Practice Makes Perfect

We thank Dr. Ameetha Garbharran of expsyt for your invaluable contribution as the Practice Makes Perfect columnists for the past two years. We give the warmest welcome to Mr. Michael Vodianoi (MA), Leadership Strategist at DDI, as our new columnist! For older columns, Please check out the archived Newsletters.

Do you have ideas on how to merge the science and practice of I-O Psychology to advance the interests of organizations and their people? Would you like to share your practical perspectives with us? We would love to hear from you. Please contact Michael Vodianoi at mvodianoi@gmail.com if you have comments, suggestions, or would like to contribute an article to the Practice Makes Perfect column in an upcoming issue of the CSIOP newsletter.

October 2023: Partners in Organizational Well-Being: Lessons from the Pandemic and Beyond

I-O Psychologists study people at work and partner with organizations to create systems that foster high-functioning, highly engaged, and high-performance workforces. We apply psychological principles and methods to help companies, and the people that comprise them, operate in a fulfilling, successful, and healthy, way. As we navigated a global pandemic, employee and leader well-being was put in the spotlight, and many I-O Psychologists were leaned upon to provide insight and support. During that chaotic time, we did our best to provide value and insight in the face of unprecedented challenges. Now, as the day-to-day impact of Covid has lessened, I wondered what we’ve learned about supporting employee well-being over the last three years that can make us better and be more prepared and proactive, rather than reactive, going forward.

To help me answer this question I gathered a panel of experts who worked with companies during the pandemic to support their well-being for a LinkedIn Live discussion. They shared their personal experiences and learnings to help us be more proactive, rather than reactive, as partners in well-being. The highlights from this event have been shared below.

Panelists:

• Alexandra Chris. Leadership and Team Development, Omers.

• Tessa Dehring. Principal, Nous Group.

• Nick Hobson. Global Director, Behavioral and Data (BAD) Sciences.

If you could go back in time to before Covid spread, what would you tell organizations to start doing to support their people through the coming pandemic?

Alex C.: I would tell them start by creating a well-being strategy, or at least defining well-being, to start thinking about how they are creating a psychologically safe culture, and how they are enabling people to bring their whole selves to work.

Nick H.: One thing that we lost in the pandemic was the sensemaking process, those informal conversations people have around the office to help them make sense of what’s happening around them which also support learning and collaboration. Organizations would have done well to think about how they could design for those sensemaking experiences when we are distant and can’t count on them happening organically. For example, don’t schedule meetings back-to-back, allowing time to connect and debrief. Those conversations are most needed when things don’t really make much sense, like during Covid, and make a big difference.

Tessa D.: I’d advise companies to consider the history of pandemics to get a more realistic understanding of its potential impact and prepare accordingly. I think we were overly optimistic about how long and severe the pandemic would be and could have managed expectations better. I’d also advise them to take a more holistic approach to wellbeing interventions. During the pandemic, many companies overly favoured tertiary, surface-level interventions that were band-aid solutions. But they don’t work as well in the long term, and we need to focus more on primary interventions like job design and how we lead to have a bigger impact on well-being.

What well-being issues did you encounter during the pandemic and how did you and your organization become aware of them?

Nick H.: Our organization had been conducting regular surveys and found that, by the end of 2021, there were significantly elevated rates of stress, inability to focus, absenteeism, presenteeism, and distraction. Interestingly, when we dug further into the data, those with the lowest scores were also the ones who were most engaged in wellbeing programs. Anecdotally, clients were coming to us for help with issues related to negative emotions. In response, we had facilitators that would connect with them for virtual drop-in sessions and micro-interventions to help them manage negative emotional states. We asked participants how they were feeling at the beginning of the drop-in, did the 10-minute interventions, and then reassessed their emotional state. We had thousands of participants and found that they tended to leave with more positive emotions than they arrived with. Even though the effect was small, many found that it helped them manage their emotions throughout their week. For some of our larger clients, we were also able to link the impact of this positive emotional regulation with sustained mindset and behaviour changes.

Tessa D.: We saw multi-layered issues in terms of where well-being issues were coming from as well as multiple issues at the same time. The root of many issues were personal and social challenges, and the challenges became harder because support people like leaders and well-being practitioners were also struggling and weren’t always able to help themselves. Many people trying to manage their well-being did so by ticking off items and activities from their well-being checklists but would often find that it didn’t help them improve and could even create new anxiety and worry that they weren’t doing enough. I think that the better approach would have been to engage with these good practices to find what would really worked best for them individually, and to work more on those things. What is the line between our work and the work of clinical psychologists when we’re helping people with burnout and mental health challenges at work?

Alex C.: The reality is that people bring their mental health challenges to work, and it isn’t leaders’ jobs to diagnose them, but to listen, have empathy and be aware of the resources available so they can help them access the care they need. Employers are increasing the number of benefits employees have access to and leaders have an important role to play in providing access to them.

Tessa D.: Our field is challenged with a brand that is often confused with clinical psychology. The pandemic highlighted the importance of being cognizant of the bounds of our expertise. When you coach someone, you inevitably coach the whole person, but I try to maintain bounds around my expertise and only address stressors when they are work oriented.

How has the move of the workplace from people’s offices to their homes impacted their well-being?

Nick H.: The move to remote working created some inequities because not everyone had access to the same quality work environment, yet they were still expected to be productive. That’s an issue that hasn’t been discussed enough. Tessa D.: On a more optimistic note, it’s amazing how quickly we were able to transform how we worked, and many companies were forced to adapt, and they were able to prove that they can still be productive with a distributed workforce.

What have you learned about supporting people during or after a crisis?

Tessa D.: I’ve learned a lot about how we partner in well-being. During a large-scale crisis we need to have more empathy and consideration around the pace of change that people are experiencing. There is also greater value in helping people manage their workloads as they are working under stress and have limited energy.

Alex C.: As a people leader, make sure to check in with your teams and foster open communication, empower growth and development, and consistently ask how they’re doing and feeling. Be present and work to understand their needs and challenges and your role in helping them through it.

Nick H.: Many people leaders were completely lost during covid. The first thing you need to provide is clarity because of the stress of the tremendous uncertainty people were feeling and the mixed messages they were getting. There are still difficult, awkward conversations that people leaders need to have, but they need to resist the urge to be indirect and sugarcoat their message in those moments, because clarity is kindness. The other important lesson was the importance of empathy that is grounded in action. In our organization we studied empathy by tracking roughly 6000 leaders using 360o tools and we found that those with a higher capacity for empathy tended to take on some of the emotional burden of their people out of a desire to help, which led to a series of negative outcomes for them and their teams. But if they followed up their empathy by taking action to alleviate the issues, we found that their outcomes were significantly more positive.

About Tessa Dehring, MA.

Tessa co-leads the organizational performance and leadership and capability work for Nous Group globally and brings deep experience supporting organizations to enhance organizational performance and leadership.

About Nick Hobson, PhD.

Nick is a Behavioural Strategist and Organizational Psychologist who helps create knowledge communities where business leaders and academics can come together to think about how best to deliver on evidence-based behavior change. He is a broker of science and business strategy and has worked with some of the largest and most recognizable brands in the world.

About Alexandra Chris, PhD.

Alex completed her PhD at the University of Guelph where she conducted research on micro-aggressions, employee well-being, and positive organizational psychology. At Omers, Alex works to support the development of a healthy, productive, thriving workplace as the Lead of Leadership and Team Development.

April 2023: How Athletics Helped Shape my Approach to Leadership Consulting?

Interview with Erica Naccarato, MA
Managing Consultant, MacPhie Consulting 

Can you tell us about how your journey through spots and I-O Psychology brought you to this point in your career?
Since I was ten years old, I have been involved in the volleyball community as both a player and a coach. Throughout my youth, I played competitively, and while completing my bachelor’s degree in psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson, I played for the varsity team. 

At TMU, my coach emphasized creating an efficient and effective team culture by defining core values and team identity to achieve excellent results on the court. The idea of 15 individuals with different personalities and aspirations coming together to work towards a collective purpose fascinated me, leading me to consider a master’s degree in Sports Psychology. However, I ultimately felt that a better career option for me was in I-O Psychology, where I could tackle similar challenges in the corporate world. After completing my master’s in I-O at the University of Waterloo, I joined the consulting world, where I have been working since, while also continuing to coach volleyball. 

At MacPhie, our business model centers on two pillars of professional services: Strategy, which encompasses planning, facilitation, and communication support; and Culture and Organizational Development, which involves team culture, dynamic leadership development, and personal brand. I spend most of my time on the people and culture side of the business, working with clients on leadership development and training, building workshops, and facilitating conversations to help organizations align their priorities and make strategic decisions. 

I typically work with 8 or 9 clients at a time on different engagements. One example is a high-performing team program for mental health professionals that lasts about five months and includes customized workshops and a habit builder platform to sustain new behaviours. The topics we cover include finding your authentic leadership style, communicating effectively, and giving feedback. It’s like a Management 101 course for their unique context. 

But my favourite work to do is facilitating key conversations for our clients. When our clients’ leadership teams are trying to make strategic decisions, we help them find alignment. We do this using different methods and practices, but a lot of it comes down to being an empathetic observer and a clear communicator. Something that I learned from sports is asking difficult, direct questions, and having healthy conflict in the open so it doesn’t lead to side conversations and resentment. Helping people understand each others’ unique perspectives brings out the benefits of diverse experiences and opinions. 

How has your experience in sports shaped your approach to leadership consulting? 

For one thing, it taught me the importance of repetition. We tend to revert to patterns of behaviour that are comfortable for us, you need to get to a point where a learned behaviour becomes your default mode even when you’re under pressure. That’s why we place such an emphasis on sustainability in our development programs. 

I also learned the value of purposeful and intentional collaboration. I often tell my clients that when you’re collaborating with a team, you have to be intentional about your collaboration. You need to get to know your team members in a way that will help you collaborate better. You can’t avoid those direct conversations that need to be had, and you can’t just assume that everyone works the way you do. Intentional collaboration means putting in the effort to understand each other and figure out how to work together effectively. I think this is one way that teams in industry can take inspiration from teams in sports. 

Sports has also impacted the way I personally lead. When I grew up playing on teams, there was always this notion of leaving everything at the door, including your personal stuff, but I realized that this was impossible. Command and control leadership considers empathy to be weak. As a coach, I vowed to never encourage my athletes to leave their personal lives at the door, and instead, I encourage them to show up to training as their whole person, and I showcase, honour and care about them for the genuine people they are. 

Lastly, I learned that leadership is not about you, and winning something or being successful is not about you as an individual. When you join a team, you have to make a commitment to let go of that personal ego and any need for self-validation from the team. Having an ambition for personal glory will make it really hard to lead successfully and develop a great team. That’s a big component of teamwork; you’re part of a group of people. 

As consultants and coaches, how can we help leaders find a successful approach that balances both high empathy and high accountability? 

This is such a relevant topic, given how the events of the last three years have put people’s mental health and personal well-being into the spotlight. It seems that organizations are now realizing the value of prioritizing their employees’ personal lives over their work lives. However, some organizations struggle with the trade-offs of being empathetic to their team members while also holding them accountable for their work. 

In my opinion, before anything else, leaders need to build a foundation of trust with their team members, set appropriate expectations and show that you care about the team members and their personal goals. Understanding team members’ goals helps leaders tailor their leadership and coaching style to help team members achieve their aspirations. Doing this will help motivate the team members and build a deeper, more trusting relationship. 

Many employers fear that if a team member is going through challenges or personal issues, they will use it as an excuse and slack off. But, in my opinion, being a leader requires putting trust first and putting skepticism and fear of betrayal aside. That means that if they say they are unable to perform a certain task due to their mental health, trust them, and work together to find a solution. This collaborative process may require adjusting goals or finding alternative ways to achieve them. 

To sum it up, building a foundation of trust, managing expectations, understanding team members’ long-term goals, connecting feedback and coaching to those goals, and giving the benefit of the doubt are critical for leading a team for sustainable results. 

How can industry leaders learn from sports leadership to foster high-performance in teams? What lessons can they draw on for what to do or what not to do? 

There is a concept in sales that I’ve seen applied in sports which states that your level of self-belief and self- confidence dictates your overall performance. Your self-concept dictates how you perceive yourself, and if you believe that you are mediocre, you will perform at that level. I have found that, while self-concept is a common focus for sports leaders, it is applied less in industry. The truth is that people hold themselves back because of their limiting beliefs all the time, and leaders can access untapped potential by helping their teams identify and engage with these beliefs. 

From a coaching perspective, it is challenging to help people change their self-beliefs, especially when they are newer in their roles or careers. I see this happen in the girls that I coach. I have tried to coach my players through this by showing them concrete evidence of their actual abilities and setting high expectations for them and believing in them. This also needs to be reinforced by fostering a culture of high performance that can influence low self- concepts just by association. 

I also find it interesting when leaders who are big sports fans adopt the mentalities, lessons, and values of high- performance sports coaches in their leadership capacity. They want their team to move as a unit, and this trend towards togetherness and collective goals is reflective of sports. However, sometimes we can move too far into the realm of high-performance sport, which can be problematic. There is a level of martyrdom associated with sport that glamorizes blood, sweat, and tears, and dying for the team, the sport, and the fans. Some leaders equate this to their organizational job, which can become unhealthy and overly intense. In such cases, empathy is critical, and we need to understand that it is not healthy to encourage team members to prioritize their job over their life or put their mental and emotional well-being over their job performance. 

Both sports and industry have been challenged to be more inclusive of women and marginalized groups. What have you seen in those areas that make you optimistic and where is there more room to grow? 

