Wayne F. Cascio

Financial consequences of employment-change decisions in major U.S. corporations

Using data from companies in the Standard & Poors 500 between 1980 and 1994, we examined 5,479 occurrences of changes in employment in terms of two dependent variables: profitability (return on as...

Strategies for Reducing Employee Turnover: A Meta-Analysis

This study investigated the relative effectiveness of realistic job previews (RJPs) and job enrichment as turnover reduction strategies. A thorough literature search located 20 experiments (N = 6,492) dealing with attempts to reduce turnover in field settings. Several meta-analysis techniques were a

Research in industrial and organizational psychology from 1963 to 2007: Changes, choices, and trends.

The authors conducted a content analysis of all articles published in the Journal of Applied Psychology and Personnel Psychology from January 1963 to May 2007 (N = 5,780) to identify the relative attention devoted to each of 15 broad topical areas and 50 more specific subareas in the field of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology. Results revealed that (a) some areas have become more (or less) popular over time, whereas others have not changed much, and (b) there are some lagged relationships between important societal issues that involve people and work settings (i.e., human-capital trends) and I-O psychology research that addresses them. Also, much I-O psychology research does not address human-capital trends. Extrapolating results from the past 45 years to the next decade suggests that the field of I-O psychology is not likely to become more visible or more relevant to society at large or to achieve the lofty goals it has set for itself unless researchers, practitioners, universities, and professional organizations implement significant changes. In the aggregate, the changes address the broad challenge of how to narrow the academic-practitioner divide.

Psychological Issues in Personnel Decisions

JOB ANALySIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Task SimilaritieslDiff erences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Task Diff erences as Moderators of Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Taxonomies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT .. .. . . . .. .. ... . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance Appraisal Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Effects of Training on Performance Appraisal Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Criteria for Evaluating Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Promotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Factors Affected By and Affecting Performance and Appraisals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Turnover/Absenteeism: Objective Criterion Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PERFORMANCE PREDICTORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Backg�ou�d Information as Predictors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I ntervlewmg . Assessment Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Methodological issues in international HR management research

Methodological issues can be particularly thorny considerations in international HR management research. If not addressed properly, they can severely undermine valid inferences and limit the ability to generalize to populations of interest. More generally, they can lead to unsound recommendations regarding the practice of international management. This article considers five such methodological issues: translation, conceptual, functional, and metric equivalence when assessment or survey questions are used in different languages and cultural contexts; the use of multiple, overlapping constructs and common methods bias; limitations of measures of internal-consistency reliability (coefficient alpha); sampling strategies; and non-response bias. The article defines each issue, identifies the implications of failure to address it, and suggests alternative strategies to ensure valid inferences.

Costing Human Resources

The costs of human resources vary across industries, but in knowledge organizations, they typically comprise more than half of total operating costs. The costs of benefits and overhead easily can add another 75 percent to base pay. Although organizations incur HR costs in a number of key areas, one of the most common ones is employee absenteeism. The total cost absenteeism is comprised of three broad categories of costs: those associated with absentees themselves, the costs of managing absenteeism problems, and all other relevant costs. Free, Web – based software is available to do these calculations. Keywords: absenteeism, costs of; benefits, costs of in U.S.; costs, overhead; costs, of labor; human resources, costs of; labor-cost multiplier; software, to tally HR costs

3 Staffing Twenty‐first‐century Organizations

AbstractWe highlight important differences between twenty‐first‐century organizations as compared with those of the previous century, and offer a critical review of the basic principles, typical applications, general effectiveness, and limitations of the current staffing model. That model focuses on identifying and measuring job‐related individual characteristics to predict individual‐level job performance. We conclude that the current staffing model has reached a ceiling or plateau in terms of its ability to make accurate predictions about future performance. Evidence accumulated over more than 80 years of staffing research suggests that general mental abilities and other traditional staffing tools do a modest job of predicting performance across settings and jobs considering that, even when combined and corrected for methodological and statistical artifacts, they rarely predict more than 50% of the variance in performance. Accordingly, we argue for a change in direction in staffing research and propose ...

The Economic Impact of Employee Behaviors on Organizational Performance

Consider a recent quote from the Wall Street Journal (July 14, 2003): “It’s no longer about what you own or build; success is hinged to the resources and talent you can access.” Unfortunately, recent statistics indicate that American workplaces are not doing a very good job of managing the talent they currently have. Thus Only 14 percent of American workers say they are very satisfied with their jobs. Twenty-five percent say they “are just showing up to collect a paycheck” (The Stat 2005). From January 2004, to January 2005, 24 percent of American workers voluntarily quit their jobs, a 13 percent rise since the previous year. That figure varies widely by industry, though, with relatively low rates in manufacturing and transportation (roughly 15 percent), and relatively high rates in leisure and hospitality, retail, and construction industries (ranging from about 25–45 percent) (Employment Policy Foundation 2005). To appreciate what that means for an individual firm, consider the number of people Wal-Mart employed at the end of 2004—1,600,000 people (Fortune 500, 2005). Its annual employee turnover rate is 44 percent—close to the retail industry average (Frontline 2005). Each year, therefore, Wal-Mart must recruit, hire, and train more than 700,000 new employees just to replace those who left. Women now outnumber men in managerial and professional jobs, yet many leave even blue-chip employers because they do not feel valued, their companies do not offer flexible-employment policies, or their work is not intellectually challenging. Rather than leave the workforce, most resurface at companies that offer more progressive policies (Deutsch 2005).

WHY SOME JOBS COMMAND WAGE PREMIUMS: A TEST OF CAREER TOURNAMENT AND INTERNAL LABOR MARKET HYPOTHESES

The wage premiums associated with jobs in a large organization were identified through comparing their pay to the prevailing wages in the relevant outside labor markets. We then examined the characteristics of those jobs to investigate why some commanded larger premiums than others. Jobs at the tops of promotion ladders, jobs requiring many organization-specific skills, and to a lesser extent, jobs with access to influence commanded greater wage premiums. Wages above market rates appear important in supporting the internal labor market mechanisms associated with these jobs. Findings may clarify the factors compensation managers should consider when positioning wage rates. Examination of these issues is a potentially important bridge between the study of internal labor markets in organizational research and the study of wages in economics.

Leveraging employer branding, performance management and human resource development to enhance employee retention

Global economic recovery from years of depressed growth has accelerated voluntary turnover, along with employer concerns about retention. More employers are also promoting from within their ranks, and this has put growing emphasis on HRD and career-development initiatives. This article argues that the biggest winners in this emerging economic environment, at least from a talent perspective, are organizations with positive employer brands, performance management strategies that help employees develop expertise that maximizes their potential, and innovative approaches to the design and delivery of HRD initiatives, especially technology-delivered instruction (e.g., mobile and virtual applications, simulations, MOOCs) and social-learning tools (e.g., wikis, communities of practice, social media). These strategies are by no means exhaustive, but they are three key elements of employee retention.