industry is facing unprecedented competitive challenges, leading to across-the-board layoffs and economic problems in states such as Texas. Massive federal student loans and limited employment prospects are anticipated to lead to another economic downturn as the default rate increases, expanding the already ballooning government debt.

I/O psychologists have an important role to play in such hard economic times. They can serve members of the workforce by facilitating their placement, onboarding, and continuous development. Examples of an I/O psychologist’s work in these areas include redesigning jobs to increase ef�iciency, effectiveness, productivity, and global competitiveness; retraining displaced employees; redesigning jobs to capitalize on existing skill sets; and rethinking training and development to emphasize transferable competencies rather than narrow skills.

Demographic Factors

Within the United States the demographic makeup of the workforce is rapidly changing. For example, in 2011, for the �irst time in American history, there were 1 million more female than male college graduates, meaning more women are expected to enter the workforce (Francese, 2011). Moreover, for the �irst time in history, the workplace includes �ive generations working side by side: the traditionalists, born before 1946; the baby boomers, born from 1946 to 1964; Generation X, born from 1965 to 1976; Generation Y, also referred to as millennials, born from 1977 to 1997; and now Generation Z, born after 1997 and just entering the workforce (Meister & Willyerd, 2010). Many traditionalists and baby boomers delayed their retirement due to increased life expectancy, better health, and depleted savings as a result of the 2008 economic recession. However, many are now retiring or will be retiring soon, and the millennial generation is replacing them at record pace. With 80 million millennials, 1 in every 2 employees in today’s workforce belongs to this group, which is predicted to constitute 75% of the global workforce by 2025 (Schawbel, 2013). In a few years, similar trends are anticipated for Generation Z.

These demographic changes are resulting in two trends. First, as the traditionalists and baby boomers leave the workforce, organizations experience a “brain drain.” Potential replacements must go through a steep learning curve to acquire the same levels of knowledge, skills, and experience needed to adequately replace baby boomer and traditionalist retirees. Second, millennials and Generation Z differ in their mind-sets, priorities, and work expectations, which will likely result in notable changes in jobs and organizational structures, cultures, and processes to �it these generations’ workstyle, attitudes, and motivations. For example, millennials are independent,

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creative, and technologically savvy. They do not trust or defer to authority as readily as previous generations did. They have higher expectations of their employers that go beyond pay and bene�its, including being socially responsible and making a difference in the world. They view work as a means to an end, with the end being personal ful�illment and a meaningful, balanced life. Generation Z is even more technologically savvy, but more calculating and �inancially minded. These changes are strongly aligned with I/O psychologists’ training in job and organizational design, workforce development, and performance management, which can facilitate the necessary adaptations of jobs and organizations to meet millennials’ needs and aspirations.

Find Out for Yourself: Millennials and Generation Z

Watch the following two videos for additional insights about millennials and Generation Z.

Millennials Now Biggest Part of Workforce (http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/millennials-now-biggest- part-of-workforce/)

Gen-Z Matters More Than Millennials (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyz6-taovlaOkPsPtK4KNEg? v=Y8mZx4o32vs)

What Did You Learn?

1. Are these videos re�lective of you or of members of these two generations that you know? 2. Do you �ind it easier/harder to work with one particular generation than the others? In what ways?

In addition to gender and age changes, workforce demographics are becoming more ethnically diverse. The 2010 census shows that persons of color, including African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans, account for 35% of the population. By 2042 this number will climb even higher, with Caucasians predicted to constitute only 42% of the population. These demographic changes also in�luence the levels of education in the workforce, which, although increasing across the board, tend to be substantially lower among ethnic minorities (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016).

Although attainment of higher levels of education is on the rise, the quality and competitiveness of U.S. education is declining rapidly. When compared to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development averages, U.S. high school students rank as average or below average in math, science, and reading, behind China, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, and a number of western and eastern European countries (Ryan, 2013). As attainment of higher education levels increases while quality decreases, wages and job-related educational requirements have to be adjusted accordingly, as do training needs to �ill knowledge gaps. I/O psychologists are well positioned to help equip future generations of employees with the competencies they need to be successful despite educational de�iciencies. Collaboration between employers and educational institutions is also growing in an attempt to improve the rigor and relevance of education, which opens doors for I/O psychologists to contribute to the quality and competitiveness of education.

