From the commencement of graduate studies, I-O Psychologists are trained to develop an expert-level understanding of psychological methods and principles, experimental design, and advanced statistics. This rigorous training equips I-Os with the ability to apply our knowledge of human behavior to unique workplace situations and evaluate potential outcomes. It would be hard to argue that applied psychological research is not valuable to organizations considering the abundance of empirical evidence demonstrating the field’s influence on organizational success and employee well-being. However, many clients and stakeholders are still largely unfamiliar with what I-O Psychology is or what practical value I-O psychologists can bring to organizations. As a result, translating years of graduate training and work experience into a brief, impactful statement that communicates the value of I-O Psychology has become a form of art, a skill that needs to be developed through experiences. Unfortunately, many graduate students, early-, and mid-career professionals are put into the unenviable position of communicating their expertise to unfamiliar audiences, and are ill-equipped to do so.

Notes: This paper is a revision of a poster submission presented at the SIOP conference, 2016 at Anaheim, CA.
Morrie Mullins was the editor for this article

Testing on mobile devices is becoming increasingly popular among test takers and organizations. A survey conducted by PEW Research Center in 2015 found that 64% of adults now own a smartphone of some kind, up from 35% in 2011 (PEW Research Center, 2015). Among those who own a smartphone, 18% have used their phone to submit a job application in the last year. This research coincides with Select International’s data that, in 2014, 17.2% of applicants used a tablet or smartphone to complete screening assessments. More interestingly, those with relatively low income, younger adults, and non-Whites are likely to be “smartphone-dependent;” 10% of Americans own a smartphone but do not have broadband at home, and 15 % own a smartphone but say they have limited options for going online other than their cell phone (Smith, 2015).

This article represents the first installment of a column focused exclusively on training and development. Your initial reaction might be, “wait a sec, do we really need one of these?” We think so, but not for the reasons you might expect. Although SIOP identifies training as a key element of the employment lifecycle to which I-Os can contribute (professionals) and training represents a core content competency and major component of the newly approved Guidelines for Education and Training in Industrial-Organizational Psychology (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Inc., 2016), a specific focus on the learning and development (L&D) space has been sorely missing from TIP. The publication boasts columns devoted to humanitarian psychology, neuroscience, legal issues, and more general practitioner, graduate student, and academic topics, but has rarely included content focused specifically on L&D in recent years, with some notable exceptions (e.g., Poeppelman, Lobene, & Blacksmith, 2015; Vosburgh, 2016). Moreover, training as a content area produced a mere 15 of the 901 (< 2%) presentations at the recent 2016 SIOP conference (although, 28 presentations included training in the title and the related content areas of leadership development/coaching and careers/mentoring/socialization/onboarding/retirement included 14 and 39 presentations, respectively). Even more evidence for a diminished focus on training comes from, arguably, the top two I-O psychology journals, Journal of Applied Psychology and Personnel Psychology (Zickar & Highhouse, 2003), which published 40 of 1,206 and 36 of 766 articles listing training as the subject, respectively (as indexed in PsycINFO, accessed 5/22/2016). Thus, with this column we hope to stimulate more thought and focus on the ways in with I-Os can contribute to the L&D space, with the ultimate goal of observing a larger number of I-O articles, research studies, and collaborative applied projects related to training.

It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly three years since our column began; time flies when you’re talking about organizational neuroscience (ON)! To us, that’s akin to having fun. Recent changes to this column and to TIP have inspired us to reflect on past issues of this column and chart a way forward. In terms of this column, as the newest member of the editorial team I am eager to contribute to the innovative content that M.K. Ward and Bill Becker have curated thus far. Looking beyond our column to TIP, we want to thank Morrie Mullins for his support and welcome Tara Behrend as the new TIP editor; we look forward to continually growing this column!

This issue I’ll be talking to Nick Salter, Associate Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology and the Director of the Faculty Resource Center at Ramapo College of New Jersey.  As the Director of the LGBT Workplace Experiences Lab, his research interests focus on the experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees at their jobs.