September is Smarter Workplace Awareness Month, an opportunity to recognize and share the many ways I-O psychology can improve the workplace for employees and employers alike. Each week this month, SIOP will publish member-created content about the topics that are important in the world of work, as uncovered in the 2019 SIOP Top 10 Trends.

Technology, which dominates so many conversations, is the focus of this week’s offerings. They include an interview on technology in the workplace and a white paper on AI in talent assessment and selection.

More than 18.5 million people in the US live in deep poverty. This is a state in which an individual household’s annual income falls below 50% of the poverty line.  That means more than 18.5 million people in one of the wealthiest countries in the world are subsisting on $3,000 or less per person.

Several decades worth of psychological research document the associations between poverty and indicators of behavioral, mental, and physical health.

In support of SIOP’s Smarter Workplace Awareness Month, SIOP member Denise M. Rousseau agreed to answer a few questions about the impact of technological change on today’s workplace.

Dr. Rousseau is the H.J. Heinz II University Professor of Organizational Behavior and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy and the Tepper School of Business. She is the faculty chair of the Heinz College Health Care Policy and Management program and Academic Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Management.

The book, Adverse Impact Analysis: Understanding Data, Statistics, and Risk, edited by SIOP Fellows Scott Morris and Eric Dunleavy, has been cited as a resource on practical significance in EEO Analysis by the US Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP).  The citation is specifically for the chapter written by Fred Oswald, Eric Dunleavy, and Amy Shaw.

As part of its FAQ on the topic, the OFCCP defines practical significance as “whether an observed disparity in employment opportunities or outcomes reflects meaningful harm to the disfavored group,” and acknowledges that practical significance, not just statistical significance, should be considered in compliance reviews. This distinction is important because, as the OFCCP notes, “a virtually unnoticeable disparity in, for instance, selection rates, may nevertheless be statistically significant due to the size of the data set.”

Rule Makers, Rule Breakers by Michele Gelfand, Scribner, and The Surprising Science of Meetings by Steven G. Rogelberg, Oxford UP, are 2 of the 20 books nominated for the 19^th annual getAbstract International Book Award.

The award recognizes two English and two German books that have made outstanding contributions to social debates over the past year. For the first time, getAbstract will partner with the business magazine Capital.

“Presenting interesting and relevant books to our readers has always been an integral part of Capital’s format,” said Horst von Buttlar, Capital’s editor-in-chief. “I’m delighted that we’re giving business books a bigger stage with this joint award.”