Technology

With the help of portable technology and instant telecommunications, organizations are increasingly hiring employees who work off-site, whether across town or across the globe. These workers can telecommute from a home of�ice, e-mail and text message from a coffee shop, telephone from an airport while traveling, or teleconference

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/millennials-now-biggest-part-of-workforce/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyz6-taovlaOkPsPtK4KNEg?v=Y8mZx4o32vs
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from a hotel room. This dramatic shift in where and how people work is an outgrowth of the information age, and I/O psychologists must help organizations transition to a virtual work environment by creating effective tools for selecting people who will be successful in it. They must also train managers how to effectively coach, manage, and communicate with employees they may never meet face-to-face.

Moreover, social media has become a primary source of attracting, hiring, and retaining talent. For example, companies such as Google use social media to create “alumni networks” in order to stay in touch with former employees. Using social media to recruit, select, and retain employees is a prime area for I/O psychology research and application.

Leadership Challenges

Leaders in today’s organizations are faced with a number of challenges, many of which I/O psychologists can help overcome. For example, unethical behavior is on the rise and has become widespread at many levels in corporate America. I/O psychologists now face the challenge and opportunity of studying why some people, especially leaders, engage in unethical behaviors while others resist the temptation to do so. New selection tools and development programs are emerging from this research and becoming more commonly used to effectively develop and manage organizational ethics. Related areas receiving much emphasis and media attention include corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and environmental issues. As mentioned earlier, these are important concerns for the millennial generation. As millennials rise through the ranks and begin to dominate leadership positions, these areas are likely to be prioritized in terms of job and organizational design, hiring, motivation, and retention, all of which are within the scope of I/O psychologists’ roles within organizations.

Unfortunately, many of the scienti�ic and evidence-based tools and methods created by I/O psychologists may be overlooked by managers and decision makers who tend to favor intuition and instincts. For example, when making hiring decisions, some managers still say things like, “I know a great employee when I see one.” However, as you will learn in upcoming chapters, without accurate selection tools, a manager’s chances of making a successful hire may be no better than a coin �lip. Erroneous hires are not only detrimental to productivity, they may also expose the organization to substantial litigation costs and negative publicity. I/O psychologists can help develop assessments that identify which people will work best in a variety of positions across different job sectors. Although managers are gradually becoming more aware of the importance of evidence-based practices, there is a long way to go. I/O psychologists thus have a critical role to play in promoting application and bridging the gap between science and practice.

I/O psychologists can also play an important role in helping managers assess and improve employee engagement. The ongoing economic recession has taken a toll on workers. The stress of continued layoffs and, for those who still have jobs, burnout from increased workloads has often resulted in disengagement. In 2010 Aon Hewitt Associates consulting �irm found that since the start of the 2008 recession, employee engagement slipped dramatically. In fact, up to 60% of the employee population was thinking about changing jobs once the labor market improved. Although I/O psychologists cannot change the economic situation, they can help managers understand what makes employees feel engaged and help them maintain their engagement in spite of the economy. As this chapter has shown, employees want leaders who value employees. Managers can formally show their appreciation by introducing programs such as pro�it sharing and �lextime and by providing clear advancement opportunities. However, managers should also act in more informal, non-work-related ways to convey their appreciation for employees; this can be as simple as engaging an employee in a conversation that has nothing to do with his or her job. In the end, however, the thing that leads to true satisfaction for most employees is timely recognition for a job well done.

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Summary and Conclusion

There is signi�icant support for the notion that people are an organization’s most important asset. They are not just an expense or cost of doing business; rather, they are an investment that can realize quanti�iable returns and determine an organization’s success or failure. I/O psychology is a science that uses the methods, facts, and principles of psychology to enhance employee productivity, satisfaction, engagement, and well-being, and it has been shown to increase organizational ef�iciency, effectiveness, and competitive advantage.

Whether working in academia or for the private sector, the government, the military, a nonpro�it organization, or as a consultant, I/O psychologists help organizations make critical human capital decisions. Examples include designing motivating jobs, selecting the right candidates, training employees, accurately evaluating job performance, managing absenteeism and turnover, developing effective leaders, and avoiding discriminatory litigation.

The business world is rapidly changing, and I/O psychology can help address many issues that management fads cannot. This book introduces the interesting world of I/O psychology. It provides an overview of the established knowledge in the �ield as well as new and emerging approaches that will signi�icantly impact the way organizations do business. There are plenty of opportunities to apply I/O psychology principles to everyday thinking and activities. Even for those who do not intend to specialize in I/O psychology, the information in this course is foundational for becoming an effective contributor to any organization.

Chapter 1 Flashcards

Key Terms

action research

career

employee life cycle

Hawthorne effect

Choose a Study ModeView this study set

https://quizlet.com/
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human relations

industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology

industrial psychology

job

job family

occupation

organizational climate

organizational culture

organizational development

organizational psychology

people costs

positive organizational behavior (POB)

positive organizational scholarship (POS)

psychological capital (PsyCap)

psychological climate

scienti�ic management

task

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Learning Outcomes

After reading this chapter, you should be able to

Describe the critical stages of a job analysis.

Explain why recruiting practices are important to organizations.

Be familiar with initial screening tools for employee selection.

Create effective employee interviews.

Understand laws that impact employee selection practices.

Apply positive psychology to employee selection.

2Employee Selection

Stockbyte/Thinkstock

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2.1 The Importance of Employee Selection

Think about the following scenario: Your employer or favorite shopping place is experiencing signi�icant growth and needs to hire 20 new customer service representatives over the next 2 months. This can be an exciting time for the organization. The company is growing, and additional employees will ensure continued growth and increased revenue. Hiring these new employees, however, may pose some challenges. First, where will the company �ind quali�ied candidates for the new positions, and how will it encourage them to apply for the jobs? The company anticipates more than 200 people will apply for the 20 open positions. How will it screen the résumés and applications so as to identify the most quali�ied individuals? Additionally, who will conduct the interviews, and more importantly, how will the interviewers discern which applicants have the skills and abilities to best serve the company’s customers? Finally, how will the company ensure that each stage of the selection process is legal, ethical, and fair?

Most organizations encounter these challenges when they have to hire new employees. A common concern is the cost of hiring, which can be very expensive. There is the cost of advertising the job opening, which may include buying print ads, online ads, posting to a bulletin board, renting a booth at a job fair, or even paying a recruitment agency. Then there are the costs of processing the applications, screening the applicants, contacting prospective interviewees, and testing and interviewing applicants. These costs include not only the time of the organization’s HR employees and hiring managers, but also opportunity costs, or productivity sacri�iced because their time is not being spent on other productive activities. Once an employee is selected, there are costs associated with orientation and training to get that employee ready to perform. Because the new employee is now on the organization’s payroll, the costs of this orientation and training phase include both the manager’s and the employee’s time and opportunity costs.

Although hiring costs are high, hiring the wrong person can be even more costly. A Harvard University study estimated that 80% of turnover can be attributed to faulty hiring decisions (Yager, 2016). Turnover rate is the percentage of all the employees in an organization who leave in a given year. Turnover can be more expensive than hiring. When employees leave an organization, not only does the hiring process have to be repeated to �ill the vacancy, but there are also the costs of separating the departing employee, including time spent by HR employees and hiring managers, as well as any severance pay that may be due to the employee. The organization may never recover any returns on its investment in the departing employee’s training, or worse, this knowledge—as well as any intellectual property that the employee might have learned about—can go directly to a competitor who hires the separated employee.

Many of the problems that can lead to turnover—or to less extreme but still counterproductive and costly alternatives such as absenteeism, disengagement, job dissatisfaction, and lack of organizational commitment—can be avoided through better hiring, which should start with a careful process of proactive planning and analysis. I/O psychologists play an important role in helping organizations design and implement effective selection processes. In this chapter, we describe how I/O psychologists gather information about the work functions of an open job position, as well as what characteristics a worker needs to have for the job to be done successfully. Then we review the most effective ways to recruit candidates for a job, design initial screening methods, and establish fair selection processes.

Find Out for Yourself: Hiring Costs

1. Visit several recruitment websites such as Monster and Ladders. How much does it cost to advertise a job opening?

2. Research turnover rates at http://www.bls.gov/jlt (http://www.bls.gov/jlt) / in industries that are of interest to you. Are you surprised by the numbers you found?

3. Contact an organization to which you have access, such as your employer, the employer of a family member or friend, your bank, your grocery store, or your favorite fast-food restaurant or café. Ask

http://www.bls.gov/jlt
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how many applicants the organization usually gets per job opening. How much time does the manager spend processing each applicant? How long does it take to train a new employee?

