Personnel Psychology - Lecture Notes 2021
Lecture 1: Introduction and Topics in Personnel Psychology
Personnel psychology
- Integrates knowledge from industrial psychology and organizational psychology
- Industrial psychology: topics that are more relevant to the company in a broader
perspective (eperformance assessment, coaching, selection + recruitment, employee
development)
- Organizational psychology: topics that are more related to individual worker (leadership,
motivation, satisfaction, emotions, work-life balance)
Personnel Psychology linked to HRM practices
- Strategic HRM: activities used to align HRM processes (recruitment, selection,
development, retention, performance appraisal, etc) with the goals of the organization
- Steps necessary to HRM practices: analysis and design of work, HR planning,
Recruiting, selection, training and development, performance management,
compensation, employee retention
Role of psychologists in personnel psychology
- They bring psychological knowledge: e.g. individual differences, social interaction,
cognitions, emotions
- “People focus”: psychologists bring the focus to the individual
→ Have awareness that there are costs for wrong personnel decisions for company
and for person; that employer needs to invest and protect employees; importance
of well-being and employee health, personnel development (human capital
management)
- Statistical knowledge: finding valid measures of performance/ interventions, can better
evaluate how to design and implement interventions in valid and reliable ways
- Methodological knowledge: trained in designing interventions
Current and future challenges in personnel psychology
- Mostly related to societal and economical transformations
- Rapid development and use of new technology, globalization, dynamic markets,
innovation, gig work (change in the way work is done; more freelancing/short contracts)
- Aging and diverse workforce
- COVID-19
- Employees: expected to cope with a dynamic, uncertain environment; high digital skills
→ Need for special skills (creativity, proactivity, critical thinking, constant digital
upskilling)
- Organizations: create humane job conditions and possibilities for all (age) groups;
support lifelong learning
→ Create environment free from harassment, discrimination, empower minority
groups at work
, → Strong need to stay updated with new technology
Aging workforce
- Societal issue in western countries
- In the EU: within next 10 years more than 20% of workers will be aged 55+
- Today's workforce often brings together 3-4 generations
→ Challenge: create job conditions and possibilities for all age groups; planning
retirement, retraining older workers
Skill shortages
- Lack of skilled workers in specific areas (nursing, installing, doctors/health professionals,
ICT developers, teachers)
- Skill gaps in the labor market → difficulties for recruitment and retention
- Field study (Bridges et al., 2018): lower nurse-patient ratio resulted in poorer healthcare
interactions and lower quality of care
Gig economy
- Primarily (short-term) independent freelance workers who contract with organizations or
sell directly to the market
→ E.g. delivery drivers, yoga instructors, writer, selling stuff on etsy, etc
- Solo-entrepreneurs, micro-entrepreneurs
- Not related to education; workers with all kinds of education (can be highly educated or
not educated at all)
- Done for multiple years but usually not for entire career
- Organization: less time and financial costs of hiring, onboarding, training, employee
relations → flexibility (hire people when you need them for a specific task but without
long-term commitment
- Benefits for employees: flexibility, autonomy (to a degree, freedom to control working
hours but dependent on people who need their services), ability to create own work-life
balance
- Disadvantages for employees: often uncertain career path (financial instability and job
insecurity); lack of social social benefits (healthcare, retirement, etc)
New technology
- Changes in the manner and methods by which HMR practices are conducted
- Automation, artificial intelligence-based technologies, gamification
- VIrtual reality (VR) technology: used for training and learning interventions (“learning by
doing” by simulating real-life situations
→ Good for training difficult or dangerous environment, environments that are
difficult to create; cost no longer very high for VR training
- Example UPS: training delivery drivers; simulation of the road and hazards, identifying
pedestrians and ongoing traffic to reduce accidents
, - Benefits: saves costs and time; allows adaptive testing in selection and training (adapted
to candidate’s ability/motivation level); greater access to larger and more geographically
diverse applicant pools and employees who need training; gives “high-tech” image
- Problems and limitations: lack of research, validation and evaluation studies
→ Might have an adverse impact: employment practices that appear neutral but
have negative effects for members of protected groups (e.g. leads to different
rate of selection)
→ Motion sickness in VR technology use: mismatch of visual and movement data;
evidence that women are more strongly affected by motion sickness when using
VR → adverse impact on women
→ Cohort differences in the acceptance of new technology? Does it attract a
different type of application?
