Does SIOP Work for Practitioners? Evidence, Accomplishments, and Plans.

Alexander Alonso
Society for Human Resource Management

Cristina G. Banks
Lamorinda Consulting, LLC

Mark L. Poteet
Organizational Research & Solutions, Inc.

In the October issue of The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist(TIP), Silzer and Parson (2015) reviewed information they and their colleagues have assembled in the Practitioner Perspectives column, covering 30 articles and reports from 2008 to 2015. They present a summary of practitioner-related issues identified and initiatives taken since 2008. They note issues with respect to a myriad of topics including communication, publication, and gaps between science and practice.  They also identify 10 critical issues for I-O psychology practice and practitioners. Silzer and Church augment the critique of SIOP’s attention to practitioner needs and issues specifically focusing on the results of the 2015 Practitioner Needs Survey (Oliver, Ferro, Napper, & Porr, 2015) in their Letter to the Editor in this issue of TIP.  

The purpose of this article is to discuss initiatives and progress SIOP has made in recent years in addressing practitioners’ needs while outlining possible reasons for continued practitioner dissatisfaction. We offer ideas for creating new opportunities for practitioners by describing current initiatives and plans underway within the SIOP Professional Practice Committee (PPC).

Silzer and colleagues raise a valid concern about practitioners’ continuing dissatisfaction as revealed in the latest Practitioner Need Survey (see Silzer & Parson, 2015, for a comparison of 2008 vs. 2015 results). Several areas continue to be a concern:  practitioner recognition through awards and election to Fellow status, support for practitioner career advancement, support for practice-oriented research and projects, election to leadership roles, support for obtaining licensure, and overall influence on the future of SIOP.  We agree that SIOP needs to do more in these areas.  

When setting the practitioner agenda for the future, it is important to review and acknowledge the work that SIOP leadership, committees, and volunteers have accomplished over the last several years to address practitioners’ needs. Many actions and programs initiated by volunteer committees and leadership have yielded positive results and, in our view, have closed gaps in service to practitioners. However, other gaps exist, some of which can be addressed while others are more structural and therefore more difficult to fix.  Our intention here is to provide a path for making more progress in the future.

Actions and Initiatives

                  Over the past several years SIOP has undertaken several initiatives to address practitioners’ needs generally and specifically concerns highlighted in the 2008 Practitioner Needs Survey. Initiatives are grouped within three broad themes: practitioner recognition; practitioner development; and practitioner impact.

Practitioner Recognition

Distinguished Early Career Contributions Award for Practice.In 2011 SIOP introduced a Distinguished Early Career Contributions Award for Practice, with an extended period for qualification. Since its inception, seven practitioners have been recognized: Eric Dunleavy, Jennifer Geimer, Alex Alonso, Rich Cober and Tracy Kantrowitz, Jeff Cucina, andDavid Van Rooy. This award supplements two existing practitioner-eligible awards: the Distinguished Professional Contributions Award and Distinguished Service Contribution Award. 

SIOP Fellowship. A common perception of SIOP members is that a disproportionate number of academics are elected to Fellow status compared to practitioners, and this indeed was reflected in both the 2008 and 2015 Practitioner Needs Survey results. Data provided by the SIOP Administrative Office indicate that there are 337 active Fellows within SIOP of which 71% (N = 239) are academics. Over the last six years 33 practitioners were elected Fellows compared to 87 academics. As of 2015 approximately 8% of SIOP nonacademics who meet the minimum qualifications for Fellowship have been elected compared to approximately 28% of Fellow-eligible academics.  The total is clearly lopsided in favor of academics. However, signs of progress and improvement can be seen in the increasing numbers of practitioners elected Fellow over the last 6 years compared to the prior 13 years (33 vs. 28, respectively).  

Upon closer examination of the numbers, the problem for practitioners is not election but rather nomination.  As Table 1 clearly indicates, the number of academics (N= 105) nominated for Fellow status far outpaces those of practitioners (N= 44).  Despite lower nomination rates, practitioners were elected at comparable or slightly higher rates than academics: success rates for practitioners ranged between 55–100% whereas success rates for academics ranged between 62–95%.  In three of these years, practitioner elections to Fellow status outpaced that of academics.  Increasing numbers of practitioner nominations and election to Fellow status can be largely attributed by SIOP’s efforts to refine Fellow criteria, which broadened eligibility for practitioners and an effort to involve more practitioners on the Fellowship Committee.

