Members in the Media

Barbara Ruland

This edition of Members in the Media, with more than 70 individual media citations, doesn’t capture the whole picture of SIOP members’ growing presence in the popular press.

Nonetheless, it presents members working in a wide range of industries and addressing numerous topic areas relevant to the profession, the clients who rely on I-O expertise, and the general public. 

Some members are creating media content directly, whereas others are included in media coverage. Read on to learn about the media outlets turning to your colleagues in I-O psychology for expert, scientifically based insights into people at work.

SIOP’s Administrative Office staff connected five journalists with members this quarter. The journalists represented the Chicago Tribune, CNN.com, Bloomburg Business, and two industry publications, Industrial Safety & Hygiene and the National Safety Council's Safety + Health. Several of the articles are still pending, but the Chicago Tribune update on trends in corporate team building, including perspectives by  Eduardo Salas and Wendy Bedwell, was also picked up by a paper in Oregon, the Register Guard, and the Arizona Daily Sun. Seth Kaplan contributed to the CNN.com story on the relationship between workplace stress and health, sparked by the recent release of two studies.

In a related note, Tracy Vanneman, SIOP’s Partnerships and Programs Manager, penned an article for the Ohio Society of Association Executives on “Annual Meeting Staff Survival Tips” that might resonate with many who attended the annual conference in Orlando.

Concepts and insights created by industrial-organizational psychologists percolate through many areas of psychology and their acceptance as common knowledge or standard operating practice are hallmarks of the discipline’s widening influence. An investment banker quoted extensively in a report on mergers and acquisitions for Finance & Commerce say that more companies are using I-Os to examine cultural fit before making acquisitions.

I-O’s growing influence is clearly facilitated by SIOP members contributing to conversations in business and popular media on a variety of topics. Perhaps no other member is as prolific in this regard as Adam Grant. The online daily news and information source OZY introduced an interview with him by saying, “Grant’s organizational theories have caused countless individuals to reframe their professional lives.” However, there are several other SIOP members also making significant impacts. Some included in this Top 100 HR Influencers List on engagedly.com are Allan Church, Robert Hogan, Alan Colquitt, and Evan Sinar.

There were more than 40 mentions of SIOP members discussing individual areas of I-O inquiry this quarter, covering everything from “analytics” to “work and family.”

Michael Woodward and Sheri Feinzig discussed the importance of using data in HR and her new book on workforce analytics for SHRM’s HR Magazine.

Coaching, leadership, training, and talent management/development are of perennial interest and received a fair amount of the coverage.

Lois Tamir and Laura Finfer wrote a piece for the Harvard Business Review on age based responses to executive coaching. This research was also covered by Bloomburg.com and the Charleston Gazette-Mail.  The business partners also penned a leadership column for Training Industry about when a prescriptive approach to executive coaching is appropriate.

Ben Dattner collaborated on a Harvard Business Review article about how executive coaches can help companies respond to executive job–fit mismatches.

Adam Grant’s thoughts on the leadership qualities of Elon Musk and Ray Dalio were covered by Yahoo! Finance, and in two articles on CNBC.com, here and here.

Mary Ann Bucklan contributed a piece to the Call Center Times, an online resource for the call center industry on the competencies and personal attributes of successful call center team leaders.

Tomas Chamorro Premuzic contributed a piece to Forbes on how companies can identify and develop internal candidates to fill their talent needs. Travis Bradberry shared thoughts about emotional intelligence with Talent Development. Karen Grabow was highlighted for her presentation on talent management in the Agrinews newsletter.

Sayeed Islam penned a post for ADP’s Spark blog on the importance of an organization’s brand to recruiting.

Alison Eyring chose a compelling metaphor comparing learning by experience to sand in an oyster to open her article for SmartBrief that was also picked up by agprofessional.com.  Lynda Zugec offered advice in an article about a different aspect of training: potential US federal financing for employee training. Read about it at Human Resource Executive.

Small business owners play many roles, including HR manager, and Amy Cooper-Hakim contributed to a blog post for small business owners on hobbies that develop management skills.

Michael Woodward conducted an interview with David Smith on learning agility, a requirement for thriving in a VUCA world, for Psychology Today. 

Amy DuVernet contributed to an article for HR Magazine on the related topic of creating a learning culture.

SIOP members were cited on several aspects of organizational culture. Jaclyn Jensen discussed Uber’s “bro culture” for Business News Network, and Nikki Blacksmith and Meredith Coatsdiscuss how leaders set the tone for organizational culture in a story for Bustle.

The topics of recruiting, hiring, and employee motivation received coverage in a variety of media outlets. Jennie Hollman wrote a piece busting myths about millennials in relation to hiring and retention for Independent Agent, an insurance industry publication.

Michael Moon discussed the use of people analytics and process methodology to improve new hire retention for Business 2 Community. Adam Grant and Rich Tonowski were quoted in two different articles about unfair hiring practices.

Lewis Garrad and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic illuminated the relationship between companies’ financial performance and their ability to create meaning for employees in a column for the Harvard Business Review that was also picked up by an insurance industry publication, Carrier Management.