4. How many employees work at that location, and how many left last year? Calculate the turnover rate.

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2.2 Job Analysis

Think about your current or past job. Begin by listing all the tasks and duties you must complete to perform the job. If you have trouble coming up with a complete list, start by thinking about a speci�ic day, like last Monday. What did you do to start your day? What happened after lunch? Before you left for the day? Now that you’ve identi�ied your regular job tasks, think about activities that you perform less frequently, perhaps on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. Be sure to add these to your list. Once you’ve identi�ied as many tasks as possible, indicate the level of importance for and amount of time spent on each one.

Now take a moment to think about the characteristics that would enable a person to perform these tasks successfully. For example, what technical knowledge might someone need to do your job? Would a worker need certain innate abilities, such as good judgment, critical-thinking ability, or strong communication skills? What other KSAOs are necessary for a person to perform this job?

Congratulations! By completing this exercise, you have created a basic job analysis, which is the systematic study of a speci�ic job based on information about its directly observable and veri�iable job tasks and worker behaviors (Morgeson & Dierdorff, 2011). Organizations use a similar process to collect information about jobs and the people who perform them. See the feature box Consider This: Job Analysis for a more sophisticated example.

Consider This: Job Analysis

Any job, even a simple one, can bene�it from job analysis. Read the sample from the Staf�ing-and-Recruiting- Essentials.com website to see a job analysis for a �inancial services salesperson.

Sample Job Analysis (http://www.staf�ing-and-recruiting-essentials.com/Sample-Job- Analysis.html#axzz4BNq2eiie)

Questions to Consider

1. Imagine you are applying for this type of job. What new information did you learn about it from reading this job analysis?

2. Now imagine you are the hiring manager for this position. What new insights did you gain from reading this job analysis?

3. If you were a competitor, which of the items listed on the job analysis would you include? Which ones would you eliminate? What would you add?

What Is Job Analysis?

The goal of a job analysis is to clearly understand what work is performed for a speci�ic job. Typically, a job analysis will include three pieces of information:

job tasks, worker requirements, and contextual factors.

The foundation for all job analyses is to clearly de�ine a speci�ic job’s tasks. Analyzing tasks provides a clear picture of what a worker does in the job. Tasks should be observable or veri�iable and recorded in the form of action statements. Here are examples of a few of the major tasks performed by a bank teller:

http://www.staffing-and-recruiting-essentials.com/Sample-Job-Analysis.html#axzz4BNq2eiie
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock

The skills and abilities required for an of�ice job are different from those required for an assembly line job.

greeting customers who enter the bank, counting money back to a client, and answering customers’ questions about their account.

Greeting customers and counting money are observable behaviors. Whether the teller has adequately and correctly answered a customer’s question may not be as readily observable, but it can be veri�ied by assessing the customer’s satisfaction with the answer (e.g., by using a customer survey) or by comparing the answer the teller gave with an accurate source of information (e.g., a policy manual or a product brochure).

Sometimes, tasks will be combined into broader categories called responsibilities. Responsibilities are groups of related tasks that represent a generic behavior, which helps accomplish major goals (Cunningham, 1996). The three tasks listed for the bank teller, for example, could form a responsibility called “providing customer service.”

Second, a job analysis will include information about the speci�ic worker characteristics needed to perform a job’s tasks (Sackett & Laczo, 2003). These characteristics are unique to each job; they are composed of speci�ic knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs). Knowledge is a set of related facts and information about a speci�ic �ield or work domain. For example, a bank teller probably needs to know bank policies and procedures, industry regulations, and bank product and service information. Skills are the minimum level of competency at which a worker must perform a task. Our bank teller may need to show competency in many different skills, such as typing, money counting, and data entry. Although workers can acquire skills, abilities are innate characteristics, such as cognitive, psychomotor, and physical capabilities. In short, they are a person’s enduring basic aptitude for performing a range of activities (Fleishman, Costanza, & Marshall-Mies, 1999). Other characteristics are all other relevant personal factors needed for a particular job, such as personality and motivational traits, experience, licensure, education, and certi�ication. For example, a bank teller might ideally have an extroverted personality, be motivated to serve customers, possess previous customer service experience and a high school diploma, and have a clean criminal background check.

