Tag Archives: staffing

Organizational Attraction – It’s more than the Money!

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Topic: Staffing, Culture, Work Environment
Publication: Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2010)
Article: Fit with What? The Influence of Multiple Self-Concept Images on Organizational Attraction
Authors: K. P. Nolan, C. M. Harold
Reviewed By: Lauren A. Wood

What attracts a potential employee to a specific organization – salary, benefits, promotion opportunities? Yes, in part, but attraction also stems from something deeper – an employee’s own self-image. Self-image consists primarily of two parts: the actual self (or the compilation of traits and attributes that an individual believes him or herself to possess) and the ideal self (or the collection of traits and attributes that an individual would like to acquire).

According to image congruity theory, customers are likely to purchase products that reflect both their actual as well as ideal self-image. Expanding this theory, individuals on the job hunt should favor organizations that emphasize both actual and ideal self-image qualities of the candidate. But, these same candidates should be the most attracted to organizations which emphasize their ideal self-image qualities, because this should inflate self-esteem by making the candidate feel closer to achieving his or her ideal self-image.

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Hiring Tools and Applicant Reactions

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Topic: Staffing
Publication: International Journal of Selection and Assessment (SEP 2010)
Article: Applicant reactions in selection: Comprehensive meta-analysis into reaction generalization versus situational specificity
Authors: N. Anderson, J.F. Salgado and U.R. Hulsheger
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

While organizations should certainly be concerned about the ability of their selection tools to predict future performance on the job, they should also be concerned with job applicants’ perceptions of their experience during the hiring process.  For example, for organizations whose job applicants are also potential customers, it’s vital that candidates who do not get hired (which most of them will not) have a positive experience.  This is also a particularly important issue for multinational organizations since there has been speculation that applicants in different cultures may react very differently to the same hiring tool. 

Anderson et al.’s (2010) meta-analysis on job applicant reactions to selection tools reveals that overall, job applicants tend to react most favorably to work samples (candidates are evaluated on their performance in a job-related activity) and job interviews.  Notably, these hiring tools are often viewed as the most job-relevant and “face valid” (they seem to measure what they intend to measure).  

Less popular than these tools, but still favorably rated by applicants overall were cognitive tests, personality inventories, biodata (basic information about a candidate), references, and resumes.  The least favored selection tools investigated by Anderson et al. were personal contacts, honesty tests and graphology (i.e., hand writing analysis). 

Perhaps most importantly, this pattern of results was relatively consistent across different countries. 

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Mercer asks 400 organizations about growth and talent management

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Topic: Talent Management
Publication: The Financial
Article: Employers reshaping talent management programs as economy shifts toward growth
Reviewed by: Sarah Teague

The success of an organization has proven to be largely contingent on the success of their employees. Indeed, the– see below for more info on this cornerstone article. A recent survey by Mercer sought to investigate the current status and practices of over 400 U.S. organizations.

One of the key findings shows that over half of the organizations surveyed are either in a growth stage or entering into one.  Not surprisingly, responses also indicate that an overwhelming majority are placing a great emphasis on talent management (TM), particularly leadership and succession planning, in order to prepare for a new, slower-growing economy. Unfortunately, only 5% of these organizations reported feeling confident in their ability to quantitatively measure the effectiveness of their TM strategies.

This is a huge opportunity for Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychologists and Human Resource (HR) professionals, alike.  As organizations begin to regroup from the recent economic downturn, the skill set possessed by I/O psychologists and HR professionals will likely be in high demand.  Mercer’s own Jason Jeffay said it best when he stated that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.”  From both a research and practice perspective, this is a chance to replace fads and trends with evidence and measurement as the basis for organizational practices and TM decisions. And for those of you interested in early research linking talent management and organizational effectiveness, consider this:

The idea that “the people make the place” has received great support since Schneider first espoused his Attractions-Selection-Attrition (ASA) model (Schneider, 1987). The ASA model posits that applicants are attracted to organizations similar to them, that organizations select applicants whose skill sets are similar to their current employees, and that those employees who are least similar are most likely to leave.  Based on this theory, talent management (TM) can make or break an organization.

http://finchannel.com/Main_News/Business/65211_Employers_reshaping_talent_management_programs_as_economy_shifts_toward_growth/

When Performance Goals are a Must

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Topic: Feedback, Goals, Performance
Publication: Human Performance
Article: Achievement goals, feedback, and task performance
Authors: A.M. Cianci, J.M. Schaubroeck, and G.A. McGill
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

 

Although performance feedback is vital to effective job performance, employees can react
differently to the same feedback. For example, while some employees give up in the face of negative feedback about their performance, others persevere and actually improve their performance over time. Alternatively, when presented with positive feedback, some employees coast while others maintain their high levels of performance.  Cianci et al. recently showed that the type of goals that are set for employees help explain how they react to positive and negative performance feedback.