Chamorro-Premuzic also contributed an ironic piece to Management Today, in which he advocated for creating a new management role: the chief misery officer.

Diversity and equality of opportunity are top of mind for many right now. A recent Google search on the word yielded just under 400 million hits, with diversity in the workplace supplying 66 million of them.

Alex Lindsey, Eden King, Ashley Membere, and Ho Kwan Cheung collaborated on a report for Harvard Business Review about research on effective diversity training. This article was also picked up by True Viral News.

Lisa Finkelstein and Courtney Thomas wrote a guest blog for Psychology Today about age stereotyping younger workers. 

Amy Cooper Hakim commented on the public gender feud between Serena Williams and John McEnroe on the Moneyish blog.

Engineer James Damore’s infamous memo on diversity sparked comment from SIOP members including Tacy Byham, who discussed the corporate benefits of gender diversity in an Entrepreneur article on why gender equality is an “everyone issue.” Adam Grant’s comments on the subject were picked up by Yahoo! Finance, Blasting News, and Today’s Viral News.

Benefit News and Employee Benefit Advisor reported on work done by Lindsay Sears and the Work Institute revealing the causes and costs of employee turnover. 

That study showed work–life balance accounted for 12% of turnover. Lynda Zugec discussed the subject of parental leave with an information and advice blog for fathers, and SIOP’s Clif Boutelle penned two articles for Workforce (here and here), featuring Wendy Casper and Jennifer Deal, on equitable treatment for workers who do not have children.

The science of I-O psychology can provide valuable insights in many areas of life, including parenting.

Adam Grant’s advice for raising resilient kids was featured on Red Tricycle, and boing boing. More generalized advice about resilience, drawn from his latest book with Sheryl Sandberg was featured on the mindbodygreen blog, True Viral News, the Eugene Oregon Register Guard and the Texarkana Gazette. Relatedly, SIOP member Janice Tollini wrote about finding gratitude for her local paper.

Business Insider and a Psychology Today blog post discussed Sabine Sonnentag’s study of the productivity and creativity benefits of time off. The information is also referenced on healthemedicinet.com.

Ron Riggio contributed to a widely shared Business Insider article about reading body language.

I-O psychology research can also help individual workers and job seekers, as well as the organizations that employ them.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer picked up an article about research presented by Cynthia Hedricks and SkillSurvey at the 2017 SIOP Conference on checking job applicant references that presents insights useful for both hiring managers and prospective employees.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic gave a nod to Ben Dattner and his book Credit and Blame at Work in the Harvard Business Review article with advice on  “How to Deal with a Boss Who Stresses You Out.”

Adam Grant suggested job seekers ask their interviewers to tell them a story to learn about company culture in an article for Yahoo! Finance.  A Quartz magazine feature expanded on that theme.  He also wrote an Esquire piece on film maker Christopher Nolan on focus, procrastination, passion/motivation, and creativity.

Paul Babiak, coauthor of Snakes In Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work got a nod in a Huffington Post article about two films at the 2017 San Francisco Silent Film Festival and another in an article about Donald Trump on alternet.org.

Continuing media coverage and wider understanding of the work of I-O psychologists translates into more career opportunities in the field and I-O psychology is receiving recognition as a good career choice in many quarters.

Most recently, CNBC and USA Today reported that I-O psychologists and airline pilots are leading the country in wage growth. The overall US annual wage growth rate of 2.5% is up overall about 0.5% from 2011-2014 but was at 3% before the recession

In May, the Houston Chronicle reported on GI Jobs’ annual list of Hot Degrees for Veterans, ™ which listed I-O psychology as “on the rise” in recognition of its growing year over year demand between 2014–2016.

Entrepreneur India considers I-O a trending opportunity for those studying psychology, and Business Insider ranks it number 10 on its list of the highest paying jobs available for those with masters degrees.

SIOP members are frequently mentioned in local media. Here are some mentions found through the SIOP media monitoring service, Google Alerts, and direct notifications by members.

Anne Herman, cited in a fascinating piece for the Omaha World Herald, is helping the United Way of the Midlands navigate the changing landscape of charitable giving.

Steven Jex, from the University of Central Florida, and members of the Bowling Green State University Psychology Department were featured in a BG Independent Media article for their study of aging workers.

In his regular column for the New Hampshire Union Leader, Paul Baard covered topics including business etiquette, employee suggestions, workplace bullies, and employee compensation and evaluations.

Dave Baker of Palmetto Leadership in Anderson, South Carolina was profiled in the local business publication, Metro Columbia CEO.

Suman Kalra was quoted in a piece for AM New York about her unusual pastime, body painting.

In closing, here’s an interesting note from Scientific American. Member Michael Mumford contributed a cautionary note about self-selection in surveys biasing results to a piece about scientists’ self-perceptions: “Scientists Think They’re More Rational  Than Other People.”

Send your media notices to Barbara Ruland at the SIOP Administrative Office for sharing on social media and in this column.