There’s a positive trend in sports towards increasing the number of women in leadership positions, including female head coaches and women on the benches of male professional sports teams. This diversity is important because it attracts more women to the workforce. When the leadership team does not include people who look like me, I feel that my perspectives, perceptions, and life experiences won’t be acknowledged. Different leadership styles are emerging, such as servant leadership, empathetic leadership, and political leadership, with Jacinda Ardern from New Zealand being celebrated for her leadership style during the COVID pandemic. People across the spectrum of gender, race and ethnicity, and age have different experiences, and there is a desire for more holistic perspectives to avoid biased approaches and ways of thinking. 

However, progress is still needed to overcome the challenges of individuals who uphold old systems, such as old boys’ clubs and patriarchal norms. There is room to grow, especially in sports, where there is a lack of female coaches despite the high percentage of female athletes. Amongst volleyball players in Ontario, for example, while 75% of the players are female, only 25% of coaches are female. That’s why I developed a leadership program for female volleyball players aged 15 to 18 to encourage them to become coaches. The increasing focus on authentic leadership, which emphasizes leading in a way that feels natural based on personal experiences, gives me hope for future progress. 

What is one piece of advice you that leadership-focused I-O Psychologists need to hear? 

One critique that I have for some people in I-O Psychology is an overreliance on theory. We need to be much more flexible when we work in industry because theory doesn’t always reflect real-life situations. While theory gives us credibility and provides an objective foundation to work from, the biggest mistake that I see consultants make is being overly focused on systematic research and theory at the expense of being flexible to the client’s needs. 

In my experience, I have found that I get the most success and build the most trust with my clients just by being willing to listen to them, accommodate them, and be patient. If you try to push your own agenda and diagnose them too early without listening to the full picture, you will not be successful. I build most of my trust and partnerships by listening to the challenges that a leader is experiencing and helping them talk through it. So use research as much as you can, but be flexible, thoughtful, and responsive to the needs of your clients. 

About Erica Naccarato, MA 

Erica is Managing Consultant at MacPhie, where she supports high-performing team initiatives through programs that empower and motivate teams to communicate more effectively, generate focus, and achieve their strategic goals. Erica also currently supports the development of strategic plans for various non-profit organizations and associations. Erica is a Prosci Certified Change Practitioner and holds a Master’s of Applied Science in Industrial- Organizational Psychology from the University of Waterloo, and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Ryerson University. 

Outside of work, you’ll find Erica in the gym coaching her competitive girls volleyball team, or playing on the court herself! Erica loves the culture and fashion of Toronto, and is always up for trying a new restaurant or stepping into a local boutique in the city. 

January 2023

Ameetha Garbharran. Ph.D. expsyt

It has been two years since I joined as CSIOP’s Practice Makes Perfect columnist during a rather eventful time in human history. We have seen a global pandemic, dramatic shifts in the world of work and we continue to be made aware of the impact of social, political, economic and climate-related issues on nations, organizations and individuals. These profound changes have impacted every corner of society in unprecedented ways and will continue to do so. Industrial & Organizational Psychologists, practicing their craft in organizations, have been put through their paces and will have to adapt and innovate their approaches to address old and new issues to make a meaningful impact. It has been a pleasure covering some of the most pressing issues confronting I-O Psychology practitioners over the last two years, but the time has now come for me to move on. I am happy to hand over the reins of the CSIOP Practice Makes Perfect column to Michael Vodianoi, Leadership Strategist at DDI Canada. I have no doubt that you will find his perspectives on the critical issues that impact the practice of I-O Psychology insightful and engaging. Welcome, Michael.

Michael Vodianoi. MA Leadership Strategist, DDI

Introduction

I‘m excited to be the new columnist for CSIOP’s Practice Makes Perfect Column! I’d like to start by acknowledging the work of Dr. Ameetha Garbharran who contributed and curated amazing articles on the state of our practice in Canada over the last two years.

This column holds a special place in the story of my personal career journey, as I
contributed an article in early 2018 about the challenges I-O Psychologists face in
building a recognizable brand and selling our value to organizations. At the time, I was
one year removed from my master’s degree and was working outside of the field,
managing marketing for a technology company. The article gained some attention in the
I-O world, and it helped me grow my network with practitioners in Canada and abroad, speak publicly for the first time, and opened new doors for my career in I-O Psychology. Today I am a Leadership Strategist at DDI Canada where I shape programs that enable organizations to achieve strategic objectives through their people. I’m excited to contribute to this publication and share this space with our wonderful I-O community.

As the Practice Makes Perfect Columnist my goals are to:

1.     Provide valuable, relevant content that highlights the work we do, the advances we are making, and the ways that I-O Psychologists are making an impact in Canada.

2.     Offer a platform and elevate the voices of members of our community.

3.     Raise awareness of I-O Psychology to future practitioners and the broader market.

In this issue of Practice Makes Perfect, we have an important perspective on a timely topic that is already impacting many of us. We are experiencing turbulent economic times in Canada, and many experts predict that we will experience a recession in 2023, if we are not already in it. While the future can be hard to predict, and a recession may affect some more than others, Canadian I-O Psychologists need to be thinking about the impact it will have on their clients, their employers, and on them in their roles, and what steps they can take today to prepare.

To help us understand what we may face in the period ahead and what we can do to prepare, we turned to Dr. Richard Davis, CEO of Kilberry, who shared his insights as a leader who has navigated three recessions in his career. In the following interview conducted by Dr. Navio Kwok (Kilberry’s Vice President of Research and Marketing), Richard shares valuable lessons that he learned on his career journey about managing risk, becoming indispensable to your clients, and developing skills that are worth a premium during hard times.

Preparing for a Recession as an I-O Psychologist

Richard Davis, Ph.D. Navio Kwok, Ph.D.

CEO, Kilberry Vice President of Research and Marketing, Kilberry

Tell us how you got into I-O Psychology.

I was doing my undergrad at Western when I left after my second year to become an entrepreneur. I launched a tech business which became successful. It was around that time that I started to see a connection between business, psychology, and technology. After completing my undergrad, I went to Boston University for a clinical-focused master’s and then York University for a Ph.D. in applied social and personality psychology. During this time, I returned to Western full circle as an adjunct teaching organizational psychology.

After I finished my Ph.D., I joined an outplacement firm based in Toronto to build their leadership development practice and did a lot of assessment work as part of it. About a year and a half later, I joined RHR and was there for over eight years. I grew my practice within RHR and enjoyed some nice success there. In 2010, I wrote The Intangibles of Leadership, a turning point for me. With the wind in my sails from the book and the vision of a new specialized firm, I launched Kilberry. Since then, we’ve grown tremendously over the past 10 years, with 10 extraordinary people, serving senior level clients around the world.

There have been three recessions over the span of your career. How did it impact you or your clients?

The dot-com boom was an ambiguous moment personally because it was right around when I was finishing up my Ph.D. It wasn’t a smooth transition since consulting firms weren’t particularly hiring. I knew I had to pound the pavement and speak to as many people as possible. It required a fair bit of grit and resilience to make my own way rather than having people recruit me. I did eventually join that outplacement firm, which was naturally busy during the recession.

