SIOP Membership Committee: An Inside Look

Tiffany Poeppelman, SIOP Membership Committee Chair

SIOP members,

For those I haven’t met, my name is Tiffany Poeppelman, and I’m delighted to be stepping into the SIOP Membership Committee chair role this year.  I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to partner with many SIOP members who share the same passions and goals to help drive SIOP’s mission. Massive thanks to Jill Bradley-Geist (former Chair) and all of the committee members for their efforts over the past year.

As I’ve been ramping into the role, I wanted to share some fun facts about our SIOP membership, reveal tips on our SIOP benefits, shed some light into the Membership Committee goals, and shamelessly aim to recruit a few of you to the committee!

SIOP Membership Facts: Did You Know?

Our society is governed by an executive board of 16 people, operated by 11 incredible full-time employees in the Administrative Office (AO) and supported by over 1,500 volunteers annually, which means it takes each one of us to help drive SIOP’s efforts forward.

In terms of size, the SIOP membership surpassed 10,000 members during the past year! Below is a breakdown of our membership from largest to smallest contributing membership type:

Additionally, some interesting trends: 60% of all new members over the last 4 years (since 2015) have a degree in I-O Psychology, with the next closest group being other Psychology majors at about 10% and Organizational Behavior with about 9%.

SIOP Member Benefits: Always a Good Reminder!

It’s clear that our society fosters an amazing community, both at the annual conference and through social media and/or virtual events. Our field also offers us networking with many professionals internationally, who value and drive the core research and practices that make up our field.

When many of us think about the SIOP membership, we quickly think about the annual conference and other events where we get discounted rates, but it’s easy to forget all of the benefits we have at our fingertips. In fact, there are many sustained values that we derive from the society above the annual event, including resources like our I-O professional subscriptions and publications (TIP, IOP, SIOP Newsbriefs), the fantastic Consultant Locator, key job resources like I-O Job Network, career info on average salaries, graduate school insights, and even book discounts!

If I could offer advice to our student members and early career professionals, it would be:

• Consider a SIOP Research Access (SRA) subscription to access journals and research publications. Not only is the fee very small but the subscription will allow you to stay current by regularly accessing research. More than 10% of our field leverages it today.
• Explore the opportunity to volunteer in a committee to build a wider network in the field and develop core skills for your career. Interested? Sign up here NOW!
  • Interested in helping develop training guidelines for new I-O psychologists? Join the Education and Training committee!
  • Passionate about raising the visibility of our society - Join the Visibility Committee!
  • Do you want to focus on practice issues? Join the Professional Practice Committee! And there are so many more.

• Explore the available grants and awards to help fuel your research efforts or post-degree work. For more details, review the SIOP Awards & Grants site.
• For those who have recently received a doctoral degree in psychology: Immediately apply to upgrade your membership status so you can vote for our board officials, serve as a Chair, and more!
• Similarly, for those with a master’s degree, be sure to convert to Associate as soon as possible so you can begin accumulating years of service toward full membership.
  • How it works: After 5 years of good standing as an Associate, and fulfilling other criteria, you can apply to be full Member. See here for the Path to Member criteria.

Membership Committee Sneak Peek:

I also wanted to offer a glimpse into the Membership Committee, which sits within the Membership Portfolio, under the leadership of Allan Church. Below is a short overview of the committee’s focus areas:

1. Support the membership application evaluation process, which includes a timely turnaround time for applicants. Did you know: The AO and committee processed over 850 applications in 2018, which is a 32% YoY increase!
2. Understand membership growth opportunities through our annual surveys (all past survey summaries and reports can be found on the SIOP Surveys page.)
   1. For anyone who missed it: Check out this fantastic TIP summary by our 2018–2019 President Talya Bauer, which summarized five key trends from the survey and the relevant activities underway to solve these challenges.
3. Drive SIOP exit surveys to uncover retention strategies to keep our members engaged. These are run on a biennial schedule and our next one launched this month so keep an eye out for the findings report this spring. Past reports can be found on the SIOP Surveys page.
4. Cultivate membership experience through the SIOP Ambassador program. Last year the Ambassador program served over 265 Newcomers at our annual conference! Massive thanks to all of the members who supported our Newcomers.
5. Drive a clear membership experience across the full year, including and beyond the annual conference. Currently, our team is analyzing membership trends to gain a clear picture of our demographics so that our solutions are aligned.

Over the past month, the committee and I have been digging in to determine core areas of focus that we will embark on to drive our membership strategy forward in partnership with our incredible AO Membership lead, Jayne Tegge, newest Member Relations Specialist, Michelle Zavaleta, our fearless portfolio officer Allan Church, and executive board.  This year we are also adding a chair-in-training role to the committee.

Top Membership Committee initiatives in 2019-2020 will include:

• Establishing a new Membership Application subcommittee, review process, and dedicated support team to ensure a quick turnaround time to applicants and who will be looking for trends over time
• Completing a deep-dive of our membership analytics to establish a baseline for our membership strategy through current metrics and our exit interviews
• Redefining our Ambassador program experience from signing up to the matching strategy and SIOP conference support
• Identifying the best member experience efforts to focus on in the coming 12 months including a new approach to onboarding our members
• Creating a new approach for providing summaries and outputs based on survey data that is provided by you - the member!

Interested in joining the Membership committee and being part of our exciting mission?

Email me or sign up through the SIOP Volunteer System (SVS), which is now live.

Any feedback or suggestions on our SIOP membership efforts, let’s connect!

LinkedIn: Tiffany Poeppelman

Twitter: @TRPoeppelman