Evidence-Based Management

Finding The Right Match Can Be Tricky: The Effectiveness of Various Candidate Selection Methods May Shock You!

Key Points: Selection tools are quite different in their ability to predict performance than previously thought. Some less, some more. Overall (rather than contextualized) personality measures and years of job experience, are not meaningful predictors of performance. Structured Interviews, Job Knowledge, Biodata, Work Samples, Cognitive Ability and Integrity Tests are useful assessment methods and criteria.
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Myth-busting

Effective Coaching Methods: Not all coaching is created equal or is it?

Key Points: Coaching approaches that are rooted in psychological theories show a positive impact on coaching outcomes. More tools in our toolbox are better than one. Integrative coaching approaches are likely to yield the most impact on coaching outcomes. As coaching becomes increasingly popular and more accessible as a development intervention in the workplace –
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Myth-Busting: How Believing Smart People to be Socially Stunted Could be Costing You and Your Business

Key Points: The belief that highly intelligent people lack social skills is a common stereotype, but recent research suggests it is more likely a myth than an informative stereotype. Findings suggest that smarter people tend to be better at accurately interpreting and responding to the social and emotional cues of others. By using objective data,
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Teamwork

Decoding Workplace Deviance: Interpersonal and Organizational Dimensions and Their Correlates

Key Points: 1. Costing organizations billions of dollars in lost productivity and other expenses, deviant workplace behaviours are harmful not only to employees but also to organizations at large. 2. Workplace deviance is distinct from counterproductive workplace behaviour with the key distinction being that workplace deviance includes specific negative work behaviours. 3. Workplace deviance can
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Unlocking Innovation: The Key Team Dynamics for Success

Key Points: Goal interdependence (when individuals depend on each other for their goals), job-relevant diversity (difference among team members concerning job- or task-related characteristics), and team size are all team-level input variables that relate to innovation with goal interdependence having the strongest relationship among them. Internal communication, vision, support for innovation, and task orientation are
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How to be a “cozy” organization: which socialization tactics to use, why and for whom

“Should I stay or should I go?” Besides being a title of a glorious song by “The Clash” this is also a question that newcomers usually make when they have their first experiences in a new organization. And what can an organization do so that the answer will be positive? Here we present a summary of the most effective tactics of organizational socialization, to help newcomers’ adjust and improve their intent to stay.
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Death-spiraling within organizations: how tit-for-tat negative behavior perpetuates itself and how to end it

Key Points: Individual-specific characteristics, such as an employee’s personality traits and workplace attitudes, are not the only factors that influence whether they choose to engage in negative behaviors in the workplace. Often, negative workplace behavior is part of a behavioral exchange between individuals in which the negative behavior from one individual, Party A, is negatively
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Training & Development

Effective Coaching Methods: Not all coaching is created equal or is it?

Key Points: Coaching approaches that are rooted in psychological theories show a positive impact on coaching outcomes. More tools in our toolbox are better than one. Integrative coaching approaches are likely to yield the most impact on coaching outcomes. As coaching becomes increasingly popular and more accessible as a development intervention in the workplace –
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Workplace Coaching: What Does the Evidence Say and Does it Work?

Key Points: 1. Workplace coaching is an impactful developmental intervention, it has an even greater impact for females and those more removed from the organizational setting. 2. Certified, evidence-based coaches, with a background in behavioral science will yield the greatest impact regardless of the number of sessions – benefits are realized regardless of how many
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Goal setting can influence job performance. But under which conditions?

Key Points: Set challenging and specific goals for higher performance. Use data, feedback, and progress monitoring to achieve goals effectively. Consider individual differences and intrinsic motivation for successful goal setting. This Evidence-Based Summary has been made available in an audio-based format. Click play to give it a try! Most personal and professional progress is directed
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A Quick-Start Guide to Leadership Training Done Right

Key Points: When delivered effectively, leadership training programs can improve leadership, change behavior, and help an organization’s bottom line. But you can’t just assume that the training you’re considering (or already receiving) is actually being delivered effectively. You should conduct a needs analysis before beginning training to ensure that the program that you’re considering is
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How Mindfulness Can Benefit Leaders, Their Followers, and Make for More Profitable Business

Key Points: Mindfulness is positively correlated with many highly sought health and wellness indicators. Mindfulness is similarly correlated with highly sought and highly effective leadership styles like transformational leadership, authentic leadership, and with specific leader behaviours like less leader abuse. Organizations would do well to implement demonstrably effective evidence-based mindfulness training as it’s both cost
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Performance Management

Decoding Workplace Deviance: Interpersonal and Organizational Dimensions and Their Correlates

Key Points: 1. Costing organizations billions of dollars in lost productivity and other expenses, deviant workplace behaviours are harmful not only to employees but also to organizations at large. 2. Workplace deviance is distinct from counterproductive workplace behaviour with the key distinction being that workplace deviance includes specific negative work behaviours. 3. Workplace deviance can
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Burning the Midnight Oil is not Burning Out: The real link between burnout and job performance

