The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist Quarterly: An Interview with Governor Scott McCallum

Below is an excerpt from An Interview with Governor Scott McCallum in The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist Quarterly. To read the full article from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and interview, visit the quarterly online, starting on page 77.

Can you tell us more about what you and the Aidmatrix Foundation do?
 Aidmatrix and I believe  that by leveraging information technology, we can triumph over the world's most challenging humanitarian crises. Our world-class supply chain management technologies make it easy and efficient for everyone from donors to nonprofits to governments to get the right aid to people when and where they need it most.

What brought you to SIOP this year?
I came to SIOP to learn more about I-O psychology and to make the case that there is a need for a greater understanding of how to assist and develop human capital within the humanitarian sector. If we are to shift the paradigm of traditional giving and training programs away from charity and toward the impacting core of a person's ability to move out of poverty, and even beyond that to reach their greatest potential, we need to utilize I-O psychology's abilities to measure people and match them to skills, training, education, and occupations. Looking at it in another way, the Aidmatrix supply chain has been so beneficial because of its ability to match needs and demands with supply; while this matching is presently used for product and services, with the help of I-O psychology, we believe it can be applied directly to the "supply chain" of human capital in disaster situations, humanitarian crises, and even more universally in a variety of settings, including lower-income settings.

What role do you see for I-O psychology in the support of humanitarian organizations?
Any work done to help those that are jobless, below the poverty line, stuck at a certain rung of the economic ladder, or unable to find a job they are better suited for is an important humanitarian endeavor. I-O psychology is important in that it can help provide solid measurements of individuals and occupations.

Do you have any advice for I-O psychologists looking for work with humanitarian organizations?
The humanitarian sector, and specifically the nonprofit sector, is being forced to use better skills and metrics in their operations. This means that successful tools and management techniques used in the private sector will increasingly be applied to the nonprofit sector. As with most other organizations, prospective I-O psychologists should be prepared to demonstrate how they would bring value to an organization. This can for example be through cost cutting by developing better recruitment tools or by measuring the impact of work in the field.

To read the full transcript, click here and go to page 77