The SIOP Exchange

The HRM Value Blog

By Mahesh Subramony, SIOP Blogger

In December 1912, a group of managers with different backgrounds, but with a common interest in systemizing the discipline dealing with the ‘handling of employees’ formed the Employment Managers’ Association in Boston. Their aims included “to discuss problems of employes (sic); their training and their efficiency”, and “to compare experiences which shall throw light on the failures and successes in conducting the employment department (Bloomfield, 1916; p.77).  Within the next decade, similar associations had formed in most large cities in the US, and the profession of employment management – a precursor of modern day HRM – was born.

IBM Announces First Female CEO: Has the glass ceiling been shattered... or just cracked?

By Ashley D. Bugeja, SIOP Blogger

In recent months, IBM released news  that spurred a great deal of interest across the globe. The Fortune 500 Company announced that Virginia M. Rometty, currently a senior vice president at IBM, has been elected IBM President and CEO. According to ABC News,  Rometty will be the first female CEO in the company’s prosperous 100-year history. Meanwhile, Rometty will join a small group of female CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies.

ABC News reports that when Rometty takes office in the start of the New Year the number of female CEOs of fortune 500 companies will reach a record at 18. This buzzing news poses a controversial question for Industrial/Organizational Psychologists - Has the glass ceiling been shattered?... Or just cracked?

Washington Post Discusses Wal-Mart vs. Dukes

The Washington Post "Conversations"  series posted a conversation this week discussing the Wal-Mart vs. Dukes case that has made headlines recently. Arguments in the case regarding discrimination against female workers at Wal-Mart began March 29. Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center and products liability defense attorney Matthew Cairns debated the case on The Washinton Post website here.

Questions discussed int he article revolve around numerous workplaces issues, such as the causes of differing pay between men and women:

"How is a fair average pay differential arrived at between men and women when women have shorter average length of employment because of a percentage that change to stay at home moms etc.? It seems like if one group by their own choice have different career statistics that would skew their average wage because of higher wages being related to longer length of service."

To read the answers given by Greenberger and Cairns, read the full story here. 

 

Lewis v. City of Chicago: Again with the déjà vu

By: Ted Hayes

The category is – recent Supreme Court cases:

Answer: the defendant claimed that the plaintiff filed for redress too late. Question: “What is Ledbetter?”

Answer: the defendant claimed that the test was professionally developed and job-related even if its use resulted in adverse impact.  Question: “What is Ricci?”

Answer: the defendant acknowledged that its selection test cut-score and banding practice were “unlawful” and “statistically meaningless,” and that minority applicants were “deprived…of their employment opportunities,” but the defendant nevertheless proclaimed its innocence because minority plaintiffs had filed for redress too late.  Question: “No, really?”

Washington Post: "Employment Exam Writers Tread Carefully"

An article published September 7 in the Washington Post discusses a recent speaking engagement by SIOP Fellow James Outtz, Outtz & Associates, Washington, D.C., at the August luncheon meeting of the Personnel Testing Council of Metropolitan Washington (PTC/MW).  

Outtz is one of the five distinguished SIOP Fellows who submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the Ricci case. The Washington Post article also includes SIOP members Rich Cober and Eric Dunleavy. The article, which refers to I-O psychologists as "employment exam writers," reads:

"It is a simple question, pulled straight from an employment test: "When firefighters arrive on the scene of a house fire, what should the lieutenant do first?" Simple enough, but wrapped into the answer is the complicated issue of employment discrimination.