Future-Facing Orientation

When we reflect back on our own education and careers, a common refrain is that our field (both the academic and practical sides) is often more reactive in its stance toward gathering knowledge than proactive. In that, we mean both our research and our applied endeavors usually begin as a response to economic, business, or industry trends, where we often act more as arbiters and referees of truth rather than discoverers of truth. A recent and poignant example is how our field has handled the use of mobile devices in talent assessment. Despite the exponential adoption of mobile technologies across the globe, our field's late adoption and examination of it in selection highlights this tendency to be caught unaware by disruptive trends, changes, and advancements and a resulting inability to quickly and efficiently provide sound, empirically based guidance.

Neubert et al. (Reference Neubert, Mainert, Kretzschmar and Greiff2015) have brought this issue to the forefront with their discussion of 21st century competencies, which originated from trends in the education literature. Their reference to the merits of this model for directing future thinking begs the following questions: “To what extent should the field of I-O psychology scan the broader environment and consider developments in other fields and their potential impact on our own?” and “How necessary is the monitoring of economic, political, social, scientific, and technological changes to ensuring that the practice of I-O psychology evolves?” As the world becomes more interconnected and organizations become more global, the rate of change is increasing exponentially. Although I-O psychology should develop a greater sensitivity to these changes as they happen in real time, of greater importance is a focus on the future and what it may bring to our field. We believe that I-O psychology should have a more future-facing orientation in its anticipation and response to these changes. By adopting a future-facing orientation, we have a better chance of proactively identifying upcoming trends, predicting their impact, and guiding their influence on the practice of I-O psychology rather than constantly scrambling to keep up. A future-facing orientation also has the potential to result in unique insights from merging work in diverse fields, as was recently demonstrated by Lord and colleagues’ use of quantum mechanics to understand organizational change and leadership perceptions (e.g., Lord & Dinh, Reference Lord and Dinh2014; Lord, Dinh, & Hoffman, Reference Lord, Dinh and Hoffman2015). We truly believe that the failure to adopt a future-facing orientation will place our field's credibility and relevance at great risk.

Domain-General, Transversal Competency Model

Neubert et al. (Reference Neubert, Mainert, Kretzschmar and Greiff2015) mentioned that technological change, job polarization, and offshoring are some of the macrolevel economic trends increasing the need for workers to perform nonroutine and interactive tasks. We agree with Neubert et al. and other researchers (e.g., Aguinis & O'Boyle, Reference Aguinis and O'Boyle2014) that automation, artificial intelligence, mobility, exponential advances in technology, and a hyperconnected world have made the future of work more complex and will demand a reprioritization of competencies for workers to be successful. From our perspective, however, their identification of CPS and ColPS as examples of this trend signifies not just the need for new competencies related to future work demands but also the beginning of a larger, domain-general, transversal competency model that may be applicable across countries, industries, organizations, and jobs. This naturally leads to the question, what other competencies would be included in a comprehensive model of 21st century skills?

Two immediate examples are emotional empathy (e.g., Blickle et al., Reference Blickle, Momm, Kramer, Mierke, Liu and Ferris2009) and curiosity (Mussel, Reference Mussel2013). As Blickle et al. (Reference Blickle, Momm, Kramer, Mierke, Liu and Ferris2009) define it, emotional empathy is the ability to recognize and understand others’ feelings by taking the perspective of another. Although we are aware that emotional empathy is considered a subfacet or close relative of emotional intelligence, a construct that has been debated for more than 20 years (e.g., Cherniss, Reference Cherniss2010), we argue that researchers and popular writers predicting future workplace requirements are calling out the importance of social intelligence (e.g., Davies, Fidler, & Gorbis, Reference Davies, Fidler and Gorbis2011). Decision making and judgment researchers have also pointed out that the interconnectedness of economic actors (e.g., teams, organizations, customers) in contemporary models of work highlight the importance of taking a more emotionally attuned approach to decision making versus the traditional, rational approach (Shotter & Tsoukas, Reference Shotter and Tsoukas2013).

Additionally, curiosity, as Mussel (Reference Mussel2013) argues, is an important construct to consider when future workers must not only learn new information and synthesize it into solving a problem on the spot, as Neubert et al. describe, but they must also be driven to acquire new skills and knowledge on an ongoing basis. According to Mussel's research, curiosity, or the preference for learning and thinking, predicted job performance above and beyond cognitive ability, conscientiousness, and openness to experiences, thus signaling that this is an example of a unique construct that is well designed for future jobs that require continuous learning and managing complexity and novelty.

These are but two examples of additional competencies that may be included in a domain-general transversal competency model. We will leave it to our field to identify other potential competencies for inclusion (e.g., systems thinking, self-management), but the point here is that I-O psychologists not only can use constructs like CPS and ColPS, emotional empathy, and curiosity to create a comprehensive 21st century competency model but also should make concerted efforts to build one. This type of model would have a number of implications for organizational training and selection programs, career development, educational curricula, and Internet-based credentialing. Campion et al. (Reference Campion, Fink, Ruggeberg, Carr, Phillips and Odman2011) have pointed out the relative benefits of a competence-based approach to describing and evaluating jobs, and we can leverage this methodology to help prepare organizations and individuals for future success, as well as have a more influential seat at the table in directing educational, political, industry, and organizational policymakers.

Dynamic Measurement and Scoring

As humans interact with technology, they leave a trail of data in their wake. Although the ability to harvest vast troves of data is valuable, making sense of it all is becoming an increasingly complex endeavor. As scientists who measure human traits and characteristics, we have to ask the question—how much longer can we exist as a field if we do not begin to broaden our measurement models to include new types of information? In general, our talent assessment studies as a field have often taken the perspective that a cross-sectional measurement of personal characteristics such as intelligence, personality, or leadership is sufficient for predicting success on the job. But this one-dimensional, siloed approach to assessment fails to account for the complex interaction of the characteristics and the influence of situational factors on their expression and relationship to job performance (e.g., Campion & Ployhart, Reference Campion, Ployhart, Christiansen and Tett2013; Slaughter, Christian, Podsakoff, Sinar, & Lievens, Reference Slaughter, Christian, Podsakoff, Sinar and Lievens2014).

Neubert et al. (Reference Neubert, Mainert, Kretzschmar and Greiff2015) provide an introduction to new competencies that are intimately tied to the situational and interactive elements that impact the expression of these skills and highlight a critical need in our field to begin capturing these elements in our assessment tools to improve their predictive validity and utility. Although that general recommendation is obviously easier said than done, the good news is that advances in technology are dramatically changing the way we approach competency measurement. For example, computer technology has allowed our field to emerge from the dark ages of paper-based assessments and progress to multimedia simulations in which work situations and environments can be presented to job candidates in new ways and manipulated with a host of integrated images, sounds, videos, games, and even virtual environments (e.g., Cucina et al., Reference Cucina, Busciglio, Thomas, Callen, Walker, Schoepfer, Tippins and Adler2011; Hawkes, Reference Hawkes, Fetzer and Tuzinski2013; Penenberg, Reference Penenberg2013).

This ability and emphasis on modeling or measuring the situational aspect of demonstrating a particular competency has a psychological precedent in Lewin's field theory of personality (Lewin, Reference Lewin1936). Lewin's premise was that people are dynamic beings whose cognitions, emotions, and behaviors work interactively with the situation and environment; thus, analyzing the components of that environment is important when measuring cognitions, emotions, and behaviors. The CPS and ColPS competencies echo this sentiment in that responding to the hyperconnected and complex world of work requires responding to novel situations in an interactive or collaborative way. But it is not enough to simply increase the fidelity of the environment in our assessments. As Lewin correctly pointed out, there is a constant, exponential, and nonlinear interaction between people and their environments, and this interaction needs to be quantified in our scoring protocols to understand how someone's baseline standing on an individual trait or characteristic fluctuates in response to workplace elements (e.g., personnel, requirements, stressors). If the simulation of dynamic environments can be supplemented with scoring models that account for a wide range of potential moderators and the interplay between them, the predictive potential of our assessments would be enhanced significantly.

