SHL and Capital One Scientists Honored With M. Scott Myers Award from SIOP

ATLANTA, May 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- SHL, the global leader in talent measurement solutions, today announced the receipt of the Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology (SIOP) highly coveted M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace. The award, recognizing the use of synthetic validation at Capital One when developing unique assessment batteries for multiple jobs, was bestowed to a joint team comprised of Jeff W. Johnson (PDRI, an SHL Company), Kenneth T. Bruskiewicz (PDRI, an SHL Company) Jeffrey D. Facteau (SHL), Amy P. Yost (Capital One), and Robert Driggers (Capital One).

SIOP is a large, international organization of researchers and practitioners in a variety of work-related fields such as HR development, personnel and organizational assessment, and workplace design and evaluation. The organization presents the Myers Award annually to recognize an outstanding example of industrial and organizational psychology in the workplace. The criteria for the award include:

• Shows sound technical/scientific basis
• Advances the objectives of clients/users
• Promotes full use of human potential
• Complies with applicable psychological, legal, and ethical standards.
• Improves the acceptance of I-O psychology in the workplace.
• Demonstrates innovation and excellence

Capital One Project Objectives and Approaches
To address Capital One's specific requirements, the project team chose the process of synthetic validation, which is a scientific method of inferring the strength of the relationships between components that define a job (i.e., tasks or work behaviors) and tests of the personal attributes that are needed to successfully perform those components by a candidate. This method had particular appeal since Capital One had multiple jobs that shared a number of the same job components, enabling the team to accelerate project completion. However, while synthetic validation has long been suggested as a practical approach to establishing validity evidence, there had been very little information or case studies on how to employ these techniques in the workplace – which makes the success of this project a benefit to the client, Capital One, as much as the entire Industrial-Organizational psychology community.

PDRI had previously developed its own synthetic validation method, which the team applied to create and validate test batteries for Capital One's nearly 500 exempt jobs. The synthetic validation approach, in this case, allowed the team to minimize the impact on Capital One's staff during data collection – a key company goal – while still generating accurate validity estimates. Separately, in job roles with small sample sizes, synthetic validation generated a stable, meaningful validity coefficient, which would not have been possible with traditional methods. Finally, with Capital One expecting the need for test batteries as future jobs are added to the organization, synthetic validation enables them to compute validity coefficients for these new positions solely on the basis of job analysis.

Capital One Project Results
The selection system developed in this project will impact the lives of thousands of applicants for positions at Capital One each year, helping to identify candidates with the greatest probability of excelling on the job – which has great value for both the organization and the applicant. This project allowed Capital One to select tests for each job that are most predictive of the important components of the job, allowing them to tailor the selection system to each job and maximize the probability that the right people are selected for the right job role.

"Congratulations to the entire team involved for a significant achievement – finding new and effective ways of putting I-O theory into practice. The accomplishments of this project are a testament to the SHL and PDRI legacy of innovation based on science, and equally important, based on the real-world needs of the organizations we serve around the world," commented David Leigh, CEO of SHL.

About SHL - People intelligence. Business results.
SHL is the leader in talent measurement solutions, driving better business results for clients through superior people intelligence and decisions - from hiring and recruiting, to employee development and succession planning. With a presence in over 50 countries, SHL delivers more than 25 million assessments annually in over 30 languages - allowing over 10,000 business customers to benefit from both global expertise and local insight. Along with its world-class consulting practices and 24-hour support center, SHL clients can access over 1,000 assessments through an easy-to-use technology platform. Headquartered in London, UK, the company has offices in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia/New Zealand. For more information, visit www.shl.com.

About PDRI
Founded in 1975, PDRI, an SHL Company, has built a global reputation of excellence by designing, developing and implementing human capital and training solutions that incorporate the most recent advances in the behavioral sciences and adhere to the highest principles of professional practice. PDRI's  PerformanceFIT™ suite of integrated talent management solutions helps government and commercial clients hire, train, develop, manage and motivate high-performance organizations. For more information, visit www.pdri.com.

About the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology
The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) is the world's leading organization dedicated to enhancing human performance and well-being at work through applied behavioral science. Tracing its roots to the founding of American psychology over 100 years ago, today SIOP is comprised of over 7,000 scientists and professionals around the world who work to understand, measure, and predict human behavior in organizations. SIOP promotes the use of good science and data-driven practices to drive performance in organizations. SIOP's members design solutions that help employers hire the best people and develop them to their full potential, that improve employee satisfaction and engagement, and that make organizations more effective for their customers and stakeholders. For more information, visit www.siop.org.

SOURCE SHL