COVID-19 Crisis/challenges of COVIS-19 for HRM
- Maintain employees’ person-environment fit (P-E fit); strengthen their ability to adjust to
radical changes
- Different needs (e.g. depending on family status) require different HRM practices and
individual assistance; tailor idiosyncratic deals (I-deals) e.g. including negotiating specific
time and work arrangements
- Blue-collar workers or those in critical industries: reducing social density of shifts; more
flexible shift arrangements; separation of employee shifts; better hygiene cultures;
increasing physical distancing behaviors of employees
- Opportunities for virtual socialization, social events
- Help relieving stress in online interactions (webinars, employee assistance programs,
etc)
- Blended learning activities to increase employees skills
- Provide communication and leadership training
- Risk of talent loss due to the breakdown of the economy → unemployment rates
- HRM: transparent, fair way of communication about downsizing measures
Big data
- The use of people-related data that is used to improve and inform all types of
management, business and HR decisions throughout the organization
- E.g. task management, health monitoring, regular survey data, performance
evaluations
- Five core features: volume of data (huge amount of data), variety (different forms of data
from different sources), value (extract useful information), velocity (high speed of
accumulation of data), veracity (inconsistencies and uncertainty in data)
- Challenge: organizational decision makers and policymakers need to professionally,
legally and ethically interpret and implement Big Data in HRM
- Past and present information used to predict future: performance ratings, tenure, safety
record, etc
- Visualization of individual, team and organizational performance over time → patterns
and trends of employee turnover
Lecture 1: Introduction and Topics in Personnel Psychology
Personnel psychology
- Integrates knowledge from industrial psychology and organizational psychology
- Industrial psychology: topics that are more relevant to the company in a broader
perspective (eperformance assessment, coaching, selection + recruitment, employee
development)
- Organizational psychology: topics that are more related to individual worker (leadership,
motivation, satisfaction, emotions, work-life balance)
Personnel Psychology linked to HRM practices
- Strategic HRM: activities used to align HRM processes (recruitment, selection,
development, retention, performance appraisal, etc) with the goals of the organization
- Steps necessary to HRM practices: analysis and design of work, HR planning,
Recruiting, selection, training and development, performance management,
compensation, employee retention
Role of psychologists in personnel psychology
- They bring psychological knowledge: e.g. individual differences, social interaction,
cognitions, emotions
- “People focus”: psychologists bring the focus to the individual
→ Have awareness that there are costs for wrong personnel decisions for company
and for person; that employer needs to invest and protect employees; importance
of well-being and employee health, personnel development (human capital
management)
- Statistical knowledge: finding valid measures of performance/ interventions, can better
evaluate how to design and implement interventions in valid and reliable ways
- Methodological knowledge: trained in designing interventions
Current and future challenges in personnel psychology
- Mostly related to societal and economical transformations
- Rapid development and use of new technology, globalization, dynamic markets,
innovation, gig work (change in the way work is done; more freelancing/short contracts)
- Aging and diverse workforce
- COVID-19
- Employees: expected to cope with a dynamic, uncertain environment; high digital skills
→ Need for special skills (creativity, proactivity, critical thinking, constant digital
upskilling)
- Organizations: create humane job conditions and possibilities for all (age) groups;
support lifelong learning
→ Create environment free from harassment, discrimination, empower minority
groups at work
, → Strong need to stay updated with new technology
Aging workforce
- Societal issue in western countries
- In the EU: within next 10 years more than 20% of workers will be aged 55+
- Today's workforce often brings together 3-4 generations
→ Challenge: create job conditions and possibilities for all age groups; planning
retirement, retraining older workers
Skill shortages