	Practitioner				Academic				Total
	Nominated	Elected	Percentage		Nominated	Elected	Percentage		Nominated	Elected	Percentage
2010	5	5	100%		13	8	62%		18	13	72%
2011	3	2	67%		11	9	82%		14	11	79%
2012	5	5	100%		20	18	90%		25	23	92%
2013	5	4	80%		20	19	95%		25	23	92%
2014	11	6	55%		20	18	90%		31	24	77%
2015	15	11	73%		21	15	71%		36	26	72%
Total	44	33	75%		105	87	83%		149	120	81%

Still, more needs to be done. What can be done? Ultimately, more practitioners need to be nominated for Fellow status. Until more practitioners are nominated, it is unrealistic to expect similar numbers of practitioners and academics to be elected.

We recognize that this may be more easily said than done for various reasons. For example, practitioners may not know about other practitioners’ work—there is no easy forum for practitioners to publicize their work other than through book chapters (invited) and through publications. Conference presentations that may sound like marketing because they go into detail about applications (e.g., programs, practices) are specifically discouraged, thus inhibiting presentations of one’s applied work. In addition, the nature of client engagements may be confidential or considered proprietary and could limit the degree to which one’s accomplishments are communicated externally. Publishing practitioner work is also problematic both practically and methodologically, making it more difficult for practitioners to highlight their accomplishments.  For many practitioners, there are no organizational incentives to publish, and time demands may preclude those who want do so. Unlike academics, publishing is not part of their job description.     

Potential ways to increase awareness of practitioner achievements and contributions can include (a) SIOP recognizing alternative venues for publicizing practitioners’ work beyond conference presentations or book chapters (e.g., blogs; interviews with business publications; non I-O publications); (b) SIOP members making a more concerted effort to learn about their practitioner colleagues’ work; (c) SIOP leadership making members more familiar with the nomination process and criteria for Fellow status; (d) SIOP members increasing their effort to identify and nominate potential practitioner Fellows; and (e) SIOP leadership creating one or more new practitioner awards or recognitions that are most compatible with the work practitioners do (e.g., copying APA’s Presidential Citation Award for Innovative Practice).  Beyond early career and fellowship recognition, there may be other ways to highlight practitioners’ achievements or additional awards that are completely unique to I-Os in practice (e.g., recognition for distinguished work products or impact outside of the profession).

Practitioner Development

Leading Edge Consortium.SIOP has undertaken initiatives in recent years to advance the development of I-O practitioners through a dedicated conference for practitioners. In 2005, SIOP introduced the Leading Edge Consortium (LEC). Since its inception, the LEC program has attracted well over 1,700 attendees receiving science-based and implementable information on a variety of cutting edge topics (e.g., coaching; high performance teams; succession management; virtual workforce). As noted by Silzer and Parson (2015), attendance figures and revenue generated from the conference have varied considerably over the years.  Initially, the past president of SIOP was responsible for selecting the LEC topic, but several years ago LEC topic and chair selection shifted to the management of the Professional Practice Officer and Practice Committee. The LEC continues to flourish as an important career development outlet for practitioners.  Attendees report the conference as valuable and helpful. Across all LECs conducted, overall average ratings have been consistently strong across a variety of effectiveness criteria: the importance of the conference topic, the expertise and knowledge of the speakers, the value of the information provided, the degree of coverage of the LEC topic, and the conduciveness of the conference environment for networking.  Average ratings range from 3.91 to 4.88 on a five-point scale (1 = strongly disagreeto 5 = strongly agree), with only 2 out of 55 overall evaluations on these criteria dipping below 4.  Attendees rated the item, the LEC is “one of the best overall conferences attended” from 3.54 to 4.10, a lower range of overall ratings than the items mentioned above but still favorable.  Clearly, those who attend the LEC find value.

Practitioner Mentoring Program. This program began in 2009 largely in response to the call for more practitioner development opportunities in the 2008 Practitioner Needs Survey. This initiative was designed to provide early career practitioners with opportunities to receive guidance and advance their knowledge through orchestrated meetings with experienced practitioners. Currently, two mentoring programs are available to practitioners: (a) the Speed Mentoring Event at the annual conference and (b) the Group Mentoring Program where a mentor and small group of protégés meet virtually on a monthly basis over a span of 4–8 months, typically from late summer to early spring. 

