What's an I/O psychologist, and what can we do for you? (Collected insights from SIOP 2013)

SIOP 2013: BIG IDEAS…Because Everything is Bigger in Texas

Tom Briggs

Research Psychologist

Human Development

[email protected]

April 11 – 13, 2013

Houston, TX

ROAD MAP

APRIL [email protected] [ 2 ]

START: Session Topics

Who We Are / Opening Plenary

Performance Management

Employee Lifecycle Research

Workplace Meetings

Employee Engagement /

Biz Perf

Survey Action / Impact

ROI: Nontraditional

Measures

Big Data / Workforce Analytics

Competency-Aligned Training

Nothing Endures But

Change

What’s Not Covered

END: What can we do for

you?

SESSIO

NTO

PIC

S

[ 3 ][email protected] APRIL 2013

WHO WE ARE / OPENING PLENARY

American

Psychological

Association

established

1892

APA creates

Division 14

1945

Division 14

becomes

Division of

Industrial and

Organizational

Psychology

1964

Division 14

incorporates

as Society for

Industrial and

Organizational

Psychology

1982

2012 SIOP has 4,136 professional members


Branding: Better recognition of SIOP and the I/O brand among HR executives, business leaders, scientists, and general public

Science Practice



Scientist Practitioner Me

Research methods

Design of Experiments

Behavior expert

Statistics / Analysis

HR / Human Capital

Business / Management

Personnel / EEO law

Consulting

I/O Psychologist




PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

1. Accurately measure employees’ contribution to the organization

2. Enable decisions of where to invest dollars in salary and training

3. Allow us to give feedback to develop and coach

THE THREE THINGS PM MUST DO



Alternatives to rating: don’t rate, and engage employees, instead.

If you must rate, calibration sessions should be professionally facilitated and coached, before individual managers make initial ratings. Start from a shared mental model.

No one pays attention to the “development” plan. If someone needs to develop to accomplish something, put the development item in their performance plan.

ON RATING, AND SO-CALLED “DEVELOPMENT” PLANS



“Ratees hate it. Raters hate it.

Senior leaders like it.…until they

get sued, like Ford and Goodyear

for age discrimination.”

BEWARE FORCED DISTRIBUTIONS

“Forced distributions lead to bad

behavior…sabotaging others, and

a 10-15% reduction in overall

performance.”

CITATIONS AVAILABLE



“We used a tool that gives generic, canned feedback to

employees. People told us ‘it’s better than what I got before.’”

“People are overconfident in their ability to give feedback.

There are all kind of myths. What we need is a ‘How to Give

Feedback 101’ course. The literature is really helpful.”

“Employees open up for the development conversation, but

then feel betrayed when the compensation talk follows.”

FEEDBACK



Look at the PM literature.

Measure the effectiveness of your performance management

system: if it’s not leading to better organizational outcomes and

performance, don’t do it – it will make things worse.

Make sure that feedback is actually helpful and developmental –

not personal, but task-related. Managers need training.

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE?


WORKPLACE MEETINGS


WORKPLACE MEETINGS

THE TRUE COST OF MEETINGS

15%25%

49%

PERSONNEL BUDGET NON-MANAGERS’ TIME EXECUTIVES’ TIME

SOURCE: DUNN (2013)


WORKPLACE MEETINGSPerceived organizational support can mitigate surface acting in meetings. Surface acting decreases meeting effectiveness and increases emotional exhaustion and intention to quit. (Dunn)

Individuals who have high susceptibility to emotional contagion are more likely to engage in “faking” when there are greater numbers of higher-powered individuals present. (Thomas)

What happens in meetings, matters. There are best practices –checklists, agendas, conditions, psychological safety. (Salas)

Back at your desk, after a meeting, can you actually cross something off your to-do list?


EMPLOYEE LIFECYCLE RESEARCH

Assessment Onboarding Engagement Exit

Goal of linking the four phases of talent management data collection…

Based in adulthood developmental theory and product lifecycle research

Seeks to better understand the employee experience over time

Helps with new talent management challenges

Little academic research to date



CASE STUDY Bloomberg, LLC ~ 15K employees

4 goals: gather, analyze, predict (turnover, disengagement), inform

Moved from attributed exit interviews to confidential exit interviews and added a survey component (2010). Similar measures in onboarding and exit measures – conduct linkage analysis.

Onboarding: conducted focus groups at multiple points in time (orientation, 30, 60, 90, 180 days). The longer employees were at Bloomberg, the less they knew about Bloomberg’s business.

By Day 90, less than 70% believe their career goals can be met at Bloomberg.



CASE STUDY Sirota Consulting

Looked at engagement during first 5 years of tenure (comparing snapshots). Compared engagement data and career events (promos, training hours). Found U-shaped “honeymoon effect” at 3-5 years.

Disengaged if: high investment in career (training) + lack of promotion

Turnover costs organizations 93 to 200% of an employee’s salary (Cascio, 2000). Different consequences for collective versus individual turnover.