What did you learn from the clients of the outplacement firm?

Working at an outplacement firm during a recession was a sobering experience. Although I didn’t really work on the outplacement side, I empathized with the people who were searching for their next job. The ones that were

successful were the ones that relentlessly relied on and built their networks. At the time, outplacement was very much an in-person exercise, so people would use the firm’s offices as their own. The successful ones would come in everyday and meet up with or call people. What stood out for me was that they were there every day as if it was their job.

There is a lesson around being proactive in the job search process.

In my own experience, even with landing that first outplacement job, networking is critical. And what I’ve found is that, especially among our Canadian I-O community, people were way more helpful and amenable to support me than I had ever anticipated. So my advice is and always has been to meet with people and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Listen to their advice because they have done it themselves and will give you information that you wouldn’t otherwise have, including about yourself and what’s going on in the market.

Let’s move on to the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009.

I was at RHR’s Toronto office. In order to hedge against declines in business, most firms cut costs, pulling back on some of their marketing and growth plans. A few people left our firm, and most consulting companies informally froze hiring. From that, I learned the importance of managing risk and making prudent financial decisions. As a consultant, I also learned that the more in control of your client base you are, the better positioned you are during a recession. I worked hard at business development, which was personally beneficial during an economic downturn and was also of considerable value to the firm.

It kept your relevance in the firm.

Absolutely. It’s your relevance, your value. Business development is an important muscle to build in any professional services firm at any time, particularly in advance of a downturn. You will be that much more of an asset to your employer if you are bringing in value in some way. In consulting, that means providing high quality advice and selling the work. If you’re internal to an enterprise, create value in some way rather than being an expense line. Among my clients, I recall not seeing a huge downturn, which could’ve been a selective thing because some industries were hurt more than others. And given my fortunate position as a close advisor, most didn’t find me yet dispensable.

Indispensable to clients?

Well, everyone is dispensable in some way. However, the less transactional the work, the less dispensable you are. As an external consultant, this means being a partner not a vendor. Give your time and expertise, regardless of any formal program. One of my clients in the hospitality industry got hit particularly hard by the recession and had to lay off a bunch of people. I remember hearing the news on the car radio, then pulling over to the side of the road and calling him to see if he was okay. He poured out his emotions and described how difficult the experience was. The general nature of our work is that if you can’t take some of your time and help someone who is in need, regardless of whether it’s in scope of any project or part of any formal coaching engagement, then you’re not going to last long, and your clients will move on. At the end of the day, we are psychologists, and we need to meet our clients where they are and help them through challenges.

What was it like at Kilberry during the COVID recession?

We saw zero effect until March, around that fateful day when the NBA postponed their season. That day, I received a call from our biggest client saying that they needed to delay (not cancel) a huge piece of work we were about to embark on. It was a significant program and the fact that it was our biggest client made me concerned. I’m sure my face turned white and those around me could see the shock in my eyes. What I realized immediately was this notion of helping clients where they’re at and focusing on what they need. It was an ambiguous time, and I felt that a key part of our role was sensemaking for our clients. And because our firm focuses on senior leadership, the question became what CEOs needed at that moment to ensure their organizations were being led effectively. We hosted a virtual fireside chat alongside a clinical psychologist for thousands of our client’s employees and offered virtual coaching to help them navigate the early days of COVID. What I found shortly thereafter was that leadership teams needed us more than ever during times of uncertainty, and after the initial shock of everything, business skyrocketed.

What types of I-O jobs are more likely to be impacted during a recession?

If the business and industry are challenged, it doesn't matter what position you're in within that company, you're unfortunately at risk of being impacted. We’re seeing signs in the tech industry right now with public reductions in

workforce. The next indicator of a downturn will be large companies declaring a hiring freeze. However, the tenets that I talked about for the ’07 ‘09 recession ring true, which is the more you are adding real value to the core business, the more protected and valuable you are during a recession. It is a matter of separating the nice-to-haves from the need-to-haves. If you cannot make a direct connection between your work and the success of your company, you are at risk of being impacted.

Let’s say I’m a senior consultant who does mid-level coaching or assessment work. What other things should I be doing in preparation for a recession?

Build your business development skills. The best way to prepare is to become a good salesperson and a reliable partner to your clients. In order to do that, you need to get out there and network. Organizations like the GTA I/O Network are extremely helpful. Also, understand your unique value and have a strategy. All successful companies must be able to pivot when the situation demands, and the same goes for people. For example, some I/O psychologists are now in roles focused on employee wellness, and I think that's now become a highly valued position within a company as a result of COVID. Whereas in the past, it may have been more dispensable, it’s become critical. The market has shifted in terms of how it looks at psychologists and HR because of all of the people-related complexities we’ve endured through COVID. So, embrace the psychology part of your I/O psychology background.

I think in the Canadian market, I-O psychologists have an identity crisis, in that people don’t know the differences between I/O and HR, or MBAs who specialize in leadership. To get a job, people might actually drop the psychology part and emphasize the business part, and you’re saying it’s important to bring that back.

I’m not sure I agree. Perhaps in the early stages of one’s career in I-O Psychology, it is unclear how to set your professional identity. I do think it comes in time. I will say that I am a registered psychologist doing this work for 20 years, and I’ve never felt more like a psychologist than I have over the last three years. And it's in part because people need psychologists of all types during times of uncertainty. Whether it's for mental health issues or just navigating ambiguity, our insights and our background lends well to supporting people during these times. I also believe fundamentally in not undervaluing our services and background. It's a lot more valuable than people in the field sometimes realize. I know for a fact that a lot of our clients feel we are mission critical to them and we should acknowledge that and embrace it. Wear your I-O Psychology badge with pride and confidence.

What’s your advice there?

Don’t sell yourself short. Embrace your degree, background, expertise, and insight. You have the opportunity to impact not only the client in front of you, but the community at large. Realize that your advice is of high value to other people and expect real value from that, whether it's in compensation, fees, or a positive organizational environment.

Any other final insights?

It’s important to note that a recession lasts on average 10 months. That’s not a long time. Do great work, network, and stay in touch with people, and be there to advise or help people during this time, whether it’s colleagues or clients. The people who plan well and survive through a recession end up doing incredibly well on the upside. And yes, it does take somewhat longer for recruiting and employment to get back to pre-recessionary times, but just to normalize and keep in mind that recessions don’t last forever, and on the other side is typically very heady times.

About Richard Davis, Ph.D.

Dr. Richard Davis is CEO of Kilberry, a leading firm of organizational psychologists that provide assessment, coaching, team effectiveness, and CEO succession services to senior management. Richard has extensive experience advising CEO’s, boards, private equity investors, and large family offices. He has been consulting to organizations for more than 20 years. He is author of The Intangibles of Leadership (Jossey-Bass) and forthcoming Good Judgment (Harper Collins), due out in 2023. Richard is registered as an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist by the College of Psychologists of Ontario. He can be reached at rdavis@kilberry.com or on LinkedIn.