Key Points: Burnout is a multi-dimensional concept, that is not about working long hours. Job performance suffers when people experience burnout, and there are stronger performance impacts for feelings of inefficacy. Organizational interventions to support well-being and curb burnout need to focus on the measurement of burnout and how it may affect various occupations differently.
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Diversity & Inclusion

Is Cracking-Wise Wise? What Evidence Suggests About Humor Use in the Workplace

Key Points: Not all forms of humor are the same and different forms of humour can have different outcomes. Successful uses of humor (the sort that results in other people appreciating or finding funny) should be differentiated from unsuccessful humor use (jokes that don’t land well or that fail to deliver the intended humorous effect
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How an Employer-Employee Identity Discrepancy May be Exhausting Your People and Bleeding Your Profits

Key Points: Studies indicate that employees identify with organizations when there is an alignment in values, feelings of support, and they feel trust in the organization’s leaders to make the right decisions. The evidence suggests that organizational identification is malleable and can change with changes in the values of the organization or with changes in
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Leadership

Turnover: Decoding It’s Effects on Performance

Key Points: Relationship between turnover rates and organizational performance is significant and negative. Voluntary and reduction-in-force (RIF) turnover have more negative impact than involuntary turnover rates in the context of organizational performance. We have been going through a tough job market with lots of uncertainties: Covid lockdowns, rising and waning inflation, disruption of supply chains,
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Effective Coaching Methods: Not all coaching is created equal or is it?

Key Points: Coaching approaches that are rooted in psychological theories show a positive impact on coaching outcomes. More tools in our toolbox are better than one. Integrative coaching approaches are likely to yield the most impact on coaching outcomes. As coaching becomes increasingly popular and more accessible as a development intervention in the workplace –
Continue Reading

Workplace Coaching: What Does the Evidence Say and Does it Work?

Key Points: 1. Workplace coaching is an impactful developmental intervention, it has an even greater impact for females and those more removed from the organizational setting. 2. Certified, evidence-based coaches, with a background in behavioral science will yield the greatest impact regardless of the number of sessions – benefits are realized regardless of how many
Continue Reading

Recruiting and Selection

Finding The Right Match Can Be Tricky: The Effectiveness of Various Candidate Selection Methods May Shock You!

Key Points: Selection tools are quite different in their ability to predict performance than previously thought. Some less, some more. Overall (rather than contextualized) personality measures and years of job experience, are not meaningful predictors of performance. Structured Interviews, Job Knowledge, Biodata, Work Samples, Cognitive Ability and Integrity Tests are useful assessment methods and criteria.
Continue Reading

Enhancing the Online Applicant Experience: Shaping Perceptions and Behavior in Online Recruitment

Key Points: Applicant experience seems to be linked to how applicants perceive the organization or whether they finish their application or not. Applicant experience’s correlation with perception and behavior do not seem to vary based on gender and sex. There are no differences between males and females and various age groups. Nowadays, many companies use
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Employee Turnover

Health and Safety

What sets us apart is more than just fingerprints: A person-centered and resource-based approach to work-life balance

Key Points: We are all unique beings, and the work-life balance we strive to achieve also reflects that uniqueness, shaping itself differently for everyone and producing different effects. Modern developments have made maintaining this balance increasingly challenging. The blurring of spatial boundaries and the pervasive role of technology has caused work and life domains to
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Interviews

Finding The Right Match Can Be Tricky: The Effectiveness of Various Candidate Selection Methods May Shock You!

Key Points: Selection tools are quite different in their ability to predict performance than previously thought. Some less, some more. Overall (rather than contextualized) personality measures and years of job experience, are not meaningful predictors of performance. Structured Interviews, Job Knowledge, Biodata, Work Samples, Cognitive Ability and Integrity Tests are useful assessment methods and criteria.
Continue Reading

Enhancing the Online Applicant Experience: Shaping Perceptions and Behavior in Online Recruitment

Key Points: Applicant experience seems to be linked to how applicants perceive the organization or whether they finish their application or not. Applicant experience’s correlation with perception and behavior do not seem to vary based on gender and sex. There are no differences between males and females and various age groups. Nowadays, many companies use
Continue Reading

What Can You Do to Encourage Discussions About Accommodating Employee Disabilities?

Key Points: People with disabilities face barriers in employment, and accommodations such as accessibility facilities, flexible policies, and modified equipment are crucial for their work experience and quality of life. Many Canadian companies lack clear accommodation practices, resulting in less than 20% of people with disabilities using accommodations despite their right to be accommodated. The
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An Evidence-Based Take on Understanding Workplace Behaviors: Interview with John Ballard, PhD, Author of Decoding the Workplace

John Ballard is emeritus professor of management at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2016 the university presented him its Distinguished Scholar Award for his efforts to bridge the management scholar-practitioner gap through his blogs, tweets, and his award-winning book. He is co-author of the much-acclaimed “Who Built Maslow’s Pyramid? A History of
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