WOU



[pic] | |

|Science Plays a Key Role in High-Risk Job Hiring |

|  |

|by Clif Boutelle, SIOP Public Relations |

|  |

|When it comes to hiring personnel in high-risk jobs like public safety, agencies, often under heavy scrutiny, have to be accountable in |

|employing people who can perform up to high expectations. |

|  |

|When a police officer arrives at an accident scene, a lot of decisions must be quickly made. The situation has to be rapidly assessed, the |

|victim or victims have to be evaluated, medical help may have to be called, other officers called in, traffic has to be cleared so as not |

|to impair an investigation, traffic may have to be rerouted and those involved have to be interviewed for a report of the incident. |

|  |

|The officer must act quickly and decisively and the margin of error is often small. |

|  |

|These are all decisions that are common to high-risk occupations that demand workers who have the ability to function efficiently and |

|handle the stress associated with these kinds of jobs. |

|  |

|“Not everyone is well-suited to work in a high risk job,” says Kelley Krokos of the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C. |

|and an authority on personnel selection, especially for jobs considered high risk. |

|  |

|She and Lycia Carter of Aon Consulting, will be taking part in a presentation assessing the state of personnel selection for high-risk |

|occupations at the annual conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology April 10-12 in San Francisco. |

|  |

|“We consider high-risk occupations to include any job for which the possibility of error is significant and for which the consequence of |

|error is likely to result in harm, physical injury or death to not only the individual performing the job but for others as well,” said |

|Krokos. |

|  |

|She lists law enforcement, fire, military and aviation jobs as among the most visible high-risk occupations. Also, certain jobs at nuclear |

|facilities and in the medical profession, such as trauma center work, can potentially result in harm to others. |

|  |

|Considering that public safety is often at the heart of these occupations, hiring people who have the right mix of physical and mental |

|abilities to perform these jobs is extremely important, says Carter, who previously played a key role in hiring police officers for the |

|Metropolitan Police Department in Washington D.C. |

|  |

|But how can the right hiring decisions be made for these occupations? |

|  |

|In fact, selecting, evaluating and predicting the best performers among job candidates involves a great deal of science; something that |

|industrial and organizational psychologists are particularly well trained to accomplish. |

|  |

|The first thing that needs to be done, says Krokos, is a comprehensive evaluation to determine the key attributes needed to properly |

|perform a particular job. While high-risk occupations can be diverse, there are some common traits that workers in these jobs possess. |

|  |

|Sound decision making and stress tolerance are important attributes, according to Carter. “Sometimes a person doesn’t have a lot of time to|

|think about what must be done and he or she must be able to tolerate high amounts of stress,” she said. |

|  |

|It is important to select someone who can deal with situations demanding urgency. “That’s the value of a thorough job analysis: to identify|

|the attributes that will allow the employee to manage the technical aspects as well as the environmental or situational demands of the job.|

|Then testing can determine the candidates best suited to handle those factors,” said Krokos. |

|  |

|I-O psychologists have a lot of tools to help managers make good hiring decisions, including developing and implementing recruiting plans, |

|pre-employment tests, situational judgment exercises, post-employment testing and developing training and performance management processes.|

| |

|  |

|Law enforcement and fire departments, for example, often use internal or external I-O consultants to help them with the critical task of |

|hiring employees who can handle the high-risk requirements of those professions. |

|  |

|There are two kinds of tests that have proven validity and reliability that I-O psychologists may employ: cognitive and personality. |

|Cognitive tests measure a candidate’s ability to learn all aspects of the job and its procedures, whereas personality tests can predict a |

|person’s fit for the position. |

|  |

|“Personality includes a wide range of characteristics that people possess; many of them have an impact upon the ways people behave in the |

|workplace,” according to Deniz Ones of the University of Minnesota, who has been involved in numerous studies on personality tests. |

|  |

|Job-related characteristics can be isolated and measured with the results providing data that are useful in selecting people to hire, she |

|points out. |

|  |

|What about the employee whose actions bring discredit to their organizations? These are the people who often get media attention, not those|

|who are performing their positions at a high level. |

|  |

|No process can eliminate every poor hiring decision, Krokos and Carter concede. But, they point out, the rate of hiring suitable employees |

|who will perform at expected levels is far higher by using these procedures than not using them. |

|  |

|“People change over time and what may have been a good hire could turn into a bad one,” admits Carter. |

|  |

|“That’s why it is important to monitor employees and develop a tracking system that can lead to an early warning that something is |

|happening to an employee. When an individual’s behavior seems troublesome, then management will have the opportunity to implement some kind|

|of intervention, be it remedial training, a referral to an employee assistance program or closer supervision. |

|  |

|“Selection doesn’t occur in a vacuum. If there is a performance problem you have to look at all the potential causes, not just the |

|selection process. There are training and performance management considerations as well,“ Carter said. |

|  |

|All organizations, especially those in the public sector, employing people in high-risk positions have a large investment in personnel and |

|it is important to hire the right people and use every tool available to ensure success. |

| |

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download