About Navio Kwok Ph.D.

Navio Kwok, Ph.D., is Vice President of Research and Marketing at Kilberry. He oversees the firm’s commitment to advancing the science of executive leadership and translating it into practical, actionable advice for the firm’s preeminent clients. He can be reached at nkwok@kilberry.com or on LinkedIn.

October 2020: Advancing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Hiring and Promotion: Through the Lens of an I-O Psychologist

Introduction

It is unthinkable that even today, in the 21st century, we continue to witness organizations engage in questionable hiring and promotion practices. Who has not heard of candidates being rejected because they did not conform to an undefined and elusive “culture-fit” criterion which, in reality, is a justification for making talent decisions based on subjective criteria that have little to no bearing on whether people are capable of being effective in jobs? Or, of senior executives and board directors seeking referrals from their very exclusive, homogenous

networks to fill strategic senior positions? And then, of course, who has not heard of organizations who interview their candidates’ ad nauseum ... subjecting each candidate to an inordinate number of interviews and using the interview as their only hiring tool? Worse still are those organizations who have not yet heard of structured behavioural interviews and who continue to use unstructured interviews to this day.

These scenarios have played out so many times that they, troublingly, seem to have been normalized by many stakeholders involved in hiring and promotion. As such, there are people who cannot see the problems inherent in these practices. Why are they problematic? They perpetuate unfairness and are ethically questionable because they do not uphold a fundamental tenet of objective hiring and promotion processes: they do not give every qualified individual, regardless of their race, gender, age, socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, disability status, etc. an equal and fair opportunity to be shortlisted, selected or promoted into a job. This causes adverse impact for marginalized groups and has detrimental consequences for advancing the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) agenda in organizations.

I have heard of stakeholders at different levels in organizations being overwhelmed by DEI problems. Many do not know where to start or how to tackle what they perceive as a mammoth challenge. So, if you are an I-O Psychologist who knows an organizational decision-maker who is grappling with how to practically achieve DEI in their organization, then this article is for you. It offers some actionable recommendations together with arguments and rationales that can be used to articulate the benefits of leveraging I-O Psychologists to advance DEI. If you are a decision-maker or an HR representative and are willing and able to partner with I-O Psychologists, who understand the science of hiring (recruitment and selection) and promotion and know how to properly apply it in the world of work, then this article will also be helpful to you to kickstart the process of executing on your organization’s DEI goals.

Recommendations to Advance DEI in Hiring and Promotion

What follows are core recommendations to lay the foundation for fairness and ensure that no one is discriminated against on the basis of subjective criteria that are not job-related in the hiring and promotion process.

1. Use job analysis to define objective criteria for making talent decisions; this can debias your hiring and promotion process

If you pick up any classical textbook on applied I-O Psychology, you will consistently come upon the concept of job analysis as the foundation of all talent management applications. Yet, in the Canadian organizations I have worked with over the last ten years, I can count on one hand the number of times I have heard the words “job analysis” mentioned as a step in the process of conducting psychological assessments for recruitment, selection and promotion. A job analysis helps to understand the requirements of the job as it is defined today. So, bear in mind that if you conducted a job analysis ten years ago, it is probably no longer valid.

In a dynamic and constantly changing world of work, it is imperative to define the requirements of jobs so that we can understand what is required for people to be effective in these jobs. In the absence of an accurate job analysis or any job analysis at all, for that matter, there is no target that decision-makers have to aim for. So, they are effectively shooting in the dark when trying to identify suitably qualified candidates. Without a well-defined, objective set of criteria to hire or promote against, the potential opens up for bias to enter into the equation. When this happens, the

consequences for marginalized groups are detrimental because they find themselves consistently and systematically being excluded based on subjective and discriminatory criteria and practices such as the elusive and inconsistently defined “culture fit” criterion and decision-makers hiring and promoting in their own image.

Some critics have commented that because jobs change so rapidly in today’s world of work, there is no point to doing job analysis anymore. This is, categorically, the wrong conclusion to arrive at and a rather convenient one used by non-marginalized groups to perpetuate the status quo. It puts decision-makers back at square-one, where they have no objective set of criteria to base hiring and promotion decisions on, which, as we have discussed already, opens these decisions up to bias. The appropriate response is that because jobs change so quickly, we need to find more efficient and expedient ways of analyzing them so that we can understand them quickly and keep pace with the environment. Some I-O Psychologists are able to accomplish this so decision-makers in organizations need to find the ones who can and leverage them to conduct job analyses and identify objective criteria for hiring and promotion to debias these talent management processes and promote DEI.

2. Ditch referrals from exclusive, homogenous professional networks and resumés for shortlisting; they discriminate against qualified candidates from marginalized groups

A famous English proverb states that “Birds of a feather flock together”. At the most senior levels of organizations, it is not uncommon to find “old boys’ networks” in which traditionally wealthy white men with similar socio- economic and educational backgrounds band together to support each other to meet personal and professional objectives. These networks typically exclude women, racial minorities, people from different socio-economic and educational backgrounds, etc. Thus, when candidates for vacancies are sourced from exclusive and homogenous networks for hiring or promotion rather than by putting people through fair and objective recruitment and selection processes, marginalized groups are unfairly disadvantaged and have a lower probability of being shortlisted, selected or promoted into available roles, even when they are suitably qualified. This is obviously counterproductive to the DEI agenda. Organizations, specifically North American organizations, need to recognize that recruiting for and filling roles through referrals from professional networks is subjective and unfair. This practice needs to stop immediately if companies care as much as they say they do about doing the right thing and supporting DEI goals.

If you are hiring for or looking to promote into a position, open it up for competition to ensure that all groups of people have an equal and fair chance of applying and being selected. Advertise the position widely. Do not selectively advertise or publicize it in your network only as this could adversely impact other groups, especially marginalized people. If you are using a recruitment or executive search firm, ensure that they are using best practices informed by science to objectively and fairly shortlist qualified candidates. If they are not, you are probably wasting your time and money and would do well to find an I-O Psychologist to partner with you and your recruiters to support the sourcing and shortlisting process.

If you are using resumés or other biographical sources of information (e.g. LinkedIn) to shortlist candidates for hiring or promotion, be aware that these are flawed and understand their shortcomings. Research has shown that biographical information is one of the least predictive sources of future job effectiveness (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). It is riddled with opportunities to allow bias to enter the decision-making process, so it needs to be treated with extreme caution. Knowing where someone went to university, at which companies they worked previously, who their previous leaders were and how many years of work experience they have are some of the least valid and reliable predictors of future job success. Yet, in the context of resumés, these criteria are imbued with high importance and people are excluded based on them, leading to questionable rejection decisions.

Empirical research shows that marginalized groups such as women and racial minorities are unfairly discriminated against and excluded when resumés are screened, thereby, decreasing the chances of qualified women and people of colour being successful for hiring or promotion opportunities (Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004; Weichselbaumer, 2020). To advance the DEI agenda, therefore, resumés should not be used with reckless abandon and should be replaced with more objective and fair methods for screening candidates. Companies like Applied in the UK have developed online work sample tests to screen candidates based on job-related criteria. Other accessible, scientific screening methods exist. Well-trained I-O Psychologists know how to leverage scientific I-O Psychology best practices and draw on job analysis data to render the screening process for hiring and promotion objective and fair. So, if I-O Psychologists are not being leveraged to advance the DEI agenda in your organization, the question you need to ask is why not?

3. Use a scientific, valid and reliable multi-method approach to talent decision-making; this gives all qualified candidates an equal and fair opportunity to be shortlisted, selected or promoted

Many organizations leave hiring and promotion decisions to HR professionals and hiring managers and I-O Psychologists are often not involved for various reasons, including because organizational decision-makers often do not know they exist and because they sometimes do not believe that I-O Psychologists could add as much value to the hiring and promotion process as they themselves can. Contrary to the belief held by some decision-makers, not everyone can quickly become an I-O Psychologist and acquire the skills and expertise necessary to offer input in hiring and promotion processes. Well-trained I-O Psychologists possess advanced post-graduate degrees in their field of study and are experts in human behaviour in the workplace. They know how to scientifically measure and predict human behaviour at work and understand the implications of different behavioural styles on organizational performance, organizational culture, individual performance, teamwork, employee engagement, etc.

Well-trained I-O Psychologists are also trained to use a multitude of scientific techniques and methodologies for recruitment, selection and promotion. They understand the advantages and disadvantages of the many different psychological assessment tools available and advocate for a multi-method approach to ensure objective and fair decision-making. Thus, they do not have to rely only on unstructured interviews and are able to include structured behavioural interviews in combination with other objective, valid and reliable predictors of future job success. They are qualified to access, administer and interpret these specialized psychological tools such as cognitive reasoning assessments, personality tests, behavioural simulations, etc. Further, they possess the critical thinking capabilities necessary to distinguish between properly validated and reliable commercially available assessment tools and those tools that are attractive in appearance and well-marketed, but which lack a solid empirical foundation for making fair and equitable hiring and promotion decisions. They also understand how to integrate a lot of information about the subjective topic of human behaviour at work in objective ways, using the knowledge derived from job analyses and by formulating standardized decision-making criteria, to ensure that all individuals being considered for roles are evaluated fairly and without bias.

Conclusion

To drive the DEI agenda forward, I-O Psychologists need to be well-versed in how their actions and inaction can promote or thwart fairness and equal treatment in talent decision-making. If they are not proficient in hiring and promotion processes, they need to get the appropriate training and experience to hone their skills. Hiring managers and executives need to educate themselves and be open to new knowledge they may not already possess about the role of I-O Psychologists in the talent management process. They need to recognize that I-O Psychologists are trained to add value above and beyond what HR is trained to accomplish in this domain and leave the processes that require technical I-O Psychology expertise to the technical experts.

If, despite having knowledge about best practices in the use of psychological assessments for hiring and promotion, stakeholders still cling to the status quo: they omit job analyses, continue to blithely leverage exclusive referral networks instead of conducting objective assessments to measure the potential of individuals to succeed in positions, and select and promote based on the elusive criterion of “culture fit”, then one has to seriously question their commitment to achieving diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. If, however, all the relevant stakeholders in organizations are truly committed to advancing the DEI agenda, this is very practically achievable in the context of hiring and promotion.

References

Bertrand, M. & Mullainathan, S. (2004). Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal: A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination. American Economic Review, 94(4), 991-1013.

Schmidt, F.L. and Hunter, J.E. (1998). The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 85 Years of Research Findings. Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 262-274.

Weichselbaumer, D. (2020). Multiple Discrimination Against Female Immigrants Wearing Headscarves. ILR Review, 73(3), 600-627.

Dr. Ameetha Garbharran of expsyt

July 2022

The adverse reaction I have witnessed from some talent management leaders to the idea of competencies is concerning. While many misconceptions abound, a common one is that if people perform poorly on competency assessments, then they are incompetent. Reductionistic interpretations of competencies like this one have led people to lose sight of the immense benefits competency-based approaches have to offer in the talent management process. As such, competencies have been vilified and discarded by some and the ‘baby has effectively been thrown out with the bath water’. 

Organizations who do not leverage competency-based approaches for talent decision-making tend to rely on other less scientific, less systematic, less measurable and consequently, less objective approaches for deciding on how to funnel applicants for jobs, who to hire, how to identify individuals with high potential for promotion and succession, etc. The result is that decisions are typically made based on subjective criteria and the potential for bias and unfair discrimination is rife. 

Today the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are increasingly at the forefront of many organizations’ strategic imperatives. Yet, when decision-makers use subjective methods that are not scientifically designed for making fair talent decisions, the attainment of these strategic ideals is actively thwarted. This is commercially and socially unacceptable in the world of work. Therefore, it is vital that those who have had an adverse reaction to the idea of competencies in the past, revisit their understanding of this construct and critically reflect on the advantages that leveraging competency-based approaches can have on achieving broader strategic goals, including advancing the DEI agenda. 

In this article, Dan van der Werf, Ph.D. presents a brilliant account of what competencies are, outlines their benefits and explains why organizations should use competencies as the foundation of talent management.

Dan van der Werf, Ph.D.

Co-Founder, Perennial Talent

April 2022: A Canadian Perspective on the Practice of I-O Psychology

From a practitioner’s perspective, the Canadian I-O Psychology landscape can look quite different compared to equivalent landscapes in other parts of the world. In some countries, I-O

Psychology is a well-known and established profession.

Organizations employ or actively seek out I-O Psychologists to assist with making key decisions in the areas of recruitment, selection, promotion, talent development and succession planning.

I-O Psychologists, with their deep, objective insights into the science of human behaviour and how it plays out in the workplace are sought out as the preferred executive coaches to senior leaders and as custodians of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace. And the strong research and analytical expertise that I-O Psychologists are equipped with are leveraged to inform and guide business strategy.

In Canada, the I-O Psychology landscape is quite interesting. First, if you took a quick poll, there is a high probability you would find most Canadian organizations still use unstructured interviews as the primary means for making hiring decisions. This, despite the fact that we now have accrued more than 100 years of I-O Psychology research evidence which shows that structured behavioural interviews are more predictive of job performance than unstructured interviews and that combining structured behavioural interviews with other well-designed, valid and reliable psychometric and behavioural assessment methods can yield better quality selection decisions. Second, in major economic hubs around the country, some key organizational stakeholders have either never heard of I-O Psychology as a profession or do not seem to value the contributions that I-O Psychologists can make to enhance talent management practices beyond what HR can offer. Third, some who leverage I-O Psychology products and services, believe there is a lack of appropriately skilled professionals in Canada and tend to lack confidence in the capabilities of Canadian I-O Psychologists to provide key services e.g. executive assessments for selection and development. Thus, practitioners with these skills are imported from other countries to fulfil the I-O Psychology needs of some Canadian-based organizations.

This raises some important questions: Why do some Canadian organizations lag behind in their adoption of the latest evidence-based I-O Psychology practices? Why have some organizations not heard of I-O Psychology as a profession, why do others not value the contributions that I-O Psychologists can make and why do I-O Psychologists find it challenging to influence and change this reality? What needs to change and what gaps need to be filled in the 4 academic training and job-related experience of Canadian I-O Psychologists for them to be considered credible and capable of providing core services to discerning Canadian businesses?

In this article, Ameetha Garbharran, Ph.D. and Kevin Silver, M.A., M.B.A. draw on their professional experiences to unpack some home-grown realities and explore how I-O Psychology professionals could navigate these, maximize their contributions and cement their relevance in Canadian organizations.

I-O Psychology’s Identity Crisis

How often do you find yourself in conversations with friends, colleagues, or family members and the subject of your profession comes up? The entrepreneur talks about her experience starting a new business and shares the recent challenges she has had to overcome. The lawyer talks about the latest case he won representing an employee who was unfairly laid off. Your sister, who works in sales, mentions that she was the top sales employee of the month and beat the company’s sales record. Then it’s your turn and you mention that you are an Industrial and Organizational Psychologist. The conversation initially gets a little quiet; you notice a few quizzical expressions and you begin explaining a little more about what you do. Then you field questions and clarify some common misnomers: “No, I’m not a mental health practitioner” or “No, I am not a therapist for business.” You try explaining what you do in different ways to shed more light on a profession that few people have heard about, until someone mercifully changes the subject. Has this ever happened to you?

In Canada, the profession of I-O Psychology seems to be suffering an identity crisis. Only some potential consumers of I-O Psychology services seem to be aware of the existence of I-O Psychology as a profession and fewer still seem to know about the practical benefits of leveraging the insights derived from I-O Psychology to make people and organizational decisions. There is an undeniable overlap in the space that HR professionals and I-O Psychologists operate in. But whilst almost everyone has heard about HR as a profession, the same cannot be said about I-O Psychology.

Interestingly, among Canadian I-O Psychologists, there appears to be a lack of a consolidated professional identity. There is a perceived lack of solidarity among academic and practitioner groups and among practitioners, and there is little consensus about what I-O Psychology professionals should call themselves. How can we expect our potential clients to know and understand our profession and the benefits of applying the science of human behaviour at work to optimize people and organizational performance if we, as I-O Psychology professionals, struggle to unite and agree about fundamental aspects of our own professional identity?

Perhaps a positive first step to resolving this identity crisis is to formulate a formal, common understanding of the varied work we do and advocate for the assignment of equivalent recognition to the important and mutually beneficial contributions we are able to make in both industry and academia. It would benefit us all to be more inclusive, tolerant, and respectful of the myriad different roles that we as I-O Psychologists can occupy in society. Moving away from traditional conceptualizations of I-O Psychologists as either academics or practitioners and embracing the notion of I-O Psychologists as “scientist-practitioners” may be critical to enhance inclusion and cohesion in our field and to support the continued survival and growth of I-O Psychology as a united profession in Canada.

Business Acumen: A Foundational Skill for I-O Psychology Practitioners

A common sentiment among Canadian I-O Psychology Masters and Ph.D. graduates is that their academic programs have prepared and steered them towards roles in academia or research-based positions in organizations. While some suggest that the practical application of I-O Psychology in the world of work is touched on in their programmes, it appears to receive less focus overall. The net effect is that many Canadian I-O Psychology graduates tend to leave university feeling more equipped to embrace careers in academia or research than as practitioners in industry, often leaving a void in the field of the practice of I-O Psychology in Canadian organizations.

Having vast, deep theoretical knowledge and insights about scientific research areas in the discipline of I-O Psychology, is not always immediately useful to clients. This knowledge and the insights derived from it still need to be applied appropriately by a practitioner who understands how to translate the theory and science into actionable strategies to produce meaningful business outcomes. Thus, the practitioner’s role is to guide and advise organizations, drawing on valid, reliable and data-driven evidence, on how to enhance business operations (strategy, process, etc.) for maximum results while simultaneously optimizing the deployment and development of their human capital.

Organizations can be conceptualized as having two foundational components: a “business” pillar and a “people” pillar. Working with start-ups, it is clear that the business aspect is the core, and almost exclusive, focus of business owners and leaders, especially in the early years of a company’s inception. If a company provides services, their core focus will be on developing and honing these services. Business strategies will be designed and implemented regarding marketing, sales, delivery and optimizing the service to their client. Similarly, for a company providing products, their resources will be allocated to building the best product, selling the product and creating a profit driven organization. Thus, in their early years, organizations may not consistently recognize or emphasize “people” as a critical component of their strategy for survival and growth.

Based on the academic research, however, I-O Psychology practitioners understand that when organizations acknowledge the contributions of and invest in their human capital, it could help to increase employee motivation and engagement, diminish workplace stress and create work contexts where people feel respected and valued. This, in turn, could have a positive correlation with workplace productivity and the achievement of performance objectives that increase the bottom-line. So, our role is to help all businesses, start-ups included, recognize the benefits of focusing on the “people” pillar even though it may seem counterproductive to cost-effectiveness and the maximization of profits. To achieve this, we need to frame these benefits in ways that business-minded clients can relate to; we need to “speak their language”.

If you specialize in talent selection, for example, you could explain how hiring capable talent will boost the company’s success. As I-O Psychology professionals, we may understand the psychometric theory behind how assessments work, why they are valid, and what they measure. Our role is to explain this in practical, businessoriented terms to our clients to illustrate how assessments could facilitate optimal decision-making which could improve the talent pool and why assessments could be beneficial for the company based on concrete business metrics they can relate to, for example, return on investment (ROI).

The message for I-O Psychology practitioners is to reflect on your own academic journeys. Did your program cover topics that are foundational to understanding the different aspects of business such as those covered in typical MBA programs: sales, marketing, business development, growth strategy, products, or service development, etc.? If not, it may be useful to spend some time educating yourself on these topics. If our purpose as I-O Psychology practitioners is to leverage our expertise on human behaviour at work to benefit businesses, then we should all strive to have basic business acumen to frame our contributions and insights in

Think Big and Forge Alliances: A Path Forward

Whether we consider ourselves academics, practitioners or scientist-practitioners, we can all take steps to be more inclusive and consider ways in which we can meaningfully collaborate to ensure that the work done in academic institutions feeds into the practical applications of I-O Psychology in industry and vice-versa. We need to leverage these synergies maximally for the benefit of the profession in Canada. Academics and I-O Psychologists in industry are encouraged to form alliances to provide experiential opportunities for students while they are completing the academic portions of their programs. Industry is where research hypotheses and findings can be tested and validated when practically implemented in the world of work and these insights can provide a critical feedback loop for researchers to understand how their theories and hypotheses hold up in real life, and how to revamp and extend their research studies to contribute new and expanded insights about human behaviour in the workplace.