In general, Cianci et al. found that those who were assigned a learning goal for a complex computerized task (“your goal…is to learn how to approach this kind of task as well as possible”) outperformed both those who were assigned a performance goal (“your goal…is to perform as well as possible, achieving the highest score possible”) and those assigned no goal at all.  What’s interesting is that following positive performance feedback, those assigned performance goals boosted their performance while negative feedback was detrimental to future performance on the task. The opposite trend was apparent for those assigned learning goals (i.e., negative feedback was beneficial and positive feedback was detrimental to performance).

Cianci and colleagues also investigated how peoples’ beliefs about their ability impact how they respond to performance and learning goals.  More specifically, the authors discussed two overarching beliefs about one’s ability: (1) ability is fixed and CANNOT be improved over time and (2) ability is incremental and CAN increase over time.  They found that the latter view was generally beneficial to performance, especially for those assigned performance goals.

In general, Cianci et al.’s findings suggest that assigning learning goals to employees leads to superior performance. However, there are times in which it is beneficial or necessary to set performance goals.  In these cases, managers should ensure that they include positive performance feedback (particularly if it must sandwich constructive feedback) throughout the project/assignment and encourage employees to view their abilities as improvable over time.

Cianci, A.M., Schaubroeck, J.M., & McGill. G.A. (2010). Achievement goals,
feedback, and task performance. Human Performance, 23(2), 131-154.

The Pearls and Perils of Work Sample Exams

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Topic: Assessment, Staffing
Publication: International Journal of Selection and Assessment (JUN 2010)
Article: Work sample exams and gender adverse impact potential: The influence of self-concept, social skills, and written skills
Authors: P.L. Roth, M.A. Buster, and J. Barnes-Farrell
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

Work sample exams are employee selection tools that represent actual or highly similar job task characteristics (i.e., writing a sample response email to a customer for a customer service job).  These selection tools are good predictors of job performance, and job applicants tend to respond favorably to them (largely because they are easily linked to the job).

Another reason work sample exams are highly regarded is that they show less racioethnic-based adverse impact than other popular selection tools such as cognitive ability tests.  A potential problem with work sample exams, however, is that they may lead to gender-based adverse impact against women.

According to a recent article by Roth et al. (2010) the likelihood of gender-based adverse impact due to work sample exams depends on the specific skills they measure.  Roth et al. conducted two studies employing job applicants for a civil engineer manager and a civil engineer administrator position for which each utilized several work samples measuring various skills necessary for the job to select incumbents.

The results suggest that adverse impact against women was most likely to occur for work sample exams of technical skills (but only for the civil engineer manager position; Roth et al. speculate that the vast majority of people qualified to apply for the administrator position had high levels of technical expertise regardless of gender).  Interestingly, however, women scored substantially higher on work samples of interpersonal skills and writing skills.  Taken together, Roth et al. conclude that the potential for adverse impact against women is unlikely especially if work samples involving social skills and writing skills are employed in conjunction with technical skills.  Clearly then, work sample exams do not disadvantage women across the board.

Perhaps the biggest drawback to work sample exams is their cost.  Roth et al. also reported on the cost of using work sample exams, and estimated that the battery of work samples employed in their study of civil engineer manager jobs would cost an organization a whopping $1500 per applicant tested!  So the big question is: are the advantages of work sample exams worth their cost?

Roth, P.L., Buster, M.A., & Barnes-Farrell, J. (2010). Work sample exams and gender adverse impact potential: The influence of self-concept, social skills, and written skills. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 18(2), 117-130.

The Good News about Structured Interviews

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Topic: Staffing
Publication: Personnel Psychology (SUMMER 2010)
Article: Are highly structured job interviews resistant to demographic similarity effects?
Authors: J.M. McCarthy, D.H. Van Iddekinge, and M.A. Campion
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

Interviews are by far one of the most commonly used personnel selection tools and for good reason: They work (at least when they’re structured)!

One potential problem with interviews is that irrelevant personal characteristics of interviewees (i.e., gender, race) may affect interview ratings; interviewees who are similar (race, gender) to interviewers will receive higher ratings in an interview than those who are dissimilar to the interviewers.  This can ultimately lead to illegal practices and failing to hire the best applicants. This potential problem is known as demographic similarity.  The underlying reason this may occur is that people view others who are similar to themselves more favorably than those who are different (e.g., She is just like me so she must also be awesome!).

McCarthy, Van Iddekinge and Campion (2010) explored the existence of demographic similarity effects in highly structured interviews, which are known to be more valid than unstructured interviews.  McCarthy et al. found that the demographic similarity effect was completely non-existent in highly structured interviews.  In fact, their results suggest that there is no such thing as a demographic similarity effect when highly structured interviews are used.

Impressively, McCarthy et al.’s study was conducted on a total of 207 interviewers and nearly 20,000 entry level employees applying for professional level positions with the U.S. government.  Moreover, McCarthy et al.’s findings were consistent across three common types of structured interviews: (1) past-behavioral based interviews, (2) interviews focusing on a person’s past experiences and education, and (3) situation-based interview (e.g., In hypothetical situation “X,” what would you do?).

So not only are highly structured interviews legally defensible and able to effectively target high future performers and weed out poor performers (i.e., criterion validity), we now know that they are highly resistant to demographic similarity effects! So here are a few quick tips for ratcheting up the structure of a job interview: (1) keep the questions of all applicants consistent and avoid shooting from the hip, (2) base interview questions off of a formal job analysis, (3) include ratings that have anchors with behavioral examples, (4) have interviewers take thorough notes during an interview, (5) avoid discussing applicants between interviews, and (6) include a panel of interviewers/raters as opposed to a single interviewer. For more information on how to increase the structure of a job interview, see the comprehensive list presented in McCarthy et al.’s article.

McCarthy, J.M., Van Iddekinge, C.H., & Campion, M.A. (2010). Are highly structured
job interviews resistant to demographic similarity effects? Personnel Psychology, 63(2), 325-359.
 

Does It Pay to Measure Emotional Intelligence During Selection?

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Topic: Assessment, Emotional Intelligence, Staffing
Publication: International Journal of Selection and Assessment (MAR 2010)
Article: Emotional intelligence in selection contexts: Measurement method, criterion-related validity, and vulnerability to response distortion
Authors: N.D. Christiansen, J.E. Janovics, and B.P. Siers
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a hot topic in both the personnel selection literature and the popular business press.  While there are many available measures of EI, approaches to its measurement can be organized into two general categories: (1) self-report questionnaires and (2) performance-based measures.  Self-report EI questionnaires are similar to personality measures in that they treat EI as non-cognitive traits and temperaments. Performance- or ability-based EI measures, on the other hand, treat EI as a largely ability-based trait that reflects how people process information related to their emotions and the emotions of others.

These two general approaches are both intended to measure EI.  In a recent study, Christiansen, Janovics, and Siers (2010) compared two popular self-report measures of EI (TMMS and SREIT) to a performance-based EI measure (MSCEIT). They found evidence that the performance-based and self-report approaches operate quite differently and actually don’t appear to measure the same thing. For instance, the self-report measures were very strongly related to measures of personality, whereas the performance-based measure was not.

Conversely, the performance-based measures of EI were much more strongly related to cognitive ability than were the self-report measures.  Christiansen et al. even note that it may not be appropriate to label self-report measures of EI as measures of “intelligence” at all! Another difference is that supervisory ratings of employee performance were predicted by scores on the performance-based EI measure but not by scores on the self-report measures. Finally, self-report measures of EI tend to be more easily “fakeable” than performance-based measures.  That is, with the self-report measures, it is quite easy for job applicants to choose the “best” answer and endorse it – even if it is not representative of their typical behavior.

Overall, Christiansen et al.’s findings suggest that measures of EI – even performance-based measures – offer very little additional information about job applicants when measures of cognitive ability and personality are already used in the selection process.  Self-report measures of EI are largely redundant when measures of personality are already present, and performance-based EI measures add little predictive power beyond cognitive ability and conscientiousness. This calls into question some claims in the popular press about the power of EI for predicting job performance and career success (e.g., Emotional Intelligence is even more important than cognitive ability).

