Richard Landers issued a challenge to I-O psychologists to step out of their workplace silos during his #SmarterWorkplace interview with Colin Omori on AI and Machine Learning.

He said, “’there is this unique, interesting stuff coming out of these new, modern prediction methods, and we need to figure out how to make that our own.’ If we don’t do that, then the data science/computer science communities will do it instead; they’re not going to have our values, and they’re going to run away with the farm, so to speak.”

The CARMA Webcast Lecture Series was established in 2004 and continues as an annual event consisting of 10 live webcast lectures presented by nationally recognized methodologists. Dr. Paul Bliese led off this season’s events with a September 6 talk on panel data.

Richard N. Landers answers a few questions about the impact of AI and machine learning on I-O psychology in support of SIOP’s Smarter Workplace Awareness Month.

Dr. Landers is an associate professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota and holds the John P. Campbell Distinguished Professorship of Industrial-Organizational Psychology. His research concerns the use of innovative technologies in psychometric assessment, employee selection, adult learning, and research methods, with a recent focus on game-based assessment, gamification, artificial intelligence, unproctored and mobile Internet-based testing, virtual reality, and social media. His work has been published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Computers in Human Behavior, and Psychological Methods, among others, and his work has been featured in popular outlets such as Forbes, Business Insider, and Popular Science.

In another installment in our celebration of #SmarterWorkplace Awareness Month, Dr. Scott Tonidandel answers some questions about big data and how he sees it through the lens of I-O psychology.

Scott Tonidandel is a professor of Management in the Belk College of Business at the University of North Carolina – Charlotte. Scott’s research interests include issues related to leadership effectiveness, the impact of diversity in organizations, and research methods and statistics. He co-edited the SIOP Frontiers series volume titled Big Data at Work: The Data Science Revolution and Organizational Psychology. Scott serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Business and Psychology, is a former associate editor for Organizational Research Methods, and is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Could you give us some background on big data as it applies to I-O psychology researchers and practitioners?

“[W]ork needs to have a balance that I have rarely lived. It’s a balance that lets us offer our gifts to the world but not at the cost of self and family.[i]”—J. R Storment, President @ FinOps Foundation, reflecting on work and life after the loss of his 8-year-old son.

The vast majority of American workers say that work–life balance is a problem, with 54% calling it a “significant problem.[ii]” Technology has fueled 24/7/365 work connectivity, and 57% of employees say it has ruined the family dinner, viewed as an important ingredient to balance. More than half (57%) of employees think their employer is not doing enough to solve work–life balance problems, and 60% blame their boss.[iii] These statistics highlight that attaining work–life balance is a challenge and employees want their companies to do more to help. The goal of this article is to answer three questions to help leaders address these problems