Recently, there has been an increasing emphasis on competencies rather than on KSAOs. This is because a competency is a much broader cluster of KSAOs that is transferable and adaptable across jobs, which is necessary in today’s continuously changing business environment (Gangani, McLean, & Braden, 2006). For example, specifying the software programs an administrative assistant is required to use is not very useful, since many of these will become obsolete over time. However, the broader competency “technological literacy” can be used. Besides avoiding having to reanalyze a job every time new and relevant software programs become available, including this competency in job analysis implies that the job incumbent is expected to stay up-to-date on new programs in order to maintain a current skill set. This is becoming a more realistic job expectation than mastering a predetermined set of programs. Similarly, the broader and more encompassing competency of “effective communication” can replace speci�ic tasks such as answering phones, meeting and greeting clients, and responding to correspondence. This competency is more re�lective of the wide range of activities an administrative assistant must undertake in order to perform his or her job effectively, as well as the important capacity to adapt one’s communication modes and style to the situation at hand.

Find Out for Yourself: Competencies of a Trainer

Training and development are important areas through which an organization maintains its workforce’s KSAOs and competencies. U.S. organizations spend billions of dollars annually to train and develop their employees, and a large portion of these activities involve a professional trainer. Review the following page from the ATD’s website, which describes the competencies that a trainer needs to master in order to deliver effective training and development.

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The ATD Competency Model (https://www.td.org/Certi�ication/Competency-Model)

The �inal piece of a job analysis deals with the context in which a job is performed (Berry, 2003). Job context consists of the external factors that in�luence the way work is performed, and it can be examined according to a variety of aspects. For example, a job’s social context includes a worker’s interactions with team members, customers, and managers. Jobs that involve signi�icant interpersonal interaction require employees to have exceptional teamwork and social skills. The same job could also be examined according to its physical context, which includes all environmental factors, such as background noise, temperature, and lighting, as well as whether a person sits or stands while working and whether the job is performed inside or outdoors. Clearly, job context is important in determining what a worker needs to perform at his or her best.

The organizational data a company needs can often be generated by systematically studying its jobs—in other words, by performing job analyses. Job analysis is often used to create job descriptions and job speci�ications. A job description identi�ies what a worker is expected to do to perform a job. It can also be used to design job recruitment postings or compensation programs. A job speci�ication describes the quali�ications of the ideal candidate for the job, in terms of KSAOs, competencies, education, experience, and other tangible characteristics.

Additionally, organizations can use job-analysis data to classify jobs into job families, which is necessary for constructing effective multilevel systems of compensation as well as paths employees can follow as they change jobs within the company. Perhaps job-analysis data is most critically used to develop and prepare measures to select employees and appraise their performance. Table 2.1 summarizes some of the uses of job analysis.

Table 2.1: Uses of job-analysis information

Type of uses Types of job-analysis information

Job descriptions Tasks performed, worker requirements, contextual information

Recruiting Tasks performed, worker requirements, contextual information

Employee selection Tasks performed, worker requirements

Compensation evaluation Tasks performed

Training and development Tasks performed, worker requirements

Job classi�ication Tasks performed, contextual information

Placement Tasks performed, worker requirements

Find Out for Yourself: Jobs in Your Area

1. Search online for several job openings in one or two areas that interest you. 2. Read the details posted about each job. 3. Create a job analysis in which you identify the job tasks, worker requirements, and contextual factors

for each position. 4. Rank the positions according to how well they �it with your KSAOs, past experience, personal

characteristics and interests, and work context preferences.

https://www.td.org/Certification/Competency-Model
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Consider This: Your Ideal Job

Take a few moments to think about your ideal job, then create a job analysis and describe the job context for that position.

Questions to Consider

1. What would the job duties and responsibilities be? 2. What speci�ic KSAOs do you have that would make you the best �it for this job? What are the general

competencies required? 3. How would you use your job analysis to determine the best compensation, career path, training and

development, and performance appraisal plan for this job?

Information Sources

Considering the importance of the job analysis, you may be asking yourself how I/O psychologists manage to gather all the information they need to construct this useful tool. Although they vary from job to job, information sources fall into several basic categories:

documentation, role incumbents, supervisors, and other sources of information.

Each of these provides a different perspective of a job; using all of them increases the accuracy and ef�icacy of the information collected.

Documentation Organizations may already have documents that describe certain aspects of a job. Examples include job descriptions, previous work analyses, training manuals, and operating guidelines. Generally, it’s good to start with such documents when beginning a job analysis because they are easily obtainable, contain a lot of good information, and provide a quick and ef�icient explanation of the job being analyzed. Even out-of-date documentation can provide useful comparative information as the job analysis progresses.

