The US Air Force is removing height restrictions for pilots, which will allow more women to serve

Harmeet Kaur, reporting for CNN, describes a recent change that the United States Air Force has made to its pilot selection process. These changes should make the selection process more equitable for women AND maintain the safety of Air Force pilots.

Short version: The USAF has eliminated waivers required for particularly short pilot applicants. Such waivers created another selection burden for women far more often than for men. USAF has created new assessment measures to determine a predict a person's physiological ability to pilot aircraft. 

Long version: 

In the past, anyone who wanted to apply to be a pilot required a special waiver if they were shorter than 5'4". Statistically, this put an additional burden on 44% of women. 

Someone at the USAF was aware of the confidence gap research, in particular, research that finds that women are less likely than men to apply for jobs when they are not 100% qualified. Per the article:

Instead of just using height as a gate-keeper for pilots, USAF will now use a finer-tuned assessment technique that doesn't look at height but does look at a person's physical ability to pilot. From the article:

I think this provides a good example of how an organization can get ahead of selection bias. In this report, it seems that the USAF was very straight forward about how the height/voucher system impacted women at a higher rate than men. They were aware of the historic reasoning behind that assessment decision: Their planes were built to accommodate the average-sized male. They also created an alternative assessment system that would maintain the safety of all USAF pilots while not defaulting to an assessment measure that was biased. 

Aaron Hernandez and NFL personality assessment.

TL: DR- Aaron Hernandez was an NFL player with a troubled past. He was convicted of murdering his future brother-in-law. He eventually died by suicide. So, needless to say, this is a multifaceted story to use in class. But I do think that it is appropriate to use in an I/O psychology class because it highlights all of the pre-recruitment assessment that potential NFL players completed.

Longer version:

Hernandez is in news again due to the Netflix series about Hernandez, so it might be worth using in class as it is current (again).

Here is the overtly dramatic trailer for the new film about Hernandez:

This is a multi-faceted situation, but it does have an I/O angle. When Hernandez was initially recruited to play professional football, he, as well as all of the other recruits, completed a number of workplace assessment measures (very common with NFL recruits). See this summary of part of the assessment here (source: WSJ):

Here is the whole WSJ article, and here is a PDF version of the same article. Do note: These received a fair amount of media coverage at the time and I'm sure you could find more documentation.


HOW TO USE IN CLASS:

1) The WSJ article references a consulting firm performing the personality assessment. This allows an instructor to remind their students about the different environments in which I/O psychologists work.
2) The NFL uses I/O psychology measures to assess players prior to making very important (for the team), very expensive recruiting decisions. There is even a conference about NFL assessment. CAN YOU IMAGINE THE SWAG?
3) They also mention the Wunderlic. Which is a very respected inventory being used in real life.
4) Criteria: What were the specific personality qualities that the I/O psychologists measure?
5) Criteria: What are the objective criteria that NFL teams are interested in measuring in a recruit?
6) Assessment: Setting a minimum score for a given assessment measure (like the Wonderlic). 

Employee self-assessment, 2nd Grade style

When it comes to self-assessment, it isn't just for middle-management.

My son's teaching sent this home with his weekly Thursday Folder. I love it, as it allows my son to reflect on what went right and what went wrong. 

I also think this could be a fun way to segue into conversations about how more companies are turning away from annual assessments and trying to assess and provide employees with more proactive training. It would also be funny to task college students with coming up with a college student version.

I know this isn't the best picture, but here is a link to a better image of the chart: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/230668812208320550/

Suicide prevention in construction workers

I know a lot of my posts are silly. This one isn't. Content warning: Suicide.

This story by NPR by Yuki Noguchi tells the story of how one construction company recognized that suicide and depression was wide-spread among their employees and decided to do something about it. They consulted with experts, changed health care and leave policies, re-trained managers, and gathered data that demonstrates the efficacy of the new procedures.

Below, I've included some of the highlights that illustrate I/O principles. The news story itself is quite moving and includes personal stories from employees who have been suicidal and prevented suicides. It is a heavy piece but a very hopeful piece.

An employee for RK Construction died by suicide. The organization wanted to prevent future suicide and recognized that employees in their industry have particular risk factors for suicide. They consulted with SME prior to implementing changes.

RK implemented crisis training for management, they changed their leave policies in order to be more sensitive to individuals who required time off, and they started offering employees 24-hour counseling services.

They have gathered data and demonstrated that these changes don't just seem like they would help, but that they actually help: