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

Dear Colleagues,

With the kickoff of the new academic year, we wanted to remind you of the call for papers for the upcoming special issue of Strategy Science: Reinvigorating Research on Organizational Culture and its Link to Strategy.

An organization’s culture has long been recognized as a key contributor to its strategic success, as well as to how its members—the people and groups within it—behave. Given the importance of the links between organizational culture, strategy, and firm performance, Strategy Science is hosting a special issue on different facets of this topic. The special issue aims to tackle two core questions: First, how do different conceptions of culture relate to one another in organizational contexts, and second, how can integrating these different conceptions help to advance our understanding of a firm’s strategy and performance?

Industrialized workforces across the world are aging and growing more age-diverse. It is estimated that by 2024, 38.2% of workers in the United States will be age 55 or older (Toossi et al., 2015). Similarly, in about half of the European Union (EU) countries more than 20% of the workforce will be older than 55 in 2035 (Aiyar, Ebeke, & Shao, 2016). At the same time, the overall labor force participation rate is declining. In the United States it is estimated that the labor force participation rate will be 61% by 2026 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). Similarly, the EU workforce is expected to decline by 4.3 million people by 2020 (Eurostat, 2017), and it is expected to shrink further by 12% in 2030 and by 33% in 2060 compared with 2009 levels (European Commission, 2010). These low rates of workforce participation along with the aging workforce strain retirement systems and other social safety net programs. For example, while there were 3.8 people of working age for every dependent person over 65 in the EU in 2002, this number fell to 3.2 people in 2015. By 2020, there will be fewer than three people of working age for every dependent person over 65 in the EU (Eurostat, 2019). To combat this strain on retirement systems, many European governments are raising their official pension age, but labor market participation continues to decrease from age 50 onwards in Europe (Eurostat, 2017). In addition, with increased retirement ages, workplaces are growing more age-diverse, with younger and older people working together more frequently than in the past (Boehm, Kunze, & Bruch, 2014; Finkelstein & Truxillo, 2013).

Each year since 2015, the Visibility Committee of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology has hosted Smarter Workplace Awareness Month, highlighting the work that I-O psychologists do to make work better for everybody, and providing resources organizations can use to improve their workplaces.

For the third week of the 2019 celebration, SIOP members share information and insights on agility and agile organizations, the gig economy and contract work, and sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement.