Tag: the modern workforce

By: Keaton Fletcher

In a recent paper, WSC Network Member, Mo Wang, along with a team of researchers led by Jaclyn Koopmann studied the relationship between what typically motivates us and our behavior at work. Specifically, using a sample of Chinese nurses, the research team found that people who have more of a promotion focus (motivated by potential gains, rewards, and aspirations) are less likely to feel emotionally exhausted and therefore more likely to help others at work but less likely to share their ideas and opinions. On the other hand, workers who have more of a prevention focus (motivated by potential losses, punishments, and responsibilities) are more likely to feel emotionally exhausted, and thus less likely to help others and more likely to share their ideas and opinions. However, the relationship between prevention focus and emotional exhaustion is not as straightforward as that of promotion focus. This relationship is weaker for people who engage in a lot of self-regulation, specifically reappraisal. In other words, people who change the way they think about situations in order to change their emotions, do not experience as much emotional exhaustion as a result of their high levels of prevention focus. This finding, in particular, is promising because self-regulation and reappraisal are skills that can be trained and changed over time. So, for employees who are typically motivated by their fears of loss/punishment and perceived responsibilities, it may be helpful to provide resources or trainings on how to reappraise situations. This training, however, may not be effective for people who are high in promotion focus, and low in prevention focus, given that reappraisal did not change the relationship between promotion focus and emotional exhaustion.

In the fast-paced, modern workforce, where job insecurity abounds, and failures may seem insurmountable, these findings provide hope that, at least for some outcomes, changing the way you think about the situation, may help make your (work) life a little better. Further, because the behavioral outcomes of this study focused on those citizenship behaviors that are directed at coworkers, reappraisal may actually impact those around you, not just yourself.

By: Keaton Fletcher

Work Science Center Advisory Council Member, Margaret Beier, recently published a commentary for a special issue of the Journal of Intelligence on the nature of mental ability. Research has supported a hierarchical structure of intelligence such that there is one general mental ability, that is related to more specific cognitive abilities. Historically, the prevailing wisdom has been that general mental ability is good enough, and capturing specific cognitive abilities does not add much information in predicting work outcomes we care about. However, for as long as this has been the dominant opinion, there has been dissent, arguing that specific abilities are valuable and should be considered. Beier and colleagues review and comment upon the findings of a set of articles that tackle this debate from both an empirical and a theoretical perspective.

First, Beier and colleagues highlight that there are genuine concerns with using a general mental ability for human resource management systems. Specifically, depending on the legal context, general mental ability may be seen as too broad to be considered job-relevant and may thus open an organization up to legal consequences. Similarly, measures of general mental ability consistently show minority-majority differences, which can result in legally questionable hiring or promotion policies. Further, Beier and colleagues suggest that measures of general mental ability provide very little diagnostic criteria, thereby limiting their utility for things like training and support.

Beier and colleagues then suggest potential avenues of research and practice that can resolve, or at the very least temper, this debate. For example, general mental ability should be used when outcomes are broad or poorly defined, whereas specific abilities should be used when outcomes are narrow, well-defined, and can be clearly mapped on to a specific ability. Measurement of both general and specific abilities needs to be improved and considered, such that multiple, diverse tests of ability should be used and aggregated to ensure that what is being captured is representative of the entire ability, not just idiosyncrasies of the measure. Here, Beier and colleagues provide the example of a verbal reasoning test. If it was made entirely of synonyms-antonym questions, it would miss out one one’s understanding of grammar, sentence formation, and many other relevant aspects to that specific skill. We also need to begin considering the complexities of the relationship between mental ability and outcomes. Specifically, as time progresses (both within a job and across the lifespan), general mental ability may be less important and specific abilities may become more important. Or, there may be non-linear relationships between outcomes and mental abilities, and the nature of these relationships may differ depending on the ability-outcome pair being examined. Lastly, one of the potential reasons Beier and colleagues suggest general mental ability may be viewed as good enough for predicting performance is that typically performance is poorly defined and measured. To maximize the utility of specific abilities, we need to better understand the specific aspects of job performance and improve our methods of measuring them.

If one thing is certain after reading this commentary, it is that the debate over the value of general versus specific mental abilities is alive and well. Researchers and practitioners should, therefore, give a little more thought into how exactly they are viewing (and measuring) cognitive ability. An apt metaphor Beier and colleagues use is a long nail and a big hammer versus a smaller nail and hammer. Certainly long nails and a big hammer will always get the job done, but the smaller nails and hammer can make a better end-product for very specific jobs. It is up to the craftsman to decide what tool best suits the job, just as it is up to the researcher and practitioner to decide which mental ability is most appropriate for their research question/application.

By: Elizabeth Moraff

Work Science Center advisory council member David Blustein recently published a paper detailing the Psychology of Working Framework (PWF) and its corresponding theory, Psychology of Working Theory (PWT). These intertwined concepts identify the fundamental needs that work fulfills for humans, such as economic survival, social connections, and self-determination (Blustein, Kenny, Di Fabio, & Guichard 2019). The framework goes beyond the individual worker to scrutinize contextual factors of work as well. For instance, PWF posits that social identities and politics may affect a worker’s access to various types of work, and assumes that work occupies a psychological space that overlaps with other life domains (Blustein et. al 2019). In broadening the vision of work’s scope, the authors argue that PWF has contributed to work psychology by expanding its research obligation to workers who have limited ability to choose the type of work they do and who have limited access to work overall. After establishing the contours of PWF and PWT, the paper explores decent work, or work that contains empowerment, protection for the worker, equity, and provision for a dignified life for its workers. Particularly, the paper synthesizes various factors that affect the availability of decent work worldwide into suggestions for future research in I-O Psychology.

The authors suggest that with the rise of contract employees, the lingering effects of the worldwide great recession, and the exacerbation of inequality worldwide as contributors to the diminishing of decent work. Additionally, they argue the rise of automation via new technology will further decrease access to decent work. In the midst of these challenges, Blustein intersperses findings on how decent work positively affects the worker. He notes that the best antidote to the psychological stress of unemployment tends to be a new job (Paul & Moser 2009). Similarly, the paper notes that decent work makes workers feel more alive by satisfying the drive to accomplish tasks. Throughout, the paper notes how I-O psychology findings support the PWF.

The paper closes with four proposed research directions: testing economic and social protections embedded in the workplace, researching the balance of care work and market work, examining efforts to make the workplace more equitable, and identifying strategies for enhancing individual capacities to land decent work (Blustein et. al 2019). The authors hope that such research would inform policy direction and specific actions in the workplace worldwide, and would leverage psychological research to benefit global workers in an ever-changing work landscape.

By: Keaton Fletcher

The U.S. federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour, a standard that was set in 2009. The minimum wage for work covered by federal contracts, however, is $10.35 per hour. 29 of the 50 states have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum, ranging from $7.50 (New Mexico) to $14 in D.C. or $12 in Massachusetts and California. Some cities in the United States have even higher minimum wages (e.g., Seattle at $15.45; SeaTac, Washington at $15.64; and Emryville, California at $15.69). As of 2013, roughly 1.5 million US workers over the age of 15 made the federal minimum wage, and another 1.8 million earned below the federal minimum wage. Half of minimum wage workers are under the age of 26, 62% are women, 47% reside in the South, 24% live in the Mid-West.

The first federal minimum wage ($0.25/hour) in the United States was set in 1933 as part of the National Industrial Recovery Act under Franklin Delano Roosevelt in attempt to revitalize the struggling economy. This was ruled unconstitutional in 1935 and abolished. In 1938, as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the federal minimum wage was re-introduced, along with protections for underage employees, standardized overtime pay, a 40 hour work week, and workplace safety standards, among other things. This came 26 years after Massachusetts was the first state to set a minimum wage (for women and children) and 44 years after New Zealand became the first nation to set a minimum wage. Since its introduction, the U.S. Federal minimum wage has increased 22 times, with the greatest percent increase occurring in 1950, when the wage increased from $0.40 per hour to $0.75 per hour, and the greatest dollar increase occurring with each of the last three increases (2007, 2008, 2009) at $0.70 per hour, per increase.

