The Oxford Handbook of Work and Aging

The area of work and aging is complex and multi-faceted. Its foundation is formed by a wide array of disciplines that both contribute to the complexity of its understanding, and offer fertile promise for research, development, and application in the years ahead. With an ever-growing population of older workers, many of whom are suggesting they will likely continue to work past traditional retirement age, it becomes all the more important to increase efforts to develop a more thorough understanding of older workers, the nature of their interactions with work and the organizations for which they work, and the process of transitioning to retirement. Clearly, there are huge societal and global challenges that will both inform and influence research and application at the individual and organizational levels. This publication examines the aging workforce from individual worker, organizational, and societal perspectives. It offers both an integration of current cross-disciplinary knowledge, and a roadmap for where research and application should be focused in the future to address issues of an aging workforce. The six core sections cover: demography, theoretical and methodological issues, the older worker, organizational strategies for an older workforce, individual and organizational perspectives on work and retirement, and societal perspectives with an aging workforce. Bringing together authors from diverse academic and professional backgrounds, this book presents new approaches to recruiting, workplace flexibility, and the right mix of benefits and incentives as a way of engaging with an older workforce

The I/O Consultant: Advice and Insights for Building a Successful Career

Consulting is one of the fastest growing occupations in the United States. This innovative volume offers basic guidance on the fundamentals of consulting, with authoritative essays by leaders in the field. Hedge and Borman and their colleagues guide their readers through a career continuum, beginning with learning about potential employers to creating and maintaining a business and watching it grow and thrive. In chapters that combine a strong grounding in contemporary industrial and organizational (I/O) research with personal accounts of their career journeys and day-to-day activities, the contributors bring the basic principles conveyed by Hedge and Borman to life. Readers hear of the extraordinary breadth of consulting experiences--in the private and public sectors, the military, and academia. The authors consider such topics as strategic planning, points of entry into the field, ethics and networking, and the advantages and disadvantages of joining a large firm versus starting up one\u27s own consulting practice. The principles and perspectives detailed in this book will resonate with psychology graduate students embarking on their careers as well as seasoned professionals weighing new career directions

History and Development of Multisource Feedback as a Methodology

Examines 100 yrs of ratings research and follows the evolution of the multisource perspective across industry, academic, and public sector environments. Starting with the early days of rating-scale development, the authors follow accumulating evidence for the use of ratings in the private sector, across 2 world wars, and the explosion of research and application in the business world and government research laboratories. They also note that the infusion of innovative thinking from the teacher-effectiveness research literature, and surveyed-based research and feedback domains. The authors then describe how the tenor of the times during the 1980s and early 1990s helped create the impetus for the multisource, or 360-degree, feedback movement. The chapter closes with some reflections on where the field has been and offers a few cautionary notes to consider as the multisource feedback movement charges toward maturity

Designing a System for Career Development and Advancement in the U.S. Navy

The Navy is undergoing fundamental changes that will likely alter the nature of work and worker requirements. At the heart of their human resource management strategy are five distinct competency areas: professional development, personal development, leadership, certifications and qualifications, and job performance. These five areas, called “vectors” by the Navy, form the foundation around which the Navy identifies the knowledge, skills, and abilities which Sailors need to succeed. As part of this HR transformation, the current research describes the design of a career development and advancement system. The primary component of the system is a weighting algorithm that links performance across all five areas to advancement to the next paygrade. The system is designed to compute an advancement score based on achievement of defined milestones across all five competency areas of concentration. It does so by defining the career paths associated with a member\u27s development across these five areas; and identifying the advancement potential for recruit, apprentice, journeyman, and master-level personnel across every occupation in the U.S. Navy. In addition, this scoring system will be transparent such that personnel can view their own record at any time and assess what they might do in their career to improve their relative standing for future advancement. These results will also be used by future promotion boards to guide their selections

Personnel Selection

This chapter reviews literature from approximately mid-1993 through early 1996 in the areas of performance and criteria, validity, statistical and equal opportunity issues, selection for work groups, person-organization fit, applicant reactions to selection procedures, and research on predictors, including ability, personality, assessment centers, interviews, and biodata. The review revolves around three themes: (a) attention toward criteria and models of performance, (b) interest in personality measures as predictors of job performance, and (c) work on the person-organization fit selection model. In our judgment, these themes merge when it is recognized that development of performance models that differentiate criterion constructs reveal highly interpretable relationships between the predictor domain (i.e. ability, personality, and job knowledge) and the criterion domain (i.e. technical proficiency, extra-technical proficiency constructs such as prosocial organizational behavior, and overall job performance). These and related developments are advancing the science of personnel selection and should enhance selection practices in the future

The Aging Workforce: Realities, Myths and Implications for Organizations

As the baby boom generation moves gradually toward retirement age, the demographics of the workforce are changing. Yet most organizations are ill prepared to meet the challenges associated with these changes. Fortunately, an increasing amount of research is suggesting ways in which organizations can implement effective management practices for older workers. This forward-thinking book examines common preconceptions about the graying workforce and explodes myths to separate fact from fiction. Because of their professional expertise, workers over the age of 60 will continue to be important contributors to organizations, but what are their special needs, strengths, and weaknesses? How does age affect cognitive performance, job attitudes, and motivation? How do age stereotyping and employment discrimination affect older adults? What kinds of employment patterns will typify older workers? How can they best be attracted and retained? The authors of this book provide state of the science answers to these questions. Psychologists, policymakers, and human resource personnel will find that the discussion in this timely book provides the impetus for creative solutions to future organizational challenges