In the Speed Mentoring Event at the Annual Conference, approximately 4–8 protégés meet in a roundtable format with 1–2 mentors for 20–25 minutes to receive guidance and advice on a specific topic. Protégés rotate between two roundtables/discussion topics per event, each event held in conjunction with the annual conference. Since inception, well over 300 practitioners have received mentoring through this event. Reactions to these events have consistently been positive, with average satisfaction and usefulness ratings exceeding 4.0 on a five-point scale. 

The Group Mentoring allows a professional relationship to form among protégés and their mentor because the engagement is longer term. Matches between protégés and mentors are based on topics of mutual interest. This program continues to grow, having served approximately 200 practitioners through the first three programs (including a small pilot) and now serves over 90 practitioners in the current program.  Average satisfaction ratings over the past two programs exceeded 4.0 on a five-point scale regarding their mentors and the program overall.  Overall results demonstrate that these programs have been successful in providing practitioners with sound career and technical guidance and advice, as well as the opportunity to build relationships and network. SIOP’s support has been consistent, from providing space for meetings at the annual conference to providing financial resources for refreshments during meetings and telephone conference lines for the group mentoring sessions. The limiting factor in serving practitioners through SIOP mentoring programs is not practitioner interest, it is the availability and commitment of mentors.  

SIOP Research Access. Begun in 2011, this initiative provides SIOP members, particularly practitioners, access to the SIOP Learning Center as well as multiple EBSCO databases containing research journals and professional publications to support their work when they don’t have access through their place of employment.   Low-cost subscription to the research literature and best practices in their fields is perceived as important to practitioners so that they can stay current and develop new practices.  Growth in subscriptions has been steady since its introduction, increasing from 396 to 551 full-time subscriptions (an increase of 39%) and from 68 to 86 partial subscriptions (an increase of 26%) over the last 3 years. The PPC plans to conduct an SIOP Research Access satisfaction survey this year to learn how this program can be further improved.  

Practitioner mini webinars. This program, initiated in 2011, provides short, videotaped presentations on practical topics of interest to I-O practitioners.  SIOP members volunteer to develop and give videotaped presentations on topics of interest to practitioners.  SIOP supports this effort by providing financial resources for the video recording and editing as well as managing the mini-webinar delivery, such as helping with posting and communicating completed webinars to SIOP members. To date, seven mini webinars have been produced and posted on the SIOP website, covering topics such as how to have more influence and impact as a practitioner, how to tell one’s story to senior leadership, how to develop leaders, how to evaluate leadership development programs, and engagement best practices. Growth in this service is slow, and the chief impediment to its growth is the difficulty in securing webinar presenters.

Other webinars.SIOP also underwrites video recording of webinars on a range of other topics of interest to both prospective and current I-O practitioners, such as hot topics in I-O psychology and a day in the life of an I-O psychologist.

Practitioner Impact

Annual conference.Before reviewing specific initiatives undertaken by SIOP to address practitioners’ needs for impact and influence, we present trends and statistics for one of the most important avenues for any SIOP member to have influence: the annual conference. Comments are sometimes heard that the annual conference is “too academic” with too few sessions or programs of interest to practitioners.   Table 2 below summarizes data provided by the SIOP Administrative Office regarding the proportion of sessions that can be characterized as “academic” versus “practitioner” oriented for each annual conference from 2009 to 2015.

	Mixed audience			Mostly relevant for academics			Mostly relevant for practitioners				Total sessions
	Number	Percentage		Number	Percentage			Number	Percentage		Number	Percentage
2009	158	50%		48	15%			108	34%		314	100%
2010	171	57%		47	16%			84	28%		302	100%
2011	170	61%		39	14%			71	25%		280	100%
2012	176	62%		45	16%			62	22%		283	100%
2013	163	56%		57	20%			72	25%		292	100%
2014	179	56%		84	26%			59	18%		322	100%
2015	206	61%		44	13%			87	26%		337	100%

In general, practitioner-oriented sessions equal or outpace those dedicated to academics.  The annual conference produced a total of 2,130 non-poster learning sessions. Of these, 1,223 (57%) were designated as “mixed audience,” 364 (17%) were designated as “mostly relevant for academics,” and 543 (25%) were designated as “mostly relevant for practitioners.”  Interestingly, the mixed audience sessions dominate both practitioner- and academic-oriented sessions year over year.  We believe this reflects a significant level of integration and collaboration of science and practice within our profession. Clearly practitioners are being provided with comparable opportunity to influence our profession and achieve visibility as well as to acquire new practitioner-relevant knowledge across the majority of sessions.  