It may also pose a dilemma for organizations currently using EI for employee selection.

Christiansen, N.D., Janovics, J. E., & Siers, B. P. (2010). Emotional intelligence in selection contexts: measurement method, criterion-related validity, and vulnerability to response distortion. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 18, 87-101.

Making offers they can’t refuse: Quick job offers yield higher acceptance rates

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Topic: Staffing
Publication: Personnel Psychology
Article: The Effect of Job Offer Timing on Offer Acceptance, Performance, and Turnover
Authors: W.J. Becker, T. Connolly, J.E. Slaughter
Reviewed By: Ben Sher

Congratulations, you’re hired!  … Wait, where’d you go?

Have you ever found that your extensive, meticulous, and rigorous process of filling positions identifies applicants who are no longer interested in working for you? If so, you are not alone.

Research by Becker, Connolly, and Slaughter (2010) suggests that applicants who receive job offers soon after their final interview are more likely to accept them than those who receive delayed offers. The study analyzed hiring data from a major company that filled salaried positions with both experienced employees and college students, and found that both groups were more likely to accept offers made shortly after the final interview. They also found that hires who were given quicker offers did not go on to receive lower job performance ratings  or have higher turnover rates than those who received delayed offers.

The authors suggest that job candidates who do not receive quick offers may make negative attributions about the company. For example, they may think that the company runs inefficiently, is unfair, or is disinterested in them, and is therefore not a good place to work. On the other hand, when candidates receive fast job offers, they may assume that the organization is very interested in   them, and that they can  make their decision to accept the job offer without uncertainty, which may lead to more favorable attitudes toward the organization.

Becker et al.’s findings suggest that organizations should make quick offers to qualified
candidates.  This will likely increase the chance of offer acceptance, and is also a cheap and easy way to cut high costs associated with employee recruitment and job vacancies. Also, employers should not fear that this haste might lead to worse job performance or increased turnover.

Becker, W.J., Connolly, T., & Slaughter, J.E. (2010). The Effect of Job Offer Timing on Offer Acceptance, Performance, and Turnover. Personnel Psychology, 63, 223-241.

Balancing on the Tightrope of Ideal Turnover

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Topic: Staffing, Turnover
Publication: Academy of Management Journal (APR 2009)
Article: Searching for the optimal level of employee turnover: A study of a large U.K. retail organization
Authors: W.S. Siebert, N. Zubanov
Reviewed by: Katie Bachman

There are two ways to think about turnover. Some will tell you that turnover is bad for organizations because new hires require training, benefits packages, and startup bonuses. Meanwhile, others will tell you that turnover can be good for an organization because turnover weeds out the bad workers and infuses new blood into the workplace. So what’s the right answer? Well, like so many things in the practice of Psychology: It depends!

In this case, the benefits versus costs of employee turnover really come down to the type of workers that you’re employing. If you have full-time “committed” workers (i.e. workers who have made your organization their career), you don’t want to lose them. Any turnover in this scenario is bad turnover because these workers tend to be better trained and more carefully selected; there are fewer bad workers to weed out and you’re likely to be losing your future management candidates. On the other hand, if you have temporary, part-time “secondary” workers, it’s a good idea to thin the herd once in a while. These workers tend to be less committed to the organization, receive less training, and are less carefully scrutinized as applicants. The natural rate of turnover tends to be higher for part-time workers anyway and there is actually an increase in productivity by changing out these workers, although too much turnover should be avoided.

All of this is pretty standard fare so far, but here’s he kicker: the two job types are interdependent, so if you are suffering from too much turnover in one type of worker, it is likely to affect the productivity of the other type of worker. For example, if your turnover among full-time workers is high, there will be no one to train your part-time/temporary workers.

Ultimately, the message is this: not all workers are created equal. You want to keep as many of your full-timers as possible, but some turnover in the part-timers will keep your company vital. Also, problems in one side of this balancing act will negatively affect the other side.

Siebert, W. S., & Zubanov, N. (2009). Searching for the optimal level of employee turnover: A study of a large U.K. retail organization. Academy of Management Journal, 52(2), 204-313.