There are exceptions to minimum wage laws, however. Administrative and professional employees, outside sales employees, seasonal employees, farmworkers, babysitters or companions for the elderly are exempt from the minimum wage. Because gigworkers (e.g., rideshare drivers) are independent contractors and not employees, they, too, are exempt from minimum wage laws (as well as other protections employees typically have). Further, The Youth Minimum Wage Program allows for a lower minimum wage of $4.25 per hour to be paid for the first 90 days of employment to individuals under the age of 20, full-time students can be employed at 85% of the minimum wage as part of the Full-Time Student Program or 75% of the minimum wage if they are attending a vocational school.

Recently, there has been a push for the federal minimum wage to be raised to $15 per hour by 2024. In November 2012, over 100 fast-food employees in New York City went on strike for higher wages, improved working conditions, and the ability to unionize. This was followed by similar strikes in 2013 in New York, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Seattle, Flint, and Kansas City. In December 2013 and September 2014, national strikes occurred, calling for a $15 per hour minimum wage. In April 2015, a protest including fast-food employees, child and home care aides, airport workers, adjunct professors, and Walmart employees echoed the earlier calls for $15 per hour. In 2018 and early 2019, gigworkers for companies like Instacart, Uber Eats, Postmates, Grubhub, DoorDash, and Amazon Flex teamed with an advocacy group based in Washington state to demand a $15 per hour minimum wage for gig workers.

From a psychological perspective, a major increase in minimum wage could have consequences (positive and negative) for employees. On the one hand, an increased wage could help employees satisfy basic needs from their work, and to feel as if they are being rewarded adequately for their efforts. On the other hand, an increase in wages may come with a simultaneous decrease in jobs. With many companies (e.g., McDonalds) investing in technology-based alternatives to human employees, or exploring opportunities to outsource work to nations with lower wage standards, a federal increase in minimum wage may actually increase job insecurity for many workers. The jobs that might be at greatest risk for automation or outsourcing would likely be entry-level jobs that allow individuals to enter the workforce with minimal technical skills or education.

By: Keaton Fletcher

A paper recently published in the International Journal of Selection and Assessment by a team of researchers including WSC Advisory Council Member, Deborah Rupp, focuses on an increasingly popular tool that organizations are using to select individuals for hiring or promotion, assessment centers. Assessment centers require participants to engage in a range of prescribed tasks designed to elicit the competencies that will be needed on the job. Trained raters then evaluate the individual across each of these competencies based on what was shown during the task. Despite being resource intensive, assessment centers are useful tools for organizations as they have been shown to predict future job performance, and historically have been viewed as a fairer and/or less biased method of evaluation than other potential tools organizations could use. However, some evidence (Dean, 2008) suggests that assessment centers may not be as free of bias as one might hope. There have been consistent findings to suggest a leniency effect (i.e., willingness to provide higher scores) towards white individuals and women. There has also been some evidence (Schmitt, 1993) to suggest assessment centers may be susceptible to a similar-to-me effect, in that the rater scores participants who are similar to the rater on demographic variables (e.g., race, gender) more favorably. Although combining ratings across multiple raters may help reduce the impact of these issues, Thornton, Rupp, Gibbons, and Vanhove (2019) argued that it is imperative to know if these biases are present even prior to aggregating across raters.

Using data from 189 police officers who were participating in an assessment center for a promotion, Thornton and colleagues (2019) explored how the leniency and similar-to-me effects might appear in the real world. For this particular assessment center, participants completed three different tasks for three separate pairs of judges. The judges were advanced police officers who had received training on the assessment center and were given materials design to minimize potential bias. The results of the study are generally encouraging, suggesting that bias was minimal when it was present. The authors did find some evidence for a leniency effect for white participants across all tasks, and inconsistent findings regarding leniency for women, or similar-to-me effects. Certainly this does not suggest that all assessment centers are free of bias, but should provide some hope that given the appropriate design, rater training and materials, an assessment center may have minimal bias. In minimizing the bias in assessment centers, organizations can increase the diversity in their internal pool of candidates at each level of the organization, creating the potential for succession planning that may facilitate organizational diversity from the executive level, down.

By: Yendi Neil

According to a report released by the National Science Foundation (NSF; 2017), the enrollment of historically underrepresented groups (e.g., women, Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and individuals with disabilities) in undergraduate institutions is increasing. However, enrollment trends differ across demographic groups. Hispanics, Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders, and American Indians or Alaska Natives are more likely to enroll in public 2-year colleges than other racial groups. Blacks and Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders are more likely to enroll in private, for-profit colleges, compared to other racial groups. Whites, Asians, and students who identify as multi-racial are more likely to enroll in private, nonprofit colleges (NSF, 2017). Additionally, people with disabilities have similar acceptance rates to the college of their choice compared to individuals without disabilities. Lastly, more women are enrolling in college than men. Taken together, these data suggest that the landscape of higher education is changing, and although certain types of institutions may still see a lower representation of minority racial groups, representation of women and individuals with disabilities has significantly improved.

The data suggest that over the past 20 years, women have increased in participation across all scientific fields of study. Women account for at least 70% of the graduates in psychology (at the baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral levels), but only about 20% of degrees in physics. Engineering, computer sciences, economics, and mathematics/statistics also see a fairly low representation of women at all levels. Women of underrepresented minorities have higher rates of enrollment at all degree levels across science and engineering (S&E) degrees, than men of underrepresented minorities.

Roughly half of the S&E workforce is white men, white women and Asian men each account for about 15% of the S&E workforce, Asian women account for 7% of the workforce, and men of other racial groups account for 8%, while women of other racial groups account for 5%. Underrepresented racial minority scientists are more likely than others to be employed by the government, while women, regardless of race, are more likely than men to be employed by educational institutions.

Overall, the data in this report suggest that although the representation of women, minority racial groups, and individuals with disabilities has broadly increased across all levels within S&E, there are particular areas that might benefit from intervention to further increase enrollment and retention of these groups. Specifically, interventions could target more narrow domains of S&E (e.g., physics, computer science) that are struggling with the enrollment of women and underrepresented minorities. Interventions could also target transition points (e.g., from undergraduate to graduate programs, from school to the workforce), helping to ensure women, particularly women of underrepresented minority groups, transition successfully, at rates equivalent to other groups.

By: Elizabeth Moraff

Work Science Center network member Mary F. Fox has focused much of her research on women in research and academia, particularly noting barriers to their advancement. Most recently, she published a reflection on Georgia Tech’s website detailing the insights present research has provided on the way work-family conflict (when work interferes with family) and family-work conflict (when family interferes with work) operate differently among men and women in various stages of their academic careers. One of study’s most startling findings, Fox notes, shows women at the most senior levels of their academic career report more family-work conflict than those in earlier stages (Fox, 2019). She ends her reflection by indicating men have benefited more from gender-neutral employee policies in academia than women have. For instance, gender-neutral parental leave policy implementation correlates with fewer women achieving tenure, according to some studies (Fox, 2019).

Oddly, the prevalence of work-family and family-work conflict among professional women contrasts with perceptions of barriers that Fox found in earlier research. In a study of women engineers and their experiences with international research collaboration, she and her co-investigators predicted that women would cite external barriers as more influential in whether or not they had collaborated on research with international partners (Fox, Realff, Rueda, & Morn 2017). In particular, they posited female engineers would list difficulty acquiring funding and international research collaborators as the two greatest barriers in conducting collaborative research internationally. They were right! Women engineers did, in fact, list those two external barriers as most daunting. They rated these barriers as significantly more important than conflicts with balancing family and work (Fox et. al 2017).

Interestingly, these same female engineers imagined that balancing work and family would pose a significant obstacle to other women, but not to themselves (Fox et. al, 2017). Essentially, the engineers in the study identified external hurdles, funding and finding research collaborators, as the factors hindering collaborative international research in their own lives, but they envisioned other women as falling prey to more internal tensions (Fox et. al, 2017). In that study’s conclusion, Fox and her co-investigators point out that organizational policies are much more adept at addressing external barriers. Funding programs could close some of the perceived gap in acquiring resources for research. Initiatives connecting international women in similar fields could aid in the cross-pollination necessary for international work. Unfortunately, organizational policies are much more clumsy at alleviating the internal stressors, like work-family and family-work conflict, as Fox reveals in her reflection (2019).

Still, these two works from Dr. Fox suggest an additional dilemma: even women in competitive academic fields have adopted a narrative that says women are more likely to struggle with family obligations in their career, but they often fail to acknowledge those tensions in their own lives. Indeed, even though the research Fox pulls from paints a picture of work-family and family-work conflict straining women at the highest echelons of academia, women in equivalent roles in engineering do not name such stress as their main problem. Perhaps this perception reflects reality, perhaps not. Research indicates that professional women are rewarded for downplaying family obligations (Fox, 2019). It’s possible that female engineers are loath to recognize this stigmatized stressor in their lives despite recognition of its prevalence in the lives of other women. More research would have to answer such a question. In the end, Fox’s two works do show that women in advanced fields face a variety of barriers to their achievement, and that organizations must continue to implement strategic, evidence-based policies to tackle them.

By Jacqueline Jung

The modern workforce is becoming increasingly science and technology based. Improving the selection and retention of undergraduate students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) majors is, therefore, increasingly important. Attrition rates are high: more than 1 in 4 students leave college before completing their degree, and it is even more difficult to attract and retain students in STEM majors. This indicates both failure in selection and in identifying students who are at risk for attrition. To solve this problem, we must find or develop strong predictors of academic success at the post-secondary level to reduce the number of students who leave before getting a degree and increase the number of students who complete their degree, particularly students considering STEM majors and careers. Traditional predictors of academic performance include GPA and aptitude/intelligence tests, such as the SAT or ACT. More recently, efforts have been made to include measures of personality, motivational traits and skills, vocational interests, and other psychological measures as predictors of academic success. Although it may be controversial to use these measures for admissions given that they are self-reported, they could be used post-matriculation for identifying those students who are at-risk for attrition either from a STEM major or from the university as a whole.

A 2013 study (Ackerman, Kanfer, & Beier) followed 589 college students from their admission to the school to their graduation or attrition. First, the authors defined five combinations of traits, motivations, and self-perceptions that were common among the students: Math/Science Self-Concept (e.g., you prefer and feel confident in your abilities regarding math and science), Mastery/Organization (e.g., you want to learn, you are organized and conscientious), Openness and Verbal Self-Concept (e.g., you feel confident in your verbal abilities and you are open to new experiences and critical thinking), Anxiety in Achievement Contexts (e.g., you are neurotic and have high levels of test anxiety), and Extroversion/Sociability (e.g., you want status and an easy life, you prefer and feel confident in social contexts). Using these five combinations of traits (i.e., trait complexes), academic records, high school GPA, SAT scores, and AP exam scores, the authors predicted student (1) academic success (measured by GPA), (2) STEM major persistence (STEM-persisters were those whose initial and final major was STEM, whereas STEM-leavers were those whose initial major was STEM, but final was not), and (3) attrition (students who did not complete a degree within eight years of matriculation) better than traditional measures alone would.

Interestingly, women scored lower than men in the Math/Science Self-Concept trait-complex, but scored higher than men in Mastery/Organization, Anxiety in Achievement, and Extroversion/Sociability trait-complexes. An equal proportion (17.6%) of men and women who started college in a STEM major left STEM, yet the men who left the STEM major had high Math/Science Self-Concepts whereas the women had low Math/Science Self-Concepts, similar to those women who were never in a STEM major. Alternatively, the men who left STEM majors were low in Mastery/Organization, lower than even those men who were never in a STEM major. This may suggest that men and women quit STEM for different reasons: women who leave do not feel confident in their STEM abilities and men who leave lack the organizational skills necessary to succeed.

Certainly, more research is needed to really understand why students may leave their chosen educational paths, but this study alone provides some insight into what might be happening. Schools or organizations interested in increasing the pool of talented candidates in STEM majors may work on interventions that increase STEM self-concept, particularly for women, and improve organizational skills and self-regulation, particularly for men.

By: Keaton Fletcher

WSC Advisory Board Member, David Blustein, is part of a team led by Kelsey L. Autin that recently published a paper in the Journal of Counseling Psychology that tackles what it means to have your needs satisfied by your work. The authors point toward decent work as a method that allows individuals to meet their needs. Although there has been historically been great debate about what constitutes human needs, the authors assert that work can meet your survival needs, social connection needs, and self-determination needs (autonomy, relatedness, and competence). By putting food on the table, a roof over your head, providing you with a sense that you are doing something meaningful, giving you an opportunity to take control of certain aspects of your life, make deep meaningful relationships, and feel like you have successfully mastered something, work contributes greatly to the human experience.

In a survey of 476 people working at least part time within the U.S., the authors found that if your job meets your survival needs you also tend to be more satisfied in your life, but not necessarily the job yourself. If the job meets your social connection needs, that you also tend to be more satisfied in both your life and your job. If the job meets your self-determination needs, you similarly are more satisfied in your job and our life, but the relationship between self-determination needs and job satisfaction is the strongest relationship found in the study. That said, whether your job meets your survival needs was the best predictor of life satisfaction.

For researchers, this study focuses primarily on the development and validation of a scale designed to actually measure whether a job is meeting an individual’s needs.

By: Riley Swab

Sleep is necessary to increase focus and productivity, both vital traits to workers. Japanese workers, however, are accumulating massive sleep debts (i.e., consistently sleeping less than 7 hours per night without rebound sleep such as naps or sleeping in) due to a prevalent mentality that sacrificing sleep means you are working hard (Lewis, 2018). The issue has become so prevalent that in 2014, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare acknowledged the existence of a “sleep is expendable” attitude in many Japanese workers (Lewis, 2018). The report, in fact, claimed that 71 percent of Japanese adult male workers slept less than seven hours a night (Lewis, 2018). Although Japanese workers’ lack of sleep has reached an extreme state, a lack of sleep in workers is not unique to Japan. The CDC collected sleep data in 2014 and found that 40% of American adults were getting less than seven hours of sleep (the minimum recommended by the CDC for the best health and wellbeing) a statistic that pushed the CDC to label sleep deprivation as a public health epidemic in the United States (Center for Disease Control, 2017; Howe, 2017).

What does this mean for workers? Not getting enough sleep impairs brain function, reducing a person’s ability to make rational judgements (Lewis, 2018), reducing worker productivity (Lewis, 2018), and even increasing chances of developing arthritis, depression, and suicide (Center for Disease Control, 2017). In addition, those who do not sleep the minimum required hours are at a greater risk for obesity, heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes (Center for Disease Control, 2017). Although a lack of sleep impairs the individual workers, these individual impairments are adding up and impacting the entire Japanese workplace, even extending to their economy. Rand Corporation conducted a study in 2009 to quantify the cost of insufficient sleep in Japanese workers (Lewis, 2018; Hafner, Stepanek, Taylor, Troxel, & Van Stolk, 2016). Their study suggested that Japan loses 138 billion US dollars per year (the equivalent of 2.92% of Japan’s gross domestic product) because of the higher mortality risks and productivity losses resulting from the sleep shortage (Lewis, 2018; Hafner, et al., 2016). According to Rand Corporation’s 2009 study, the United States is estimated to lose $411 billion a year because of problems associated with deficient sleep in workers (Lewis, 2018; Hafner, et al., 2016).

This worrisome change in the sleep patterns of workers holds major implications for modern organizations and economies. Fortunately, some companies are creating systems that reward and encourage workers to sleep. These attempts range from providing a raise for workers who sleep at least six hours a night, to installing rooms in the workplace dedicated to napping (Fleming, 2018). In addition, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare issued guidance for employers in how to encourage employees to sleep more, primarily through educating both employers and employees about the benefits of getting enough sleep (Fleming, 2018; Lewis, 2018). Moving forward, we suggest organizations take steps to further encourage employee health and wellbeing, including sleep hygiene.

References

Center for Disease Control. (2017). Short Sleep Duration Among US Adults. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov

Hafner, M., Stepanek, M., Taylor, J., Troxel, W. M., & Van Stolk, C. (2016). Why sleep matters — the economic costs of insufficient sleep: A cross-country comparative analysis. Retrieved from www.rand.org/giving/contribute

Howe, N. (2017, August 18). America The Sleep-Deprived. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com

Lewis, L. (2018, November 19). Japan wakes up to sleep shortage problems. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com

Fleming, S. (2018, November 28). To combat Japan’s sleep debt, some firms allow tired workers to nap on the job. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org