I/O in D.C. - By Kyle Swaim

First year I/O student Kyle Swaim

Who would have thought that Washington D.C., our nation’s capital, would be where I found out that Industrial-Organizational Psychology was my passion? Typically, this town is reserved for campaigning politicians, aggressive lobbyists, and big name think tanks, but to my surprise, I/O psychology was well recognized and much needed. I did my first post-grad internship at a mid-sized company in the D.C. area and was shocked by how much I did not know and got a glimpse into what exactly my future in I/O holds. This internship was a great opportunity and an enlightening experience that ultimately confirmed I/O Psychology as my passion.

Before I talk more specifically about my job in D.C. I will provide some background. For most of my undergrad career, I bounced from major to major trying to find the best fit for my personality and skill set. I tried out some biology, did civil engineering for a couple years (found out physics was not exactly my thing), tried some information systems, but I kept coming back to psychology. These classes were always captivating and each one showed me more about the field. However, I still had not found what I felt was my calling. Inside of psychology, I dabbled in everything from applied neurocognition to forensic psychology. After a great deal of thought it occurred to me that, at the heart of it, I want to improve people’s lives. And so I thought, where does the majority of our adult life take place? Well that is obviously wherever we are employed. So why not seek to apply the things we know about human behavior, cognition, and emotion to the workplace.

My internship in D.C. allowed me the freedom and gave me the resources to do just this. The company I worked with was an educational consulting business that employed tutors and consultants in order to enrich the academic development of students and learning institutions on the east coast. My job there, upon arrival, was very vague, which at first was intimidating, however, with time and a little direction, I began to understand what my role could be for this organization. Throughout my internship, I conducted employee attitude assessments, developed job analyses, and was essentially the lead recruiter for all tutors. From these various projects, I learned more than I had anticipated, but most significant was the necessity of authenticity. On several occasions, I found myself second-guessing my ideas and delivering guarded recommendations that were not representative of my potential. Towards the end of the summer though, I became more confident with my suggestions and more comfortable with my superiors. This led to the development of several projects and initiatives that I believe positively impacted the lives of many employees, and that I hope will serve as the foundation for numerous other ventures.

All You Need is Dedication … and a Field Trip

By Second Year I/O Master's Student Lori Dawson

We were sitting on an old and dilapidated park bench, soaking in the southern sun and sipping on our iced lattes. “Tell me something you learned from your first year of graduate school”, I asked.  She thought for a moment and then smiled, “take a shot at every opportunity that comes your way.”  Several months later, keeping her advice in mind, I found myself applying to a government agency that recruits highly competent graduate students from the UTA to assist in their assessment center. The students selected to participate in this time intensive assessment process gain a valuable understanding of employee selection; and I was determined to be among them.

Two weeks out of the summer we gathered in downtown Birmingham, AL, for extensive training as an assessor for various job roles. This agency not only provides graduate students the opportunity to assist in the scoring of candidates’ interview performance but also allows students to closely observe the infrastructure of a smoothly run assessment center. Students meet, interact, and network with a group of geographically diverse individuals that are either studying or working in a similar field. The insight acquired from this experience is indispensible and helps shape each student as a professional in the field.  

Recognizing the knowledge and expertise obtained by collaborating with outside organizations, the dedicated I/O Professors at the UTA encourage their students to expose themselves to a multitude of experiences within various industries. These venues for learning and development allow students to purposely cultivate their skills and give back to the local community through organizational development, human resources, and external consultation initiatives. It seems our goal to “bridge the gap” begins with taking a shot at good ole opportunity! 

Graduate Student Highlight: Brad English

Second Year I-O Master's Student Brad English

I am currently a second year student in the Industrial-Organizational Psychology Master’s Program, and I will graduate in May 2013.  In addition to the knowledge and skills that I have acquired from coursework associated with the curriculum, I have also gained a considerable amount of expertise in human resource law, strategic job design, employee engagement, and competency modeling.  I am also currently conducting secondary research to examine the relationships between employee diversity programs and career success. 

            I have enjoyed both the “I” side and “O” side of the program.  Within the organizational domain, I have enjoyed several topics in Organizational Behavior which include on-boarding, organizational development, and leadership.  Within the industrial side, I have thoroughly enjoyed Performance Management Systems, from workforce planning to how to develop a performance system.   The most valuable lesson I have learned from the program is the importance of examining and demonstrating how an organizational intervention or application adds value to an organization to ensure that the optimal solution is selected that maximizes value.

I completed a nine month internship with a high-volume manufacturing and production organization that supplies many of the beverage companies with various products.  One of my main roles was talent acquisition that included full-cycle recruiting for salary-exempt and non-exempt positions; I was also certified to use Lominger’s Interview Architect for behavioral-based competency interviewing.  In addition, I exported production and human resources data from SAP onto spreadsheets for statistical analysis to show where and how human resources practices impact production performance.  My most memorable project was when I created processes for workforce analyses and planning, and also job redesign, for use across all facilities in the Southern United States. 

My internship was essential in providing insight into how and what to communicate to managers and leaders in order to help them make more informed decisions.  I also learned how I could utilize advanced statistics to show how various human resources practices impact production performance.  Also, I gained valuable experience with SAP, interviewing techniques, and the implementation of new practices that facilitate organizational change and development.  Lastly, I learned how industrial-organizational psychology interacts with human resources, and how the synergy of both disciplines can result in the most significant organizational outcomes.  

