The Road to I/O Psychology at the RCMP

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The Road to The Road to I/O Psychology I/O Psychology

at the RCMPat the RCMP

November 2011November 2011

James Lea, DirectorJames Lea, DirectorAssessment and ResearchAssessment and Research

HR Sector, RCMPHR Sector, RCMP

Overview

•Background•Current job•Working in the applied world

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University road…• B.A., Psychology, McGill• M.A., General Experimental Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier

University• Ph.D., Basic and Applied Psychology, Queen’s

• Post-Doctoral Fellow, UC Berkeley• Assistant Professor, Queen’s (one-year term)

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Crossroads: University or applied…

Job hunting…

•Another post-doc?•Another one-year term?•Personnel Psychology Centre?

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Industrial and Organizational Psychology• Personnel Selection

• What measured• How measure• Legal context

• Performance Management

• Learning and Development

• Organizational change• Teamwork• Org attitudes and behaviours

• Occupational Health• Work motivation• Leadership

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Personnel Psychology Centre• Part of Public Service Commission of Canada

• Test Development, Assessment Centres, Executive Counselling, etc.

• My tasks• Revising a management simulation exercise for economists• Development of a job analysis training workshop• Working at assessment centres for management trainees, middle

managers, entry level economists

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• Heard about another opportunity…

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The Royal Canadian Mounted Police

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A safe and secure Canada

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The Royal Canadian Mounted Police

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Human Resources Sector• Classifying• Selecting• Training• Staffing• Compensating• Occupational Health and Safety• Employee and Management Relations• Etc…

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Assessment and Research, HR Sector• Internal Consultants

• Industrial/Organizational Psychology

• Currently 5 professional staff

• Collaborate with Policy Centres on a range of projects• Job analyses and competency profiling• Assessment tool development and administration

• for Recruiting, promotion, performance management, etc.

• Organizational Behaviour Research projects

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Some A&R specific projects• Develop police officer and civilian tests and interviews• Processing thousands of answer sheets annually• Train interviewers

• Lead job analysis and competency profiling workshops• Implement Computerized Adaptive Testing• Improvements to many selection systems

• Int’l Promotion process web survey• Demographic research and requests• Research approval board

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Some A&R specific projects

And some tasks that take a huge chunk of time:

• Putting out fires

• Making policy recommendations

• “Debating” with other units re how systems should change….

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Some work done on own

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Much work is collaborative

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A&R Practical Challenges• Persuading management that HR (e.g., personnel

selection) is more than “common sense”

• Getting best practice knowledge on the discussion table

• Cooperation with people with different backgrounds and agendas

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Management reviews an HR program

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Benefits in RCMP HR include…

• Working for a national icon that’s in the news regularly!

• Deal with a wide range of interesting jobs

• Easy to see positive impact of work done by organization (safe homes, safe communities)

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Committees, networks…• Unlike much research, a broad mandate / range of

activities

• People doing very similar work around Ottawa, Canada and the world

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Professional associations• Ottawa I/O Psychology Group• Canadian Society for Industrial and Organizational

Psychology• Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology

• Conferences, on-line discussions, etc.

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Applied work: Challenges

• Less control over research topics• Logic doesn’t always carry the day…agendas…• Usually generalists rather than specialists• Often explaining (and lobbying for) the basics

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Applied work: Benefits

• Rule of law; much more structured • 9 to 5 (ish)• Social• Easy to see contribution

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Lessons Learned

• Not everyone has faith in expertise and research

• Goals and agendas can be very different

• Power of informal communication networks

• Importance of “soft skills”

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How to prepare for an applied job….

• Broad technical knowledge (at fingertips)

• Soft skills (communication, planning, …)

• Teamwork

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QUESTIONS

[email protected]

Practical Challenges in HR

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Work sample tests, r = .54Intelligence tests, r = .51Structured interviews, r = .51Job knowledge test, r = .48Trg & Exp beh. consistency ratings, r = .45Job try-out procedure, r = .44

Schmidt & Hunter, 1998 – Meta-analysis

Integrity tests, r = .41Unstructured interviews, r = .38Assessment centres, r = .37Biographical data measures, r = .35Situational judgment tests*, r = .34Conscientiousness tests, r = .31Reference checks, r = .26


Job experience (years), r = .18Trg. & exp. point method, r = .11Years of education, r = .10Interests, r = .10Graphology, r = .02Age, r = -.01


General mental ability AND Integrity tests, R = .65 Work sample tests, R = .63 Structured interviews, R = .63 Conscientiousness tests, R = .60 Job Knowledge tests, R = .58


The Road to I/O Psychology at the RCMP

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