Unnoticed effort can be detrimental to employee engagement.



CASE STUDY Intuit

Question: Why does an employee apply to a new internal role?

Top reason: Doesn’t feel challenged in current role.

Action: Started giving stretch assignments to challenge in place.

End goal: Able to make proactive suggestions to at-risk employees.

Look for HRIS data to link: how many roles, time since promotion, time since raise…

Org Leadership

Manager Leadership

Job Satisfaction

OutcomesBusiness Growth

Validated model:


EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT / BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

Engagement is “the emotional state and behavioral reactions to a given work environment.”

EngagementIndividual

Productivity

Organizational

Performance

“Employees’ psychological involvement and discretionary effort lead to increased organizational performance.”



Global engagement survey – annual census of 2.2 million employees worldwide using an identified survey with actionable (v. opinion) items. Local markets (internationally) can select additional items of interest.

CASE STUDY Walmart

Engagement $

Absenteeism

Turnover

Customer Satisfaction

Inventory measures

Basket size

WMT (qtd 4/25/2013)

1-year +26%

5-year +36%

10-year +43%



Identified survey with five major factors that collectively predict engagement. Engagement predicts guest satisfaction and employee retention.

CASE STUDY Marriott

Engagement $

Leadership excellence

Personal growth

Quality of life at work

Teamwork

Total rewards

GUEST SATISFACTION

EMPLOYEE RETENTION

The antecedents of engagement will affect customer outcomes.



KEY OBSERVATIONS ACROSS THE PANEL

Data collection Data analysis Communication

Easy to get bogged

down trying to obtain

data

Some metrics have

more variance; similar

metrics are not always

interchangeable

Be careful what is

communicated –

organizations can “latch

on” to the wrong thing

Use to drive & prioritize

action from leadership

Don’t expect it to be

easy

No analysis paralysis –

recall hypotheses

Modeling is a science &

an art, and takes time


SURVEY ACTION / IMPACT

The CEO of John Deere challenged the company to be “world class” for engagement by 2014. As a result, they created an action-planning accountability index scorecard to track the CEO’s challenge.

“When middle managers say, “I can’t be responsible for senior leaders,” tell them, ‘Okay, but you can affect these areas, and we need you to not undermine senior leaders by saying ‘I take care of my employees; it’s senior leadership’s fault!‘”

Leaders—at all levels—must engage in constructive and non-retaliatory survey action.

ON NOT PASSING THE BUCK


SURVEY ACTION / IMPACT

Leaders need to underpromise and overdeliver: identify 1-3 issues to tackle. Knock those out, then go back and add another. It will be visible if the right people at the right level are working the right issues.

Rethink action planning: “Yes, you need quick, one-year wins, but also need to take a multi-year approach to major issues – you’re not going to fix them in exactly 12 months!”

“It’s almost like we’ve conditioned people to sit around and wait for our survey. It’s critical to get your HR field reps involved and supportive.”

Surveys aren’t about getting good scores; they’re to improve mission accomplishment.

WHEN TO SURVEY? WHEN TO ACT? EARLY, AND OFTEN


NONTRADITIONAL MEASURES OF ROI

Recruiting organizations are typically interested in time to hire, but that tells us nothing about quality of hire (Steffensmeier - AMZ)

Applicant reactions to the hiring process are important – they can serve as checks on whether hiring managers are asking inappropriate questions (Ibid)

Need to actually use assessment data to improve selection, performance management, and other programs (Killian - Chally)

SELECTION MEASURES THAT DON’T GENERATE SCORES



Many contractors are required to evaluate their program, but this idea is rarely adopted internally (Steffensmeier)

Pilot or pre-test new instruments and programs with small groups – 50 or 60 employees (Boyd – BBY)

Use persuasion first, “legally obligated” as last resort (Steffensmeier)

Pushback that manager ratings “too subjective” – partner with behavioral economists and look at the data differently, from a systems-level (Ibid)

PROGRAM EVALUATION AND IMPACT ANALYSIS



Start from scientific ideal then consider practical realities, but some things can’t be compromised on, like job analysis because it’s a litigation area (e.g., Costco class action suit of 700 women) (Boyd)

Local validation studies are important – ask “why wouldn’t you want us to do it?”

Partner with people who are experts in other data sources, like customer satisfaction data, if you’re using that data (Boyd)

Get buy-in from all executive stakeholders, so that Exec 2 doesn’t undermine what Exec 1 started (Killian)

BALANCING METHODOLOGY WITH BUSINESS PACE

Walk leaders through all of the important reasons for your methodology.


HR NEEDS BIG DATA AKA WORKFORCE ANALYTICS

Used “big data” to evaluate and compare interviewer quality.

Adjusted quota system, increasing perceptions of fairness.

Investigated predictors of job performance: single greatest predictor of job performance was 401(k) participation (binary coded).

CASE STUDY Sprint

The most interesting variables may be the ones you least expect.



CASE STUDY Sprint

Sprint clearly links

workforce goals

and organization

outcomes in their

ITM model.



“I always tell people: Recruiting doesn’t hire anyone – it’s your hiring managers.”

Important to adjust selection assessments to measure different attributes linked to success in various roles (engineer v. salesperson)

Used pre-hire assessment data to look at differences between people who withdrew from hiring process – they scored 37% higher – need to better understand why/where losing this potential talent

CASE STUDY TimeWarner

Rework lesson – use your waste (in this case, pre-hire data on applicants who drop out).



Find optimal number of interviews – reduced from an average of 9.8 to 4 – average score across the 4 is 86% predictive of job success.

Looked at how employees make financial decisions – found that employees valued $1 of stock at 1/10th value of $1 in salary (conjoint).

Low-performers leave at higher rates, but used survival analysis to look at mid-performers leaving – wanted to understand “work events”

CASE STUDY Google

There are troves of publicly available “big data” from governments that can be useful.



Increased overall workforce 401(k) contributions by 3% using tailored “nudges” and email “nags”

Optimized line length in cafeteria for networking and cross-pollination (optimal length: 4 people). Used creative data sources: “plate data” and weight of food waste.

Currently studying employee lifecycle and tying performance back to hiring data, but hard to measure performance of knowledge workers.

CASE STUDY Google



Lesson 1 – Important to respect privacy rights.

Lesson 2 – Client buy-in happens often after you institutionalize process/survey/data – not before

Lesson 3 – Use “canaries” to socialize the result

Lesson 4 – Anticipate and overcome objections

CASE STUDY Google

It’s okay to spy on your employees, just “don’t be evil.”


COMPETENCY-ALIGNED TRAINING

1 – Reduce the number or list of competencies, or what people think of as competencies – no more than a handful can be critical

2 – Capture what it looks like for someone to be “proficient” (e.g., 30 people will give 30 different definitions of “Basic Excel skills”)

3 – Understand “enablers” – the things you should select for versus trying to develop or train (“You can’t train honesty.”) – job analytic data

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT



“I worked with an agency that wanted to transform their HR workforce from transactional to being strategic business partners. They tried training, development programs, certification, but nothing worked. Unfortunately, no one told them that they had specifically selected these people to be transactional in the first place.”

“In government, you have to wait for existing people to retire before you can align to the competency model you want - you’re hamstrung. It’s hard when you ask people to do a job they weren’t hired to do and they don’t want to do.”

SQUARE PEGS AND ROUND HOLES

If an employee is hired for one thing, transforming them may not be possible.



When prioritizing – the biggest “gap” may not actually be the most important to have – when will your workforce need to have this?

How are we using competencies? Are we selecting for rather than training?

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

MSPB research report on

“trainability” of

competencies – each

type coded R/Y/G –

many organizations are

trying to train “less

trainable” reds

SHRM HR competency model


NOTHING ENDURES BUT CHANGE

Case study: sales leader role evolving and 1/3 of incumbents would not meet new requirements. Used job analysis and developed a new selection strategy, but transparency, communications, and marketing were almost as important as I/O work, and took just as much time.

Social design; Switch – shape the environment for change.

Critical to establish the strategic purpose of a change initiative; all future decisions throughout program guided by this understanding.

BUDDY, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME? - LESSONS IN CHANGE


NOTHING ENDURES BUT CHANGECase study: Wells Fargo revamped selection and assessment program due to merger with a highly regulated industry. Takeaways:

What are HR’s strategic priorities and how will this effort help?

Does leadership team understand work and commitment necessary for organizational transformation?

Have you clearly identified who’s responsible for the organization change?

What are competing demands? Is the timing right?

Will the environment allow the team members/managers to adopt the changes?


NOT COVEREDLEADERSHIP IN EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS (Kellogg, JetBlue, FBI)

MODERATING ESTABLISHED JUSTICE EFFECTS (Shapiro; implications for pay freezes, furloughs)

EMPLOYEE NET PROMOTER SCORE: IS IT THE ULTIMATE QUESTION? (CEB, JetBlue, Dell, Sirota, Universal Orlando)

WHAT HR DELIVERS VERSUS WHAT CUSTOMERS WANT (SHRM, Starbucks, Walmart)

Interested in any of the above? Let’s talk. I can also provide articles and literature.


CLOSING: WHAT CAN WE DO FOR YOU?We blend social science with management and HR practice.

We have peer-reviewed and professional literature on applied topics –don’t start from scratch or re-invent the wheel! Ask us!

We are good at data, and we “grew up” measuring things; if you have data or measurement challenges, we can help.

We can bring science to your practice, using the evidence base to help you achieve optimal results.

THANK YOU

Tom Briggs

Research Psychologist

Human Development

[email protected]

What's an I/O psychologist, and what can we do for you? (Collected insights from SIOP 2013)

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