Using Employee Attitude Surveys to Guide Program Development

    By Katy Ramsey

 

     Assessing employee attitudes is a valuable way for organizations to gain insight into how
employees are feeling about the organization and their work. This can be helpful information
when employers suspect underlying tensions, but understanding attitudes can also be useful
in positive situations. Recently, a group of I/O psychology students partnered with a local
organization to evaluate employee attitudes as part of a new employee development program.
The program for newly promoted managers was designed to clarify the role of a manger and
enhance employee understanding, with the goal of accelerating the transition into management.
Company leaders have recognized the overwhelming nature of this transition and are proactively
taking steps to help employees. Early success of the program will be determined by many
factors, but the initial questions were “Does the training accelerate the transition into a new
role?” and “Have the managers gained clarity?” The students sought to answer these questions
by evaluating general job satisfaction and the degree to which employees were clear of their

     Although additional information is needed after the training course to fully measure its
impact, the surveys produced interesting results that will be useful to the organization as they
strive to enhance employee development and job satisfaction. First, the findings highlighted
specific areas of uncertainty for employees. By comparing this information to the coursework
the new manager program can be fine-tuned to more effectively meet the needs of employees.
Additionally, company leaders were made aware of unknown concerns that could potentially be
harmful to the organization.

     Employee attitudes are powerful predictors of critical organizational outcomes.
Exploring the factors that influence how employees feel, think, and act towards an organization
is the first step in developing appropriate interventions. This organization has taken the first
step by developing a program that demonstrates support for new managers, and hopefully the
information gained from the attitude assessments will shed new light on some of the challenges
managers face and guide the development of future interventions.

Matt's Summer Internship in Houston

Second year I/O student Matt York posing with his fancy office sign at Occidental Petroleum in Houston. 

How does a summer full of great food, great fun, and warm weather – all just forty minutes away from the beach – sound to you?!  That describes my most recent summer in Houston.  I had the privilege this summer to intern at Occidental Petroleum Corporation, or Oxy, in Houston, and it was the greatest professional experience of my life!  For those not familiar with Oxy, they are the fourth largest oil producer in the United States, # 1 in Texas.  Oxy also has a chemical division in which they are the nation’s number 1 or 2 producer of every product they make.  But what I think makes Oxy so successful is the way they treat their employees.  Every employee at Oxy is valued, and their pay, benefits, and autonomous work schedule reflects that.  Not to mention, Oxy offers the 9/80 work schedule in which you get every other Friday off!

         

   More importantly, though, Oxy provided me with an amazing learning experience that I will take with me throughout my career.  In my nearly three months in Houston, I worked on three very fun and challenging projects for the West Texas HR team.  I assisted a colleague with a job analysis, I worked with four other HR interns to develop an online onboarding toolkit for new HR employees, and I performed extensive analyses on the performance data of a select group of Oxy employees.  While all three projects taught me very different sets of skills, my entire experience taught me three important lessons:  (1) teamwork is vital no matter what your work is, (2) a key driver of success on a project is getting buy-in from the project’s stakeholders, and (3) I am capable of much more than I initially believed. 

         

   All of those skills and lessons I learned this summer I am now able to utilize in my current internship at Leadership Worth Following (LWF)!  In this internship, I have really applied everything I’ve learned in the last year and a half at UT-Arlington and the lessons I’ve brought with me from Oxy to be successful and further understand the depth and application of Industrial-Organizational Psychology… this time from the external consultants’ perspective.

Check out the new logo for "The Center!"

UTA I/O Students to Apply for Harvard Institute of Coaching Funding

MONEY! (Queue the Pink Floyd song). Who has it and where can I get some? If I had a dollar for every time I asked that question....

Fortunately, there are a multitude of organizations out there that are just itching to give their money away...and all we have to do is ask! So, what's the catch? Unfortunately, as you might imagine, there is bit more to successfully acquiring funding than simply asking for it (though that would be nice). As such, teaching and coaching students on successfully applying for research grants is one of the critical research (and practitioner)-based competencies ingrained in the curriculum of the I/O Program at UTA.

As part of the Applied Research Design course, a group of I/O and Experimental Psychology students are currently preparing applications for grant funding, both as an exercise in familiarization with the grant application processes, as well as to get the ball rolling on...well, applying (and hopefully receiving!) funding. Here is the story behind just one of the many grants that we hope to see come to fruition in the near future:

This past summer, I/O Master's student Aaron Friedman had the opportunity to spend the day with Carol Kauffman, the Director of the Institute of Coaching (IOC), an affiliate of Harvard's medical school, as part of his internship at the local consulting firm Leadership Worth Following. The IOC's mission is to to build the scientific foundation and best practices of leadership, wellness and personal coaching, a mission they carry out by bridging the gap between science and practice - similar to the vision of the Industrial and Organizational Psychology Center at UTA. 

Together with fellow M.S. student Katy Ramsey (who not only completed a successful summer internship in the H.R. department at Oxy Chemical, but was also offered a full-time position following graduation this coming May), these students have been in touch with senior advisers to the IOC, who are interested in funding empirical research on coaching outcomes at the organizational level. We are looking forward to continuing to develop our relationship with the IOC, and work together to bridge the gap between science and practice. Stay tuned as we keep you updated on all our students' grant proposals, research initiatives, internships, and more!

For more information: 

Institute of Coaching

Industrial and Organizational Psychology Center on Facebook

Leadership Worth Following

Oxy Chemical 

Dr. Carol Kauffman, Director of the Institute of Coaching, with I/O Master's student and Leadership Worth Following Intern and Associate Consultant, Aaron Friedman.