- Lack of skilled workers in specific areas (nursing, installing, doctors/health professionals,
ICT developers, teachers)
- Skill gaps in the labor market → difficulties for recruitment and retention
- Field study (Bridges et al., 2018): lower nurse-patient ratio resulted in poorer healthcare
interactions and lower quality of care
Gig economy
- Primarily (short-term) independent freelance workers who contract with organizations or
sell directly to the market
→ E.g. delivery drivers, yoga instructors, writer, selling stuff on etsy, etc
- Solo-entrepreneurs, micro-entrepreneurs
- Not related to education; workers with all kinds of education (can be highly educated or
not educated at all)
- Done for multiple years but usually not for entire career
- Organization: less time and financial costs of hiring, onboarding, training, employee
relations → flexibility (hire people when you need them for a specific task but without
long-term commitment
- Benefits for employees: flexibility, autonomy (to a degree, freedom to control working
hours but dependent on people who need their services), ability to create own work-life
balance
- Disadvantages for employees: often uncertain career path (financial instability and job
insecurity); lack of social social benefits (healthcare, retirement, etc)
New technology
- Changes in the manner and methods by which HMR practices are conducted
- Automation, artificial intelligence-based technologies, gamification
- VIrtual reality (VR) technology: used for training and learning interventions (“learning by
doing” by simulating real-life situations
→ Good for training difficult or dangerous environment, environments that are
difficult to create; cost no longer very high for VR training
- Example UPS: training delivery drivers; simulation of the road and hazards, identifying
pedestrians and ongoing traffic to reduce accidents
, - Benefits: saves costs and time; allows adaptive testing in selection and training (adapted
to candidate’s ability/motivation level); greater access to larger and more geographically
diverse applicant pools and employees who need training; gives “high-tech” image
- Problems and limitations: lack of research, validation and evaluation studies
→ Might have an adverse impact: employment practices that appear neutral but
have negative effects for members of protected groups (e.g. leads to different
rate of selection)
→ Motion sickness in VR technology use: mismatch of visual and movement data;
evidence that women are more strongly affected by motion sickness when using
VR → adverse impact on women
→ Cohort differences in the acceptance of new technology? Does it attract a
different type of application?
COVID-19 Crisis/challenges of COVIS-19 for HRM
- Maintain employees’ person-environment fit (P-E fit); strengthen their ability to adjust to
radical changes
- Different needs (e.g. depending on family status) require different HRM practices and
individual assistance; tailor idiosyncratic deals (I-deals) e.g. including negotiating specific
time and work arrangements
- Blue-collar workers or those in critical industries: reducing social density of shifts; more
flexible shift arrangements; separation of employee shifts; better hygiene cultures;
increasing physical distancing behaviors of employees
- Opportunities for virtual socialization, social events
- Help relieving stress in online interactions (webinars, employee assistance programs,
etc)
- Blended learning activities to increase employees skills
- Provide communication and leadership training
- Risk of talent loss due to the breakdown of the economy → unemployment rates
- HRM: transparent, fair way of communication about downsizing measures
Big data
- The use of people-related data that is used to improve and inform all types of
management, business and HR decisions throughout the organization
- E.g. task management, health monitoring, regular survey data, performance
evaluations
- Five core features: volume of data (huge amount of data), variety (different forms of data
from different sources), value (extract useful information), velocity (high speed of
accumulation of data), veracity (inconsistencies and uncertainty in data)
- Challenge: organizational decision makers and policymakers need to professionally,
legally and ethically interpret and implement Big Data in HRM
- Past and present information used to predict future: performance ratings, tenure, safety
record, etc
- Visualization of individual, team and organizational performance over time → patterns
and trends of employee turnover