In traditional and well-functioning capitalist economies, there is typically a symbiosis at a policy level between universities and industry. Industry is designed to drive national economic growth and universities are tasked with creating supporting curricula that produce the right number of individuals with the right combinations of skills to achieve this. Therefore, in the realm of the I-O Psychology profession in the context of a functioning, capitalist Canadian economy, there should technically be close synergies between academia and industry in the training of I-

O Psychologists to support the needs of organizations in their quest to drive economic viability and growth at a national level. When Canadians businesses feel that they have no other option but to seek out internationally qualified I-O Psychology professionals to gain access to specialized skills, it appears to point to a potential deficit in academic programs to produce graduates with the requisite skills to meet industry demand. It may also point to a lack of practical opportunities provided by Canadian organizations to equip newly qualified professionals with the skills needed to support the I-O Psychology needs of businesses through comprehensive and targeted internships, for example. This needs to be reviewed urgently in our context so that critical gaps can be bridged to ensure the continued relevance of I-O Psychology as a discipline and as a profession.

In closing, we may benefit from looking at our roles as academics and practitioners in the field of I-O Psychology as inter-related and as existing within the same broad ecosystem in order to recognize and appreciate the

6 dependencies we have on each other. If they exist, we need to eradicate the fractures between academia

About Ameetha Garbharran, Ph.D.

Dr. Ameetha Garbharran is the Founder and CEO of expsyt (pronounced excite). She specializes in executive assessments for selection and promotion; high-potential identification and succession planning; leadership development and executive coaching for C-suite and top tier leaders, entrepreneurs, and other strategic roles. She is an internationally registered Industrial-Organizational Psychologist and a Board Certified Executive Coach. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Psychology and a Masters degree (cum laude) in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. She has published research in academic journals, written articles for publications by SIOP and CSIOP and has presented papers at local and international conferences. Previously, she served as a member of the Executive Committee of SIOPSA and currently is a member of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) and the Canadian Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (CSIOP).

About Kevin Silver, M.A., MBA

Kevin Silver has spent the last three years as solo practitioner, specializing in entrepreneurial and start-up companies. He is currently a Consultant for the Assessment, Succession and Analytics department at LHH. With an MA in I-O Psychology and an MBA specializing in Global Management, along with a certification and expertise in Hogan assessments, Kevin aims at making businesses and organizations optimized through their greatest asset; the People.

January 2022: Tribute to Professor Peter Saville (1946 – 2022)

We sadly said our final goodbye to Professor Peter Saville in early January 2022. The world grew a little dimmer as a guiding beacon in the field of I-O Psychology and a brilliant human being was laid to rest.

Professor Peter Saville was a British Chartered Occupational Psychologist and earned international acclaim as one of the most successful psychologists within the business psychology profession. He was recognized by the British Psychological Society for having “established Britain as a centre for psychometric testing” and being “responsible for cementing fair and objective assessment in human resources across the world”. Described in the World Anthology of Psychology as “one of the greatest psychologists of our time”, he was truly an icon, a visionary, and a trailblazer in the field of psychometric assessments. An intrepid entrepreneur, he founded Saville and Holdsworth Limited (SHL), Saville Consulting (later acquired by Towers Watson) and was most recently the Founder and Chairman of 10x Psychology. He was a Professor of Psychology at Queens University and Professor at Kingston University, London. During his illustrious career spanning more than 50 years he contributed a plethora of ground-breaking workplace assessment products like the Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ), the Saville Wave personality assessment, libraries of cognitive ability tests and most recently new measures of personality, motivation, wellbeing, ability and employee engagement drawing on predictive analytics that provide real-time, integrated insights across the employee life-cycle. Peter Saville’s contributions to the field of I-O Psychology were unique and profound. He brought the theory and science of psychometric assessments to life and shaped the way I-O Psychology is practiced in the 21st century. Coupling his visionary ideas and entrepreneurial mindset with his deep technical knowledge as a skilled

4 psychometrician, he successfully commercialized the scientific practice of objective assessments in the workplace. The quintessential scientist-practitioner, he contributed significantly to both the practice of psychology in business and the field of academia. He masterfully identified the needs in the industry and crafted meaningful solutions to help individuals and businesses to thrive. He subjected his assessment solutions to rigorous scientific scrutiny to ensure that they were reliable, valid and fit for purpose. He is held in high esteem in both academic and business circles for his strong commitment to upholding the core principles of psychology and his brilliant commercial acumen and entrepreneurialism; a rare combination. His assessment solutions helped millions of people around the world find their optimal fit in the right jobs and in the right organizations. His products, services and methodologies promoted fairness, standardization and consistency by emphasizing job-related criteria in hiring, performance management, training and development, succession management and other organizational processes, thereby eliminating the potential for the use of subjective and arbitrary criteria that could taint or bias talent decision-making. Thus, long before diversity, equity and inclusion became popular, Peter Saville’s contributions to the world of psychological assessments in the workplace promoted fairness, objectivity and equity in talent decision-making. His dedication to providing guidance to employers on how to make objective decisions based on job-related criteria spoke to his integrity and calibre as a human being. In his book “Testing Times: Psychologist at Work” Peter Saville described some of the challenges he encountered early in his career as he struggled to gain traction and convince clients of the value of using purposefully designed, scientific psychological assessments to make important, strategic decisions about people at work. This point really stuck with me as decades later I continue to confront similar challenges as an I-O Psychologist. Peter Saville worked tirelessly to educate the market about the benefits of I-O Psychology applied to business and there is still work to do. Building on the foundation of his strong advocacy for the relevance of psychological assessments at work, we as I-O Psychologists have an obligation to carry the torch and continue to highlight the obvious benefits of using fair and objective assessment methods to hire, develop and promote competent individuals who have the abilities, personality attributes, and potential to perform their jobs effectively and drive organizational success. Making an immeasurable and indelible impact, he touched the lives of millions of people and his lifelong work has shaped the careers of many I-O Psychologists around the world. My own career was profoundly influenced by Peter Saville’s genius when I completed my internship at SHL before registering as an I-O Psychologist. I went on to work as an I-O Psychologist at SHL for several more years. His elegant and intelligent conceptualization and application of cognitive ability, personality and behaviourally-based assessments to help businesses make objective and accurate talent decisions was the foundation on which my career was built. I learnt from a master of our craft how to apply the science of psychological assessments meaningfully and fairly to the world of work and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to have stood on the shoulders of this giant in the field of I-O Psychology. Peter Saville’s legacy will undoubtedly live on. His contributions have shaped and will continue to influence the field of I-O Psychology around the world. We will miss his genius and novel ideas about how to push the boundaries of traditional psychometric theory to its limits and leverage psychological assessments in innovative ways to keep pace with technology. His departure is a sad loss to the profession and leaves a massive void. Wishing his family, friends, colleagues and all those he made an impact on comfort during this difficult time. May he rest in peace.

References Saville, P.F. (2021). Testing Times: Psychologist at Work. Surrey, UK: Blue Dot Publishers Ltd.