SIOP membership upgrade amendment.The SIOP Executive Board and Membership recently approved an amendment to SIOP’s bylaws that established a path for qualified Associate Members to upgrade to full Member status. Specific criteria for this upgrade can be seen here (https://0-www-siop-org.library.alliant.edu/associatetomember.aspx). As noted in an August 5, 2015 article by Boutelle (2015) posted on the SIOP website, this change provides a greater range of benefits to qualified Associate Members such as opportunities to vote and serve in leadership roles.  We have already seen positive results; former Associate Members have upgraded to full Members.  As this change would affect primarily I-O practitioners, this is a positive step forward toward providing a greater range of practitioners with a voice within SIOP.

Consultant Locator Service (CLS).This service, offered free of charge by SIOP, is designed to connect I-O practitioners who provide consulting services with organizations that require I-O expertise. Using input from multiple SIOP members, the CLS was revamped, improved, and relaunched in late 2014.  The retooled CLS enables SIOP practitioners to provide more detailed descriptions of their expertise, different types of services offered, bios, resumés, keywords, links, and contact information including geographic areas of service. There are currently 334 SIOP members advertising their services through the CLS, a substantial increase from the previous versions.  Very soon, SIOP will roll out a new service for all SIOP members based on the CLS, a platform for establishing national registries on specific areas of interest.  Stay tuned for more information coming shortly.

SIOP–SHRM partnership. This collaboration with SHRM is designed to educate HR professionals and encourage use of evidence-based HR practices in organizations.  SIOP practitioners provide resources that integrate I-O psychology science with HR knowledge and practices. SIOP members voluntarily contribute to these resources such as HR-oriented white papers, which are posted to both organizations’ websites for access by members of both organizations. This partnership has multiple benefits for SIOP and its members: further branding of SIOP as the resource for workplace psychology, increased visibility of SIOP consultants to external organizations, and additional avenues for keeping SIOP members up to date. Thus far, the primary focus has been the production of white papers, and 12 have been published on topics such as skill-based pay, executive coaching, applicant reactions to selection, managing diversity, competency modeling documentation, and cyber security training.  Some of these papers are among the most downloaded resources by SHRM members, and seven papers are among the top 15 resources offered.  Other initiatives are planned or underway to extend SIOP’s collaboration with SHRM including the creation of a series of joint webinars and publishing top-10 lists of HR-related research findings that can be translated into HR practice.

HRM Impact Award.  SIOP, in partnership with SHRM, SIOP Foundation, and the SHRM Foundation, has created the HRM Impact Award, designed to reward organizations that have successfully implemented innovative and impactful, evidence-based HRM initiatives.  Although the award does not require recipients to be members of SIOP, this effort helps to educate and reward HR practitioners who practice sound workplace psychology and to further SIOP’s brand and influence as the experts in workplace psychology.  SIOP practitioners are indirect beneficiaries of such an effort as it heightens the importance and value of their work.

SIOP Contemporary Selection Recommendations (CSR) Task Force.In recent years a group of SIOP practitioners initiated a series of discussions with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to explore ways to collaborate on issues pertinent to both organizations. As a result of these discussions, the SIOP Executive Board created a formal task force consisting of several SIOP subject matter experts with the goal of summarizing issues and providing science-based guidance to the EEOC on employee selection-related procedures, which the EEOC could then share with its stakeholders. To date, several white papers have been created and presented to the EEOC for review on such subjects as validity generalization, adverse impact analysis, and basic minimum qualifications. Further information about this effort can be found here (http://0-www-siop-org.library.alliant.edu/tip/Apr13/22_Kantrowicz.aspx). As with other initiatives discussed, the task force expands SIOP’s visibility and influence on practice-related issues to a broader range of external stakeholders.

Challenges and Opportunities

SIOP and its member volunteers have undertaken many steps to better serve the needs and interests of I-O practitioners. Thus, it is indeed concerning that the 2015 results for practitioners’ satisfaction remains at the level of results obtained in 2008.  The fact that satisfaction results have increased little since 2008 is a bit disheartening given the many, many hours siop leadership and member volunteers has put in to launch initiatives and complete projects specifically to address needs identified in the Practitioner Needs Survey.  Perhaps the work of these volunteers has gone unnoticed, and we hope by enumerating these efforts that the products of their efforts might become more visible to the membership.  It may also be the case that initiatives undertaken since 2008 had limited impact in addressing practitioner needs.  

