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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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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
Schmidt & Hunter, 1998 – Meta-analysis
Job experience (years), r = .18Trg. & exp. point method, r = .11Years of education, r = .10Interests, r = .10Graphology, r = .02Age, r = -.01
Schmidt & Hunter, 1998 – Meta-analysis
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
Schmidt & Hunter, 1998 – Meta-analysis
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