Relevance and Voice

Our field has long struggled to clarify its identity and strive for visibility beyond the hallowed halls of academia and the boardrooms of organizational decision makers (Erickson, Silzer, Robinson, & Cober, Reference Erickson, Silzer, Robinson and Cober2009; Rose et al., Reference Rose, Drogan, Spencer, Rupprecht, Singla, McCune and Rotolo2014; Ryan, Reference Ryan2003; Ryan & Ford, Reference Ryan and Ford2010). We know our tradition of scientifically investigating workers, jobs, and organizations is extremely relevant to a wide range of domains, but we have had difficulty finding ways to build a single, unified voice and share it in impactful ways. Although our professional organization has gone to great lengths to establish our brand and heighten our visibility (e.g., Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology [SIOP] Branding Task Force, SIOP Visibility Committee), we believe these efforts should be more proactive and invoke what Shane Snow (Reference Snow2014) calls “10× Thinking” to approach these issues in radically new ways. In this respect, we need to seek out big opportunities to demonstrate our value and relevance (e.g., Olowookere, Reference Olowookere2012; SIOP, 2013), and the challenge offered by Neubert et al. pointedly asks whether I-O psychology wants to have a voice in one of these opportunities—the identification, development, and assessment of 21st century competencies. If we do not accept the challenge and contribute to this effort, which is already underway, what are the consequences for the members of the workforce of the future, the organizations in which they will work, and the relevance of our field?

Diversity and Inclusion in the Future

In their book on the coming technological changes and the impact of these changes on the economy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economists Brynjolfsson and McAfee (Reference Brynjolfsson and McAfee2014) pointed out that advances in technology can have both an inclusionary and an exclusionary effect on people's access to resources. They called this idea the “bounty and spread.” We believe that developing new, more “sophisticated” competencies can have a similar effect. Although more individuals could have increased access to work opportunities if one measures competencies that tap into individuals’ latent potential instead of measuring an advanced, technical skill set, requirements for competencies that few have developed could also potentially exclude people from the workforce. Thus, Neubert et al.’s discussion raises the question, will incorporating new competencies into general talent assessment and selection practices make employment opportunities more or less accessible for the average worker?

We remain optimistic that CPS and ColPS can increase the diversity and inclusion practices of organizations by tapping into worker competencies that can be developed or uncovered with some coaching or training. However, Neubert et al. fail to mention the potential adverse impact effects of using these cognitively laden competencies for selection. As previously stated, we stress the need for I-O psychologists to be more proactive in their thinking and to help define or guide large-scale policies and decisions surrounding preparing future talent pools for the new world of work, but we should remain vigilant that we do not arbitrarily increase the complexity of our constructs and measurement methods beyond the reasonable point, whereby the average worker has little chance of keeping up.

Therefore, we believe that I-O psychology has an important opportunity to guide organizations like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's student and adult competency programs to identify, measure, and evaluate new competencies in a large-scale 21st century competency modeling effort. We expect that communicating our understanding and desire for greater diversity and inclusion in the competencies that we both identify and develop in individuals should resonate with these multinational organizations. In accordance with the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology's (n.d.) mission statement of “enhanc[ing] human well-being and performance in organizational and work settings,” stressing the importance of general accessibility to the average worker for 21st century competencies that are developed will not only further our field's mission but also increase the diversity and inclusiveness of the future of work.

Summary

In sum, we are greatly encouraged by Neubert et al.’s efforts to get I-O psychology's thinking out of the proverbial sand by identifying and measuring the competencies and skills critical for 21st century work. We believe that this work can help act as a catalyst to build a more complete and robust domain-general, transversal competency model using theoretically sound constructs with direct applicability to the way work is performed now and in the future. We also agree with Neubert et al. that CPS and ColPS represent excellent examples of measuring dynamic and interactive competencies, but we suggest that much more needs to be determined regarding our use of technology to measure and score these constructs as well as the criteria in actual work roles that we are trying to predict. Finally, we believe that although it is difficult to determine whether requiring these competencies from future workers will either increase or decrease diversity and inclusion, we are hopeful that we are on the right path toward more equitable, yet still powerful, selection assessments. We see a bright future for I-O psychology, and this article is a good step in that direction, but we are convinced that only by embracing these questions and motivating researchers and practitioners to seek the answers will I-O psychology continue to have a meaningful and relevant impact on bettering the future world of work and the management of organizations.