We want to point out and reiterate that there are substantial challenges to addressing practitioners’ needs completely.  Practitioners’ needs are primarily addressed through the efforts of other practitioners. As mentioned earlier, highly successful practitioners are not easily identified and rewarded.  SIOP criteria for awards and recognitions clearly favor things you can publicly see and count like publications and serving in leadership roles.  More practitioners are likely to be elected Fellows if more are nominated for Fellow status, but this takes identifying who the exemplary practitioners are within the society. Practitioners may face some structural barriers to volunteering or participating in SIOP activities that can increase their visibility within the society, thus limiting their ability to help SIOP to better address practitioner’s needs and interests. Barriers such as a lack of organizational support, limited resources, or few incentives for publishing or publicizing one’s work make it harder for practitioners to exercise their voice and drive the society in new directions.  With this in mind, it is worth noting that several of the initiatives described above have involved large amounts of practitioner volunteer work, a clear sign of the dedication of many SIOP’s practitioners.

With that said, SIOP continues to move forward with enhancing its efforts to serve its practitioner members. With regard to the 2015 Practitioner Needs Survey, members of the PPC will publish a series of TIParticles over the next several months summarizing the survey results and provide recommendations for moving forward. (See the current issue of TIPfor one such article.)  The PPC also plans to hold a series of focus groups with a wide range of SIOP practitioners to further discuss the implications of the survey results in detail, which would ultimately lead to new initiatives and services that are likely to be more successful in addressing practitioner needs given the limitations noted above.  We hope that these discussions will help to set the PPC’s agenda for the next few years.

At the same time, the PPC will continue to move forward with its current projects that we believe will continue to enhance practitioners’ impact and development. Detailed information on the PPC’s goals and current initiatives can be found on the SIOP website and in the committee update in the October 2015 TIP(Poteet, 2015).  In particular, we note the following projects that are currently underway: 

• A practitioner review databaseproject, which is designed to provide journal editors with a pool of qualified I-O practitioners ready and able to review journal submissions. This project can give practitioners another voice in helping to contribute to scientific advancements while helping them stay on top of the latest scientific findings. 
• A consortium of psychologists interested in health and well-being to help SIOP strengthen relationships with partner organizations in this space, with the goal of helping to educate and provide resources to SIOP practitioners who are interested in working or consulting in this growing field. 
• Abusiness acumen competency model that can be used to guide practitioners’ ongoing development outside the traditional process and content areas of I-O psychology.
• A new initiative just underway designed to review current SIOP practices and programs, and research best practices, for encouraging discussion and sharing of information between scientists and practitioners. 
• Communicating through social media, an effort to reach a broader range of SIOP members through social media activities, products, and services in order to increase awareness of SIOP resources available to them.  

Summary

The Silzer and Church letter and the Silzer and Parson (2015) column raised points that had to be addressed, and we appreciate the opportunity to clarify the work SIOP has done to support the practitioner community. Over the past several years, several initiatives and improvements have been made to better serve practitioner members. Many of these activities are completed with practitioner volunteers giving thousands of hours of their time at times without incentives for doing so. Unfortunately, satisfaction with SIOP among practitioner respondents to the 2015 needs survey remains at lower than desired levels, indicating that we need to continue our efforts to find the best programs and services to meet practitioners’ needs.SIOP leadership supports the work of volunteers and provides resources, direction, decisions, and other forms of support to make these initiatives possible. Several ideas and suggested actions have been offered, but ultimately it’s the work of volunteers that fuels this change. Therefore, if you see the need and want things to improve, then find ways to volunteer, participate, contribute, publish, and so forth.  In the words of Ghandi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Boutelle, C. (2015).SIOP associates take advantage of recent bylaws change allowing them to become members. Retrieved from http://0-www-siop-org.library.alliant.edu/article_view.aspx?article=1418#sthash.FBLn2DZL.dpufhttp://www.siop.org/article_view.aspx?article=1418

Oliver, J., Ferro, M., Napper, C., & Porr, B. (2015). Overview of the 2015 Practitioner Needs Survey. The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist,53(1), 49–56.

Poteet, M. L. (2015). Professional practice committee updates.The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist,53(2), 185–187.

Silzer, R. F., & Parson, C. (2015). Key practitioner issues and recommendations for future SIOP action. The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist,53(2), 32–46.

 

 

 

 

 

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