In addition to these internal sources, it is useful to review external documents. The U.S. government supplies job- relevant information for many types of jobs in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, as well as online through the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) at http://www.onetonline.org (http://www.onetonline.org) /. Perusing job postings on national online job boards, such as Monster and CareerBuilder, can provide insight on how other organizations de�ine similar jobs. Finally, some professional associations for widely held jobs document the work of their members.

http://www.onetonline.org/
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Role Incumbents Because it is critical that a job analysis be accurate, it is crucial to talk to people who truly understand the job being analyzed. Role incumbents—that is, people who hold the job or have held it in the past—understand the intricate details of the job and how it is performed in the �ield. These �iner points are not often available from written sources. Communicating with role incumbents is also ethically and politically appropriate. When incumbents help de�ine their jobs, they provide insight into the job’s psychological and social contexts. They are also likely to be more committed to the outcomes of other HR processes based on the job analysis, such as performance appraisals, compensation, and promotions.

Despite the invaluable information incumbents can provide for a job analysis, keep in mind that this information is not infallible. Not all incumbents are equally able to share information about their jobs, perhaps because they lack communication skills or have poor memories. Some may intentionally provide incomplete or inaccurate information because they perceive the process as too time consuming or unimportant, or because they fear how the information will be used. It is therefore critical for the person performing the analysis to clearly explain the reasons for the study, as well as the way in which the information will be used.

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Supervisors An immediate supervisor also has a good understanding of what work is performed for a speci�ic job. Although supervisors are not typically as well acquainted with the day-to-day minutiae of a speci�ic job as job incumbents are, they can usually validate the incumbent’s information and provide additional insight into the job’s performance expectations. Additionally, unlike job incumbents, supervisors have little motivation to distort information. They also tend to have experience with multiple incumbents who have held the same job title, so they may be able to give more detailed descriptions of the job and insight into how different types of people have performed it.

Other Sources of Information Sometimes, other sources are needed to accurately describe a job. For example, if a job involves frequent interaction with customers, such as sales or customer service jobs, it can be useful to gather information from customers. Customers know how they want workers to perform their jobs. Keep in mind, though, that customer-provided information pertains to only a small portion of the job being performed.

Technical experts are another source of valuable, but limited, information. These experts can provide insights into a job’s technical or complex aspects. Examples of technical experts are engineers, lawyers, scientists, and machine technicians.

Conducting a Job Analysis

After determining what job information to measure and from whom or where to get it, the I/O psychologist must next determine how to gather it. Although there are many methods, there is really no one best way to gather information (Brannick, Levine, & Morgeson, 2007). The goal of a job analysis is to collect as much information as possible, and doing so requires more than one method (Gael, 1988). In this section, we will review the most common methods of gathering information and discuss different considerations for each one.

Observation One of the most common ways to collect job information is to simply observe people at work. With this method, an objective observer records speci�ic actions the worker performs and documents the importance of each task. Observation sessions may be as short as one 60-minute session or as long as several sessions over the course of many weeks. Typically, job analysts will observe a representative sample of job incumbents to get an accurate picture of the work. Observation yields such information as the tasks that are performed; the materials and equipment used; the work processes and procedures followed; and interactions with coworkers, subordinates, and supervisors.

As a method of gathering information, observation has mixed reviews. On the positive side, because this technique relies on direct observation, it overcomes the limitation of being dependent on the worker’s ability to recall all the relevant job details, which remains a challenge for all other collection methods. Additionally, observation enables the job analyst to learn �irsthand how and why work is performed, which in turn allows a job analyst to more accurately evaluate the quality of information provided from other methods. Despite these advantages, however, observation can be time consuming, and some jobs are not conducive to direct observation. Consider how dif�icult it would be to observe people such as doctors, engineers, scientists, or high-level managers with any sort of meaningful understanding! Finally, observation can be vulnerable to the Hawthorne effect, which was described in Chapter 1. In order to keep workers from acting abnormally while being observed, the job analyst must be as unobtrusive as possible.

Find Out for Yourself: Job Analysis Through Observation

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iStockphoto/Thinkstock

Interviews can be a great tool for gathering information for a job analysis, though interviewees’ responses may be biased.

1. Plan to observe three jobs this week. They can be at your favorite restaurant, doctor’s of�ice, bank, company cafeteria, gym, or anywhere else. Try to make your observation as unobtrusive as possible. For example, arrive early to appointments and observe as you wait.

2. Using your observations, attempt to create a job description for each position. 3. Describe the KSAOs that you would expect in the job incumbent. 4. Describe the job context. 5. Now search online for job openings that describe comparable positions. Compare your analysis to the

advertised positions to assess its accuracy.

Interviews Interviews are used to collect information from people who have direct contact with the job being analyzed, including job incumbents, supervisors, customers, and trainers for the position. The job analyst will create a structured interview that asks these people about various aspects of the job, such as tasks performed; materials and equipment used; work processes and procedures followed; and interactions with coworkers, subordinates, and supervisors. Interview questions are re�ined, and the process continues until workers begin to provide redundant information. In general, job analysts favor interviews as a way to gather information because they allow the analyst to ask clarifying questions. However, interviews can be time consuming. Another disadvantage is that interviewees may be biased in the information they share with job analysts. They may be able to deduce the purpose of the interview from the questions and shape their responses accordingly, which may not yield accurate information.

Subject Matter Expert Panels An even more ef�icient interview technique involves collecting information from a group of subject matter experts (SMEs) at the same time. Members of an SME panel could be job incumbents, supervisors, technical experts, or other people familiar with the work being analyzed. The analyst facilitates discussion among the panel members in order to create a list of the job’s major tasks and worker requirements.

The group dynamic allows the SMEs to establish consensus about information the analyst has already gathered; however, panels can sometimes become dysfunctional and produce inaccurate information. For example, when one participant dominates discussion, other knowledgeable participants may not feel comfortable sharing openly. Additionally, some participants may feel intimidated by supervisors and other higher status members of the panel, resulting in information that is skewed toward the input and opinions of the supervisor. To counteract these challenges, the job analyst must be a skilled facilitator. Limiting panel size to between 5 and 10 participants is also helpful, as is grouping SMEs into panels based on management level.

Questionnaires The information gathered from observations and interviews can be used to develop a job-analysis questionnaire. A large number of SMEs can then rate each item on the questionnaire according to criteria such as importance, frequency of task performance, dif�iculty, length of time to learn a task, and relationship of the item to the job as a whole.

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One advantage of the questionnaire is the large number of easily analyzed responses such tools can generate. With the advent of online survey tools, gathering data via questionnaires has become quicker and easier than ever before. However, long questionnaires (that contain hundreds of questions) can quickly fatigue participants, which often leads them to provide careless or incomplete responses. Naturally, such data will only increase the inaccuracy and unreliability of the resulting information.

A number of popular job-analysis questionnaires are available commercially. One widely used example is the Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) developed by McCormick, Jeanneret, and Mecham (1972). The PAQ focuses on identifying worker characteristics or “elements” required by the job, rather than the speci�ic tasks performed. Managers and employees rate the PAQ’s 194 job elements on areas of importance, dif�iculty, and time required. The elements are organized into the following categories: information input, mental processes, work output, relationships with persons, job context, and other job activities and conditions. Although widely used, the PAQ seems to be better suited for blue-collar than for professional jobs.

Work Logs A work log is a detailed record of work being done. Typically, supervisors and job incumbents create work logs by pausing several times a day over the course of the job analyst’s observation period and recording all of their activities. Although used infrequently, the work log is valuable both for its low cost and the insights it provides. However, like other methods, work logs can be time consuming. They can also detract from performing a job, as workers stop working to complete the logs.

Critical Incidents Technique Originally designed to establish job requirements for military jobs, the critical incidents technique (Flanagan, 1954) is a specialized job-analysis technique. Unlike those discussed thus far, this technique does not endeavor to gather information about tasks or worker requirements. Instead, it attempts to identify behaviors that predict success and failure. Pinpointing these behaviors begins with job incumbents’ written or oral descriptions of behaviors that make the difference between success and failure in a job. These descriptions include information about the situation leading up to the success or failure; what exactly the individual did that made the action effective or ineffective; key contextual information, such as when and where the incident occurred; and the consequences of the action. Although this technique is time consuming, and infrequently used for that reason, it is a very effective way to design performance appraisals.

Job-Analysis Errors If two people perform the same job, it seems logical to assume they will describe the work in nearly the same way. As noted earlier, however, memory recall and communication skills can affect the quality of information they provide. Indeed, researchers have identi�ied a number of additional factors that in�luence job-analysis information: